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A closeup of Chris Jordan's Barbies, which is featured in Close Encounters at the Katzen Arts Center. Copyright Chris Jordan. Courtesy Paul Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles. |
Provisions Library, D.C.’s learning laboratory for the arts and social change, which opened its doors in September of 2001, launched a new initiative this past summer, BrushFire. By staging socially-minded public art events nationally, BrushFire aims to promote discourse about democracy, including key political and social issues such as the war in Iraq, immigration, the environment, the economy and health care. The highest concentration of BrushFire events is in the D.C. area, with over a dozen arts organizations holding events in the months leading to the November elections, and several of these exhibitions open this weekend. We touched on a few of them in yesterday’s Arts Agenda, but get out your calendars, because here’s the full run-down.
>> The centerpiece of D.C.’s events is Close Encounters, the exhibit which opens tomorrow and runs until October 26 at American University’s Katzen Arts Center. The painting, video, photography and installation work of twenty-seven artists will be featured, including internationally-recognized Leon Golub, Yoko Ono, Jenny Holzer, Adrian Piper, Chris Jordan (pictured right), and Nancy Spero, as well as D.C. artists Floating Lab Collective, whose floating museum will be parked at the Katzen throughout the exhibit, and will later be participating in a book fair in Silver Spring, and roaming D.C.’s heavily immigrant-populated areas as a way for the public to explore identity.
>> Irvine’s September Teo González exhibit, as well as its upcoming Regime Change Starts at Home, are both a part of BrushFire. Regime Change runs from October 18 to November 29, and features the work of Shepard Fairey, Al Farrow and Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky). Fairey, known for his street art and screen printings, will display new politically charged paintings and collage works, including the last of three portraits of Barack Obama. The sculpture of Farrow is sure to raise eyebrows—he constructs Christian, Jewish and Moslem religious structures with gun parts, bullets, artillery shells, and human bone. Miller explores the political climate of our coldest continent with his multimedia installation Manifesto for the People’s Republic of Antarctica.
>> Plan B is also holding a BrushFire opening tomorrow, for its newest exhibit of socially charged work, which runs through October 5. A highlight of the event is sure to be the wall of Screaming Presidents by artist Christopher Speron.
Neighborhood Story Project is one of the works on display in Way Down in New Orleans at Civilian Art Projects. Image courtesy the gallery. |
>> Civilian Art Projects opened their BrushFire exhibit last Friday to commemorate the third anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, but the show is running until October 11. Brooklyn curator Aubrey Evans chose the all-media works in Way Down in New Orleans “to address the tragedy of Katrina while exemplifying the explosive rebirth of culture shaping the city today.” Thirty artists are featured, and 20% of all sales will benefit The New Orleans Kid Camera Project.
>> At Honfleur Gallery from November 15 to January 1 will be another New Orleans-focused exhibit by John K. Lawson, a displaced multimedia artist who lost his entire body of work in the disaster. Using salvaged drawings and photographs, he recreated his work, transforming it into this entirely new series.
>> On October 18 during the Silver Spring Fall Festival, Pyramid Atlantic will be displaying Spark of Truth, featuring eight posters on various social justice issues designed by teen artists. The accompanying video will be shown at Pyramid Atlantic in September, exact date TBA. Also at Pyramid Atlantic on September 29 and 30 will be the DC Listening Lounge Audio Map, “a room size social audio mapping installation of Washington, D.C.” A collaborative effort of the Listening Lounge, each audio segment is specific to our area, and together, they present a “colorful sonic portrait of D.C.”
>> While most of the BrushFire events are visual, the Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Company will be premiering Hyphen. Hyphen examines “the experience of being a hyphenated American,” asking “Does the hyphen connect or separate our hybrid identities?” The performance will take place at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium at 8 p.m. on October 24 and 25.
Additional BrushFire Activities:
- MOCA DC holds two BrushFire exhibits this fall: Homeless Art Project in September, which showcases work about or by the homeless, and Art and Social Issues in October.
- Throughout October, Studio Gallery presents Art of Social Justice, an exhibit of more than 35 artists whose foot-square pieces will be sold and donated to various causes.
- Artist Linda Hesh will be installing For and Against Benches in public spaces throughout the area in September and October. Passersby will be invited to choose a bench and discuss the upcoming elections.
- The upcoming Richard Avedon: Portraits of Power exhibit at the Corcoran, which runs from September 13 through January 25, is also a part of the BrushFire movement.
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