Lucid Dreaming @ Curator's Office January 17

Jason Hughes' Fortress

Curator's Office is pleased to announce Lucid Dreaming: Simon Gouverneur, Jason Hughes, Paul Laffoley. This exhibition acknowledges the continuing visionary tradition in modern and contemporary art. The exhibition includes works by internationally renowned visionary artist and brilliant architect Paul Laffoley, works from the Estate of Simon Gouverneur, and works by young artist Jason Hughes, who acknowledges the profound influence of Laffoley and Gouverneur on his work. An opening reception is planned for Saturday, January 17.

A lucid dream is a dream in which the person is aware that they are dreaming while the dream is in progress. When the dreamer is lucid, they can actively participate in and often manipulate the imaginary experiences in the dream environment. The title refers to the psychological state that each of these artists aspires to and enters during cultural production. Additionally, each artist, through his deployment of visually complex abstract logic, induces a mesmerizing stillness in the viewer through visual and, in the case of Laffoley, didactic textual means. Each artist creates his own personal mandala-like structures to create symbolic zones that structure and attempt to understand consciousness.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

6:00pm - 8:00pm

Curator's Office

1515 14th Street NW Suite 201

Washington, DC

New Experimental Media Series @ Carraige House

Come watch the films of Robert Todd at the Carriage House, January 17th at 8pm!

"Since 1989, Boston-based filmmaker Robert Todd has been quietly developing one of the most distinctive bodies of work in the American film scene. Todd's beautifully shot films draw together documentary and experimental elements; they don't hew to a single, clearly defined style, but nevertheless show a consistency of poetic vision, spirit, and purpose. Through suspended moments of reflection and anticipation, Todd's films explore the difficult-to-define emotions engendered by the stresses of civilization" (Cinemateque Ontario)

New Mural Installed Downtown

Baltimore's Mural Project has produced a number of exciting, public art pieces around the city, with new murals constantly in the works. Over the weekend, I got to witness the frosty/rainy install of Ten Tigers' friend "Aghost's" (Walter's) bird mural down on Liberty Street:

Walter and Kenny installing pannels

Check out the new mural on Liberty street, just north of 1st Mariner Arena, it looks pretty awesome, and a second mural coming soon, one block over on Park.

For more information on the Baltimore Mural Project, and on artist opportunities, check out the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts' website!

Two Person Juried Show Opens @ School 33

School 33's juried, two person exhibition, which received hundreds of submissions, features two female, installation artists; in the infinitely wise words of the Spice Girls, "GIRL POWER!" Eun Woo Cho and Liz Ensz divide School 33's main gallery down the middle, into two separate, yet overlapping, socially motivated installation pieces.
Eun Woo Cho's symbol-laden video pieces address tensions that still exist between Korea and Japan over the treatment of Korean women during World War II. She explained that she captures and displays all steps of her process, the past in still photos, the present in video, and future in abstracted sketches.


Liz Ensz works with ornate, decorative patterns inspired by the Spanish Moors, to present subversive, political and social messages. In her new pieces, Ensz creates a dark, meditative space with repetitive patterns of ominous war and religious symbols, and a contrastingly hopeful, white fountain. Perhaps a tad heavy-handed in its color choices, Ensz's labor-intensive pieces carefully conceal their vocabulary in a decorative aesthetic, drawing the viewer into their beauty and then their message.

Liz Ensz in front of her fountain

Walker washing his hands in the fountain

Guest curator, Andrea Pollan leads the artist talk with Liz Ensz

Eun Woo Cho speaks about her work

For more information on the artists and the current exhibition, visit the School 33 website!

Height With Friends: Baltimore Highlands CD Release Party and Review

Height with Friends photographed by Andy Cook

Baltimore Highlands, guest reviewed by Taylor Berman.
On his most recent album, Baltimore Highlands, Height’s flow is deliberate and slow but in no way lagging; in conjunction with the songs’ dirty, often dark production the lyrics and their delivery give the tracks a vibe not dissimilar to Grand Buffet if GB were more intent on occasional narrative instead of the absurd. For instance “The Woods,” with its repetitive string sample over beat boxing and mixed percussion, is at the same time ominous and goofy. The lyrics themselves (“we thought that we were lost/until we read a mark/and then we wandered off/ into the dead of dark”) are by no means frivolous or random, but the song’s video, directed by Showbeast (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXKgrvgB2bY), embodies the strangeness and childish surrealism, in the most complimentary sense of the phrase, for which the current Baltimore music/art scene is best known.
And, importantly, the marriage of Height’s lyrics and its accompanying production with the general extended-Wham City aesthetic works, for whatever reason, seamlessly. The deliberateness and pace of Height’s delivery, with the aforementioned production, allows the songs and album as a whole to veer into a sort of dark psychedelic charge, one that feels appropriate after three percocets and a bottle of wine (guilty as charged) or (judging from the pictures online) in a beer-fueled house party in South Carolina or an outdoor festival (this past summer’s Whartscape). In other words, Baltimore Highlands is many things, and it does those many things mostly well, not least of which is capturing the energy and fun of a Height show, which was previously my only exposure to him, while at the same time focusing that energy into a 26 minute recording that rarely lags. All in all, a welcome addition to the B-more hip-hop, and music, scene.
Come check out Height with Friends @ the Zodiac!
Friday January 16th
DON'T MISS IT!