Click
Arts Commission Invites Public Comments on Five-Year Strategic Plan
to see the Draft Plan and get the email where you can send your comments to DCCAH. My comment is below. What do you think?

Very interesting. Glad to see goals IV, V & VI on this draft.

I would like to point out something that I think is a glaring lack in the DC art community that is rarely spoken of and unsurprisingly not addressed in this report. I am speaking of the lack of a District of Columbia Institute of Contemporary Art.
Places like Philadelphia’s ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art), DCCA (Delaware Center for Contemporary Art), Dallas Center for Contemporary Art or The New Museum in New York City are the bests example of what I am proposing. The Hirshhorn, Corcoran, and National Gallery often show contemporary artists, but their branding as national museums of culture and history (and constant upkeep of that image fiscally and ideologically) over the decades has kept them from truly investing in the cutting edge.

In general a museum cannot offer the same dedication and scope that a city sponsored Contemporary Art Institute could when it comes to the presentation of contemporary art and investing in the local community of living art, if it maintained a truly cutting edge agenda and was properly funded and sited.

It would be fantastic if some of the private universities in the area served this purpose but alas, the contemporary is currently just a small part of the Katzen Art Center's agenda, the only university art facility in the area anywhere near the scale required to be truly meaningful.

The health of an art community hinges on the entire communities acceptance and dedication to contemporary living breathing evolving art (which gets mediocre attention in the Washington Metro Area) as much as it does on art education and historic value as presented in museums (which gets a lot of attention and consequently funding). To seek to develop a generously sized facility with a truly world class agenda should be spelled out more clearly and pursued rigorously by the city and the DCCAH.

The vibrant DC Art community has already taken hold of a lot of the goals you outline for the city as Goal II when it comes to using non-traditional spaces partnering with cultural agencies, large scale temporary exhibits. What DC needs now is clear incentive for a PERMANENT commitment not just temporary “edgier, hip arts activities”. I have no real quibbles with this 2010-2014 plan other than the above line.

In my personal life experience and circle of confidence we had a name for those that chose “edgy and hip” as their “strategy” which you may be familiar with. POSER. It does not reflect very well on the DCCAH and the many meaningful things they have accomplished in the last decade.

Finding MEANING in commitment to the principal and principles of Contemporary Art and its importance to world class living in an interconnected world is a strategy and a goal that needs to be put on the bargaining table here in D.C.

December 15 2009 Karen Joan Topping

Some installation shots from my thesis at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. The show runs until January 6th, 2010, but check with the university for closings during the holidays.


Tiger (Eye-detail). Two Channel DVD Projection Installation Silent. Dimension Variable. Duration: Channel 1 – (Eye) 7 minutes 8 seconds. Channel 2 (Nose) 3 minutes 34 seconds. 2009.



Tiger (Nose-detail). Two Channel DVD Projection Installation Silent. Dimension Variable. Duration: Channel 1 – (Eye) 7 minutes 8 seconds. Channel 2 (Nose) 3 minutes 34 seconds. 2009.



Gummy Bear-(Bear-detatil). Two Channel DVD Installation with Sound. Dimensions Variable. Duration: Channel 1 Silent (Shoe) Projection 72 minutes 42 seconds. Channel 2 (Bear) 27 minutes 41 seconds. 2008.



Lollipop. Single channel DVD Projection With Sound. Dimension Variable. Duration: 26 Minutes 8 Seconds. 2008.



R_Ann-detail. Single Channel Silent DVD Projection. Dimensions Variable. Duration: 1 minute. 2009.



R_Ann. Single Channel Silent DVD Projection. Dimensions Variable. Duration: 1 minute. 2009.



Study for Stuffed Animal Eyes. Single Channel Silent DVD. 2 minutes 57 seconds. 2009.

Hello friends - the thesis show is nigh - opening is Saturday December 5 in Philly. Thanks for all your good wishes! I look forward to seeing some of you.

Presents Findings

District of Columbia Arts Center
2438 18th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009

www.dcartscenter.org
202-462-7833

October 16 - November 15
Opening Reception: October 16, 7-9pm
Curated by Lea-Ann Bigelow and Blair Murphy

Featuring work by Deborah Carroll Anzinger, Peter Gordon, Michael Matason, Lisa McCarty, Kathryn McDonnell, Karen Joan Topping and Jenny Walton

In a show of new work, DCAC’s resident collective explores the artistic process as a mode of inquiry, a space of exploration focused less on the production of definitive answers than on the acknowledgment and negotiation of paradoxes and contradictions.

Karen Joan Topping, Joke Pops, C-print, 13"x13", 2008.

12 x 12 x 100 Chautauqua Benefit Show The show is finally posted - how awesome! Someone bought my piece, a photo called Joke Pops. Yay! I was so curious to see who sent work - I guess most of the people who participated are recent residents, I didn't recognize them. With what, like 40+ residents every summer there have been boatloads, I mean boatloads, of aspiring artist through there in the past 19 years. (I was there - yikes - 1990-1991.) I recognized only two other contributers - Jenny Walton (who is of course my neighbor here in DC) and Polly Martin who teaches at CI. Wow - wonder if I will ever get to go back?

All the best to you Don and Lois Kimes! Thanks for the show and thanks for the 19 years of art lovin' joy and pain, which has thankfully been mostly joy that I dare say started for me because of you!

I think I will call this post "Blog of Stare" in honor of Mark. These photos are related to what I am working on this summer.

Karen Joan Topping 2009

View more OpenOffice presentations from karenjoan.

I added some more pics - kjt

Please Join Us and Celebrating our last 20 years and our next 20 years!! Get your tickets HERE!

Even while working full-time AND getting an MFA I'm still an active member of the Board at DCAC and would love it if you could come to our 20th Anniversary Party on Friday, May 29th in Georgetown. DCAC means a lot to me - its where we had the "Gulliver" show in 2005 and they've never stopped supporting me. We've been working hard to make it a great event and arranged what I think will be an exciting night of art exploration.... hanging sculptures from Gretchen Schemmerhorn recent show at DCAC and a video lounge featuring work by my DC MFA mentor, accomplished artist Jefferson Pinder who was recently featured in an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. I can't wait to see it all as well as enjoy some dancing and drinking of DCAC's signature drink of the night the twentitinni (ingredients TBD) before I head to Philly for one last summer of school.

I hope you can make it but if you cant would you think about joining as a member? You can do that here. If you really want to throw your support our way but can't make the party you can purchase tickets and I can invite some of the artists that mean so much to DCAC to come to the party, particularly the artists from Sparkplug: a DCAC Collective - of which I am a member and volunteer coordinator. Some of the gala tickets include a membership, so you'll get notified when Sparkplug has it's show at DCAC in October 2009. Thanks for reading the party pitch! Hope to see you all soon and that you enjoy our 3 day weekend!!!!

Karen Joan

What is DCAC and why should you support them?

The District of Columbia Arts Center is a nonprofit organization located at 2438 18th Street NW, between Belmont and Columbia Roads, in the heart of the Washington's Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC. DCAC supports emerging artists who are trying to get a foothold in the public arena. Born in 1989 with the mission of providing the “missing link” between emerging artists and the broader community, DCAC has maintained its place in DC as an organization that operates with the needs of artists in mind rather than focusing on growing commercial demands. DCAC also recognizes the need to support ongoing projects, which include our Curatorial Initiative, which nurtures upcoming curators and enriches audience engagement with our exhibits, and SPARKPLUG, a collective of local artists and curators who exhibit at DCAC each year.

In 1987, a group of artists, arts advocates and administrators came together to address their frustration with DC’s cultural climate. In order to bring local artists closer to the community, arts advocates Aaron Levine, Alice Denney, and Herb White, with the support of councilman William Lightfoot, established a center where local artists would become more visible to the community and receive the support that was largely unavailable. DCAC’s founding board includes artists Jack Rasmussen, Lynn McCary, Sam Gilliam, Greg Hannan, Kathy Keler, Rockne Krebs, Evangeline Montgomery, June Shadoan, and Paula Schumann, critic and curator Annie Gawlak, and arts activist Eden Rafshoon.

Since the founding of DCAC, the city has seen a number of positive changes in the local arts community. With the growth of local galleries and art spaces, artists have a wider range of opportunities to exhibit their work than they did twenty years ago. While the original vision and purpose of DCAC remain intact, the arts center now seeks to address the growing needs of artists marginalized by the commercial demands placed on galleries. Even as we seek to expand our visibility and hope to become a primary staple in the Adams Morgan neighborhood, DCAC holds true to its grassroots tradition. We continue to recognize the need for a space where artists, regardless of their commercial viability, race, gender and educational background, can show or perform their work at any stage in their careers.

Board of Directors: Bruce Kogod, Jay Bothwell, Faith Flanagan, Philip Barlow, Lisa Gilotty, Maureen Jeffreys, Molly Ruppert, Rebecca Montesi, Karen Joan Topping, Andrew Baughman, Buck Downs, Bridget Sue Lambert and Anita Walsh. Emeritus Chairs: Herb White, Sam Gilliam and John Dreyfuss. Advisory Board: George Hemphill, Jefferson Pinder and William C. Paley.

If you have any questions call us at DCAC at 202.462.7833 or info@dcartscenter.org

--


COME CELEBRATE DCAC TURNING 20!!!!
May 29, 2009—6:30-10:30 pm —Halcyon House in Georgetown

Celebrate DCAC ’s 20th Anniversary with an evening of dance, poetry,
performance art, video art, sound installation and live music.


Our performers and artists for the evening include:
Kathryn Cornelius, performance
Quique Aviles, performance
David London, performance
Silvana Straw, poetry
Buck Downs, poetry
Ilana Silverstein, dance
Alberto Gaitán, sound installation
Gretchen Schemmerhorn, installation
and video projections by José Ruiz, Jeffry Cudlin and Meg Mitchell, Jefferson Pinder, David Hartwell............and more

Tickets Plan
$100 for nonmembers (includes 1 year of membership).
$75 for DCAC members.
And for those of you that always wanted to be a VIP, just add $50 and you'll be in!!
($150 VIP nonmemeber, $125 VIP member)

BUY your tickets now by going HERE! At the door they will be $125!

The Lowdown Friday Night, May 29th

Halcyon House, 3400 Prospect Street NW, Georgetown
6:30 to 8:00—Beer, wine, hors'd'oeuvres and the DCAC signature drink--the TWENTITINI!!!!
6:30 to 7:30—VIP Champagne Room with David London---oh la la
8:00 to 10:30—Dancing with the Gin and the Tonics, beer, wine, the TWENTITINI!!!!,
and desserts including special 20th Anniversary Cookies.

If you are driving there is a close garage is at 3307 M Street but is accessed off of Banks which is a half block away- a very short walk to Halcyon. DCAC will be giving out parking validation stickers at check-in, which will be offered at a $2 discount off of the normal rate.

Early Rushes from my 2009 portrait project - with 3 working titles - "Stuffed Animal Project", "Toy Project" or "Childhood's Eye"

Karen Joan Topping 2009

View more presentations from karenjoan.

Opening Reception: Friday, June 19, 6 – 9 pm



clockwise from top left:
Peter Gordon, Going Green: Cap and Trade #1, Mixed Media on Wood Panel, 10x15", 2009; Mark Planisek, 6th and K St. NW, Photo Box Collage, 6-1/2x8-1/2x2-1/2, 2008; Karen Joan Topping, Still - Red Light, Green Light, Digital Video DVD 8 minutes 20seconds, 2008; Deborah Carroll Anzinger, detail - My Sister Had a Pogo Stick, 64x56", oil, resin and sharpie


Sparkplug; NEW WORK

Arlington Arts Center, Jenkins Community Gallery, June 19 – August 22, 2009

Opening Reception: Friday, June 19, 6 – 9 pm

Artists Talk: Wednesday, July 22, 7 – 9 pm


DC Arts Center’s resident arts collective Sparkplug is, at present, a spirited gathering of ten artists and curators who meet twice a month to discuss their work, explore the arts in the nation’s capital, grow their community, and dream up creative engagements in DC and around the globe. In the context of this closely-focused show, Sparkplug’s mission will be to testify to its own mutable now: the now of its production, the now of its collective exchanges, the now of individual stances outside of the collective, the now that will inevitably be then soon. For a collective whose very existence is based on a charter of becoming, of sharing, of transitions, of emergence, of change…the privileging of a specific Sparkplug moment presents a persistent (albeit purposeful) challenge.


Curated by Lea-Ann Bigelow and Blair Murphy, the show will highlight painting, drawing, video, photography, and mixtures thereof by:

Deborah Carroll-Anzinger, Peter Gordon, Lisa McCarty, Kathryn McDonnell, Michael Matason, Mark Planisek, Karen Joan Topping and Jenny Walton.

A Smile Without a Cat (Celebration of AnnLee´s Vanishing), 2002. With Philippe Parreno

In 1999, Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno bought the rights to an anodyne schoolgirl from K-Works, one of the two Japanese companies specialized in the production of characters for Manga and animated films: they are factories that produce stories that serve as testing grounds for the characters, who are a cumulus of special powers and energies, weapons, recurrent phrases, physical attributes and physiological profiles, that is, traits that are to define not only a particular character´s personality, but also his possibility of fitting into the situations created by the writers and his eventual salvation. The Frenchmen´s acquisition was christened with the name AnnLee and the reasons she was selected were simple: Except for her melancholy face and her sadly bulging eyes, AnnLee lacked absolutely everything. She had no special attribute, no characteristic costume, or patented phrases, or weapons, or superpowers; she was conceived as just another extra, like a walk-on in a comic strip, which condemned her to non-survival, either by death or oblivion. Hence the first page of the well known project No Ghost Just A Shell was written. After that, Huyghe and Parreno contacted other artists to invite them to work in an organized manner with, on or from the character: González-Foerster, Gillick, Tiravanija, Pierre Joseph & Mehdi Belhaj-Kacem, François Curlet, Mélik Ohanian, Anna-Lèna Vaney, M/M Paris, Joe Scanlan, Lily Fleury, Richard Philips, Henri Barande and Angela Bulloch & Imke Wagener were some of them. They ceded the rights to and image of AnnLee for them to redesign her, provide her with a voice, some psychological capacities, one or several bodies, or a context in which to develop. The idea was not to create a new fiction, but to consider the character a sign that had been freed from copyright and that would henceforth be capable of expressing her own nature and reality, in short, to extend her narrativity. She became a contemporary fable of collective authorship, with ever increasing chapters, which ended with the legal transference of the rights to AnnLee herself, and the celebration of her removal from - the kingdom of representationâ€? as a sign with the launching of fireworks on Miami Beach, Florida, in December 2002. Huyghe and Parreno called this event A Smile Without A Cat because of the scene from Alice in Wonderland in which the Cheshire Cat´s smile remains after its disappearance. Undoubtedly, by buying her, the artists participated in the economy of copyright, but by making this purchasing act public and elaborating it in their works, they broke the art world´s silence.



Tihs post is a very good description of this work and was taken from the website of MUSAC:
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León

holy c**p

As much as possible given the time and space allotted. from Galerie Leonard & Bina Ellen on Vimeo.

OK - I seriously do not know what to think about this...as someone who has worked behind the scenes in museums, (like about 1/3 of us in Sparkplug) I have seen 'the stacks' and know the beautiful collisions that can happen on those racks where items are put together solely based on available space-like a little Daumier painting ending up next to a big Bonnard, where proximity creates affinity. Dollars to donuts that's the kind of thing you'd have to travel through space and time to actually see hung up in a museum - unlikely matches happen, but rarely.

It also struck me that this show looks a lot like the proverbial mid-century SOHO painters loft (Alice Neel's is infamously described in my circle of education) where finished paintings line every available space not needed for walking or working. This kind of chaos is often where us 'art professionals' work - why not drive that point home to the pedestrian public?

Well frankly, because when I see it on 'tv' I realize how freaking insane it looks - how does clearness of message arise out of this horror vacui?

Well brother - it just does. Contemplate that.

Elsewhere Artist Collaborative



WOW - this gem was brought to me by my BF listserve - artinfobank - so brilliant - residencies in a former thriftstore that was never cleaned out - a shangrila of stuff to make art with - I have to remember this is here, next time I need inspiring - xo Karen

Residencies at Elsewhere

Elsewhere’s dynamic architectures and the immense 58-year collection of American cultural objects (thousands of toys, books, periodicals, clothing, fabric, games, trinkets, bric-a-brac, furniture, antiques, army surplus, and historical documents) housed on-site serve as a resource for the cultivation of new creative processes and the creation of new works.

Elsewhere’s residency program invites emerging and established artists and scholars to create site-specific works using the plethora of objects and dynamic spaces as materials for works or as a foundation for conceptual or technological projects. Residents launch projects from within the theoretical framework of an evolving exhibition of objects and artworks across media, composing an experimental museum rethinking the premise of the collector and collection, questions of history and myth, the stasis of the art object, the role of the artist, and the relationship of process within production.

Elsewhere offers a dynamic alternative to the museum and gallery spaces and traditional residency formats. Artists find Elsewhere residencies to be intensive, conceptually challenging, and highly playful. Working within transforming installations, artists engage interactive environments as platforms for conceptualizing their practices. An Elsewhere residency becomes an ongoing artistic happening formed by an evolving dialogue that explores responsive artistic practices as a means of communication within an artist community. While artists are given control over their individual work for the time of their stay, artists collaboratively build upon others’ visions in response to the developing installation. The opportunity to build alongside, work with, or even transform past artists’ work yields layered histories of experimentation, communication, and art production that resituates the creative possibilities for the museum-as-medium.

While all work produced with Elsewhere’s objects stays within the space (works in reproducible media are shared with Elsewhere and curated within the environment), artists have the opportunity to expand and apply their body of work on an unprecedented scope and scale while furthering the development of a collaboratively built museum. Elsewhere’s collaborative framework cultivates continued feedback and response throughout the creative process from the directors and other artists. Interns and production staff assist artists with documentation, creation and curation.

Residents are encouraged to spend one month creating in the space. No proposals are requested. Instead, we ask artists to draw their ideas from the space itself, its resources, and the multiplicity of systematic arrangements and performative organizations that interweave resource, artwork, and collaborative artistic response.

Residents pay a $200 residency fee and $50 deposit to hold space upon acceptance of invitation. Residents are required to fund their own travel, although Elsewhere, as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, can assist artists with granting opportunities. Collaborative or collective groups are encouraged to apply. Shorter residencies and student-residencies are available.

The application requires a written portion including a written application, resume/CV, digital work samples, and a phone interview.