The Traditional Lakota Ceremony to reconnect to Mother Earth the Creator and the Universe, on September 21st at the Shanti Yoga Ashram in Bethesda was a fall equinox celebration led by Roy and Jean Reddemann, Native Americans who follow the traditional spiritual life of the Lakotas.  As a spiritual leader, Roy conducts ancient tribal ceremonies and is in service to the people, keeping the traditions and teachings of his culture.  Jean, known by her people as a Seer, is gifted with spiritual communication and Lakota healing ways.  They are “Companions”; having chosen to walk the path of life together.  Through drumming, singing and ritual movements, they generate sacred space where pure spiritual energy is present to assist participants with their intentions and goals.  

When I first arrived at 7pm everyone there was quiet, sitting on the floor or on a pillow, meditating. Around 7:30, Jean began describing how an altar was prepared and as she talked, her companion, Roy, set about arranging the altar.  There was a large buffalo skin already on the floor with, what appeared to be a steer skull on it.  He added a big fan-like feather instrument, gri gri (amulet) packets, sweet grass, tobacco (made from tree bark), and sage.  Then he placed some long poles with feathers on them, two long ceremonial pipes, and a few other ceremonial objects. The room which has top to floor large windows on two sides facing out onto greenery was totally filled with a potpourri of participants, many native Spanish speakers, and a few more women then men.  The large windows slid sideways to open, so when it rained hard the sound of the rain came into the room as a soothing backdrop.  As Jean spoke at length about the washing, cleansing, renewing, and the refurbishing of Mother Earth; it certainly felt like that was happening. During the evening Jean and Roy, accompanied by his drum, sung many soulful Indian songs.  One song called down the spirits while the final song thanked and released them.

The ceremony had four parts in which everyone participated. First, a woman walked around and gave each of us a rub of a wonderful scented ointment on the inside of each of our wrists.  We then brought the sent to our noses and inhaled the beautiful aroma.  Next, there was a pitcher of water infused with fresh sage leaves from which each person drank a sip for their own personal medicinal reasons. Thirdly, sweetgrass was burned and Roy came around to each one of us to let us pass the smoke over our heads and around us.

Later in the evening the significance of the pipes was discussed and everyone, one by one, came before the altar putting one foot on the buffalo skin to take a deep inhalation of the tobacco, not to take it into their lungs, but just to swirl it around in the mouth.  Prayers were formulated individually and then the smoke was exhaled. The songs, enhanced with the drumming, really reached into your whole being.  Some of the time the lights were out, especially during the singing, so a spiritual feeling permeated the room.

Lastly the healers came around to shake hands with the participants, one by one, and after you had your hand shake you joined the line and shook everyone else's hand too. It was very nice and something I have never done - so each participant greeted every other one.

by Mimi Wolford, mbariinst@aol.com

Tate’s recent work, a departure from the glass sculpture for which he is known, is mesmerizing. Collaborations with Pete Duvall and Richard Schellenberg present disjunctive imagery that captures the mystery and ineluctable  quality of change over  time and the haziness of memory. The uncertainty of reality is likened to the fading clarity of memory, the elusiveness of time and events both dreamed and  remembered.

In a darkened gallery a three-part video tells a story that is open to interpretation.  It transcends the everyday experience of  linear time with a dream state that compresses experience and memory into simultaneous vignettes.  Like the b & w format of early television, the settings and clothing styles in these b & w videos appear to date from around 1950.  A woman is seen walking through a deserted amusement park. As she walks towards you, a ball bounces from right to left and leads you to a second screen in which you see the woman against a carousel.  A man stands in the foreground, checking his watch.  This man (the artist? ) and the ball appear in each video. In the third and last screen his image is repeated along with that of an older man, the two stepping from left to right in a dance-like motion.  The work  suggests a  narrative, a sense of continuity from before to after, but the viewer must  put the pieces together --  and each person’s story may differ.
“Sleepwalker’s” main installation consists of a large screen showing a restlessly sleeping woman. Images of her overlap, collapsing time and disrupting the sequence as she tosses and turns, apparently dreaming.  Circles of glass, suspended from the ceiling in the darkened room, display snippets of her dreams:  once again there is a ferris wheel; a man dials a telephone and mouths the word “hello”;  a woman’s hand writes on a blackboard in perfect cursive, the kind no one learns anymore.  The penmanship lesson perhaps delivers the key to the dream’s meaning.                                 -Nancy Ungar

Review of the Nam June Paik: Art and Process Symposium
April 14, 2013, Smithsonian American Art Museum
By Cosima Storz

The Smithsonian American Art Museum is celebrating the work of Nam June Paik with the exhibition Nam June Paik: Global Visionary.  The museum is showing a collection of his work spanning his lifetime and is also displaying objects of inspiration to him from his Chinatown studio in New York City.  

Paik is known for his various TV sculptures that play with found footage and also assemblages of footage that has been heavily altered.  His work is overwhelming at times and reminds me of the history of TV and the Internet.  His work is a character of the time it was made in, relying on now outdated TV's and mixers.  His art is about playing with this information and making people in control of it.  

A Symposium was held in his honor on April 14, 2013, bringing together people that have written about him and have worked side by side with him. The first speaker was Edith Decker-Phillips.  She is a German curator and focused on Paik's life and work in German in the 1960's.  Paik was exploring action music and just started to play with TV sets.  The biggest change that happened to Paik was John Cage's lecture on Zen and Zen in America.  As a Korean, Paik thought that American's could not understand Buddhism.  Paik spoke to Cage and Cage said that he should not forget his Korean heritage.  This sparked Paik's interest in combining TV sets with his Korean culture, especially with Buddhism.  The first work from this was "Zen for TV", which is on display in the museum show.  It shows a simple line across the TV screen and hints at what was to come for Paik's later work.    

The second lecture was led by Jud Yulkut.  He is an artist himself and helped Paik in creating and editing films.  They had a shared interest in the physical change of the film.  They both believe that the nature of the environment is more on film.  Film can become scratched and dusty over time, thus showing age and change.  A funny moment during this talk was the technology issues and problems in showing the videos.  But once the glitch was fixed a round of applause accompanied the film.  Many in the audience saw the humor in this moment and thought that Paik would have liked it.    

After Mr.Yulkut was Stephen Vitiello, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in the Kinetic Imaging Department.  Vitiello was an assistant of Paik in his later years at Intermix Studio in New York City.  He also worked with Paik when he was setting up his Guggenheim retrospective.  This speaker was the most insightful because of his personal stories that let the audience have a glimpse of who the person was behind the work.  One story was that Paik had a lost collection of audio work.  Vitiello's interest in music and performance made him want to find this collection and save it.  One day Paik shoved a box of mixed up reels and told Vitiello to make sense of it.  To Vitiello's delight it was the lost collection of Paik's early experimental music.  Out of that collection a CD of Paik's work has been published and much of it is now shared online.  I enjoyed this talk because it showed Paik as a human but also an elusive person even in life.    

John Hanhardt lectured on Paik's performance work.  Hanhardt is the curator for the Paik Smithsonian show.  Interestingly Paik carried his performance aspect into his TV sets in that he allowed for viewers to manipulate the sets through mixers and magnets, which would create altering visuals on the screen.  

The final speaker was Gregory Zinman who focused on the use of music as painting.  He touched on artists throughout history that have combined light or visual work that interacts with music.  Paik is most known for his work with video sets but he was also a painter.  Zinman showed instances in Paiks work where technology and paint would cross over and inspire each other.  Again this lecture was fraught with technical difficulties, which took my focus out of the lecture.

What I took from this Symposium is the importance of Paik's musical pieces and his interest in interacting with the audience.  He was a playful artist and has lead the way in the medium of technology.  He makes TV a reality and puts the viewer in control.  Despite the prevalent technical problems, I think Paik would have appreciated this occurrences and deemed them appropriate for his life's work.                             

The visitor is blown away when coming upon Monderer’s “East River” paintings in the small area that serves as a gallery at Maplewood Park Place.  Monderer's panoramic view of the southern end of Manhattan consists of five canvases. In them one not only sees the sweep of the river, but is drawn in by the vibrancy of the scene.  The artist uses color in a bold, forthright manner as seen in "East River" pictured above. 

Monderer’s choice of architectural scenes as subjects range from large, over-views to up-close frontal views of building facades with street-level  shops and apartrments above.  Above the colorful shop fronts, we delight in the all-over patterns created by open and closed windows.  “Under the Westside Highway” captures a dramatic scene.  The stark contrast between the shadowy blacks under the highway, and the sun-blanched buildings on the other side of the street demonstrate the artist’s grasp of composition.

Monderer has an MFA from The American University and has worked at the Hirshhorn as a docent for many years, paints from photographs, using them as sketches, reinterpreting the information from her experience as both a pedestrian and architecture afficianado.  When comparing a photo source to a painting, we see how the artist pulls experiential aspects into the scene before us.  Stressing some areas and omitting others, she injects the human experience of how we live and work in constructed environments to make a coherent arrangement.

 Monderer’s cityscapes are alive with an appreciation for the sculptural elements, the open boulevards and spaces for strolling and air, and the colors that make up a metropolis.

From the Wash Post,  June 29th, 2012    p. C7.

"Obviously I'm not a very religious person, and I don't have any respect for the religious point of view.  I tolerate it , but I find it a mindless grasp of life.  [It's} the same thing with the philosophers who tell you that the meaning of life consists  of what meaning you give it.  I don't buy that, either.  It's very unsatisfying.  

"What you're left with, in the end, are very grisly, unpleasant facts," he continues.  "You can't avoid them, you can't escape them.  The best you can do, as far as I see it in the moment - maybe I'll get some other insight someday - is distract.  i work all the time, I plunge myself into trivial problems, that are not life threatening:  how am I going to work my third act, or can I get this actress to be in the movie, or am I over budget?  these are my problems that obsess me, so I don't sit home and think about the fact that the universe if flying apart at breakneck speed as we're sitting here."

THE CONSTANT ARTIST
KATZEN ART CENTER MUSEUM
June 9 through August 12, 2012

A review by Nancy Ungar of THE CONSTANT ARTIST, 
an exhibit of Paul Feinberg’s photographs of nine DC based artists early and later in their careers, with interviews and early and late artworks by the artists.  Ungar is a retired Gazette art critic.

While most DC area artists up and run away to NYC when the going gets good, some of the best stick around. The work of nine of these tried and true painters, documented at the beginning of their careers and recently by photographer Paul Feinberg can be seen in “The Constant Artist” at American University’s Katzen Center through August 12.

While style and renown may differ, the level of technical skill and artistry is reliably high. Sam Gilliam, part of the DC Color School, is represented by two abstractions that are more similar than not despite the almost-30-year separation of their production. Artists Manon Cleary and Rebecca Davenport are noteworthy for the consistently stark realism of their figurative work. The paintings of Margarida Kendall Hull and Lisa Montag Brotman provide commentary on the loss of innocence; while Fred Folsom’s  mural-sized painting, “Last Call (at the Shepherd Park Go-G0 Club)” of 1987 revels in debauchery.

Margarida Kendall Hull paints with the expertise and polish of a Renaissance master, even adopting the Church’s triptych format topped by reliquary boxes to to her apocalyptic vision. The central figure in the eponymous “Eve” gazes with complete innocence at the viewer  as she offers her ripe red delicious apple; it is held upside down, revealing the indention left after the flower was removed. A snake (the literal fashion boa) coils around her neck. But the scene behind her is less that of a Boschian hell than that of an earth which has succumbed to devastation by man. Ruined landscape is scorched and burning; drained of water, a large fish crawls with two stunted legs upon dry land and appears to shout in open-mouthed anger; shrouded corpses lie in the road and civilization’s remnant is a distant skyline. Eve is beautiful and pure and yet she, the symbol of our culture, invites her own doom.

Lisa Montag Brotman’s work, both early and recent, also treats blighted innocence. In the middle of a large candy-colored field of wriggling phallic coral, a pre-pubescent girl strides confidently towards a mysteriously hooded amorphous form. It’s (his) shape is as unclear as her future or the stormy sky, and she faces him alone.

Tom Green is unique in that he poses very similar questions in 1968 and 2012 but answers the question in different ways. The ’68 “Sultana” is reminiscent of the shaped canvases (think Stella) and minimalist tonality of that era. Delicately executed in graphite and oil pastel, Green’s tall, cool, architecturally clean form emanates an evanescent light; it opens wide at it’s center with a neat vertical space, a doorway, that entices the viewer. The work is elegant, monumental and authoritative and seems complete until you view the 2012 “Passage.” It is only then that you realize that you have been invited to enter only to hit the solidity of a white gallery wall.

“Passage” is similarly enticing, but the journey it presents is difficult and the end unknown. The large vertical canvas is painted to represent a life-sized irregular gray stone wall. At its center is a narrow jagged vertical opening leading to black nothingness. You know it will be almost impossible to get through to whatever lies beyond, and the passage is sure to be injurious. Yet it is a secret, inviolable world that draws you in.

Green has become more adept at inviting, even compelling, you to enter his world. At the same time a new, perhaps mocking, attitude towards this melodrama is signaled by the incongruity of scalloping around the four edges of the painting. Is Green hinting that life is no more than a page in a scrapbook?

Clark V. Fox has stayed true to form in adopting a pop look to his portraits. while Joseph White has dramatically changed his style. The latter’s work is represented by a colorful lyrical abstraction from 1967 and a muted, sterile rendering of the lower half of a revolving door on K Street from 2006. White has come to earth, moving from a raucous ride in a fantasy space to the hard edge of DC politics.

April 19-May19, 2012
Elroy Williams, Sabine Carlson,
and Evelyn Jacob
Multi-media & Photography
Black Rock Center for the Arts
12901 Town Commons Drive
Germantown, MD 20874.

The Black Rock Arts Center is located in Germantown, MD.  The gallery is a perfect space, high ceilings lots of natural light.  Although three artists work in different media, The show is provocative as well as meditative.

ELROY WILLIAMS: His large figurative paintings in oil give us a partial glimpse into the lives of individuals at rest and those actively engaged.  They are striking for their simplicity. The only jarring aspect from this group of paintings is the two very non-objective paintings which although beautifully executed don’t relate to his other work.

SABINE CARLSON: Her oil paintings are both playful and ironic with a touch of doom!  The canvases are replete with dogs, forests and helicopter images.  Nature and animals tell a story.  The rawness of nature depicted with bright hues of orange and blues are intercepted by swarms of ominous mechanical shapes.  To the natural world these are like ghostly beings invading the natural world.

EVELYN JACOB: These photographs are interesting for their technique which shows the snow and ice to bring forth leaves locked in the ice.  Through these exquisite prints, the viewer feels the transparency of the surface and the crystal fragments.  The photographer transforms what could be a banal subject into a deep contemplative experience with nature,



May 2-28, 2012
Common Ground: The Handmade Print
The Ratner Museum
10001 Old Georgetown Road
Bethesda, MD 20814

The variety of technique demonstrates the innovative style and strengths of the seven printmakers.  I enjoyed the show.  My only concern is that there may be too many pieces for the size of the gallery.

JUDITH COADY:  Her monoprints concentrate on two themes- Ladders: bright horizontal stripes, and Kaleidoscopes: triangular shapes in transparent color.

DERON DECESARE: His small prints showcase a variety of printmaking  methods which include etchings, dry point and monoprints.  They depict intimate views of landscape.

WINSTON HARRIS:  Makes use of the computer to develop his hand colored prints and collages.  His basic theme is the inner workings of a watch fractured into small squares printed on scrolls.  The collages are developed into 3 dimensional strips, one a whimsical relief, and the other a hanging sculpture.

LAURA HUFF:  Focuses on the plight of the Chestnut trees which have been making a slow comeback after a serious blight that almost wiped them out in this country.  She examines the individual leaves as well other aspects of the trees.

MYRA MENSCH PATNER:  Nature is a major element of her etched leaves on monotypes.  Some images are linear others are infused into a colorful background.

JUDITH SIMMONS:  Bold lines are captured in her abstract expressionistic imagery.  They make a statement and their size commands attention. 

NORMAN STRIDE: His beautifully composed and printed linocuts invite us to come and view familiar local scenes in DC as well as a street in London.  They are direct, and vividly composed.

Some pictures from the Print Fair at the Baltimore Museum last weekend.  Check back for the review.