Artomatic 2009
Love it or hate it, the yearly festival is back
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Artomatic isn’t about finding the diamond in the rough: Think cubic zirconia instead. Each spring brings the polarizing art-for-the-masses show, and this year's event features more than 1,000 visual artists (and another 600 performers). With nine floors of art displayed science-fair style in an unoccupied office building near the Nationals’ stadium, the offerings can be overwhelming. But for the serious art aficionado, how many of those 1,000 artists are worth seeing? We’ve capped that number at a strict 0.005 percent.
David Hagen, "Big Bug," Courtesy of ArtomaticSome background: Artomatic, now in its 10th year, is a large non-juried show, which means anyone with the $99 entry fee, 15 hours of volunteer time, and an armful of art can be an Artomatic exhibitor. And it’s no secret to most of the D.C. art community that the offerings of Artomatic are traditionally amateurish, which is the point. If you’re looking for adorable dog paintings, paper-mâché sculpture, anything with robots and/or dinosaurs, and trash assemblages, you’ll find plenty to love. At the same time, Washington Post critic Blake Gopnik’s 2004 assessment goes a little too far by stating, “Artomatic isn’t only good for nothing. It’s bad for art that matters.”
Artomatic is good for something: It’s a celebration of the D.C. art community and the people who—despite being excluded from the local art scene—care enough to keep it vibrant. Each year, the exhibit may encourage its visitors to attend openings, become collectors, and support our local artists and galleries. So how do you get in, see what’s worth seeing, and emerge unscathed? Of these five Artomatic artists worth checking out, take note of the precise location of each booth—an important detail because you can use the map provided at entry to skip straight to the good stuff.
Rania Hassan, “Knit Together,” Courtesy of the ArtistWork your way from the top and go down. Start at the ninth floor’s third section with Rania Hassan’s eye-catching “Knit Together”—which won a Renwick Alliance Award. Hassan blends painting and craft with her images of knitting hands interconnected by delicate knit chains. Hassan’s Artomatic offerings are cohesive and polished in an exhibition that is predominated by slapdash displays.
Courtesy of Ben H. Rome: http://tinyurl.com/l2qgzf
On the eighth floor almost directly under Hassan, you’ll find Deb Jansen's "Catharsis & Karma: An Open Thank You Letter To A Homewrecker." Like the title suggests, this piece is a letter to the woman who broke up her marriage, a.k.a “E., the world’s most expensive blow job.” Jansen publicly lashes out at E. while thanking her for the wake-up call that her husband was a cheating scumbag. It’s either a comment on the oversharing prevalent in today’s Facebook-obsessed society or a bold display of passive aggression. Jansen completes her rant with a selection of voodoo dolls for sale: "$100 per skank."
Skip the seventh floor unless you’re interested in the winners of the Washington Post’s annual marshmallow Peeps show (which look way better in newspaper photographs than in real life) or the cheap thrills of vaguely softcore pornographic paintings, a theme that resonates throughout the building. Instead, go to the sixth floor’s sixth section. Sarah Bever’s space is dominated by a huge printout of the comments section of a DCist post about Artomatic. Said a reader: “Yay! I can’t wait to submit my shit in a jar accompanied by a finger painting I did when I was 4, along with some painfully earnest vocal exercises on a repeat loop. Thank god for the 'matic or my work would never be seen.” Underneath, Bevers includes pieces that play off that sentiment, like a reproduction of the famous "dogs playing poker" painting, only with one of the dogs saying, “I’ve always been a spiritual person.”
"Out Of The Ordinary," Courtesy of the ArtistContinue on to the fifth floor's seventh section, where Michael Gardiner's set up camp. One of the many British artists to exhibit in Artomatic this year thanks to a partnership with the city of Sunderland, UK. Gardiner’s four-screen video work explores the natural patterns and repetition in familiar machines, like an amusement park ride or an escalator.
"Kent," Courtesy of the Artist: http://tinyurl.com/mapgg9
Finally, Joe Foley rounds out our top five list in the 13th section of the fourth floor. A cyclist himself, Foley photographs other cyclists in their spandex outfits during races, and his subjects are often gazing directly into the camera and glistening with sweat. The bicyclists make interesting subjects once they’ve loosened up from the teeth-gritting grind of the road. Foley’s men are anxious, weary, hopeful, and childlike, mopping their brow and grinning. Removed from the scene of the race, they stand in wooded backgrounds, helmet hair doing them no favors, lit by a seemingly artificial glow—of victory, one presumes.
Now, take Artomatic’s advice. Signs directing visitors from the elevators to the stairs are marked "Why Wait?" Heed them.
