The Artists Reality Show

The jury met at the Klutznick Museum on K St, NW, thanks to my friend Diana Altman, who is the director. Maryam did all of the administrative work with the jury. She's the one who understood that process. The jurors spent several hours discussing and considering the slides of the applying artists. It was their decision to divide the teams into twos. Some of the artists applied as teams, and some who applied as singles were paired with a complementary artist. The more than sixty artists who applied were impressive. We are very satisfied with the response to the call. Six teams of two artists were selected. When I conceived this notion, I thought I would pick the teams. Maryam has a lot of experience with putting together exhibitions and felt that a jury was necessary. As you read in the previous post, we were honored to have these established gallerists to select the teams.
My first thoughts for an event to announce the selected arteams was a costume ball. We talked about it at the meetings. It's a gala that I would love to host one day, but it just was too big an undertaking for us at this point. After some consideration, the idea of a performance party emerged. We hosted an event on May 14, at The Ratner Museum, in Bethesda. The artists, musicians and dancers who performed for "The Artists Reality Show" were fabulous! For one performance, dancer/ artists Sarah, Bita and Mahasti carried out paintings by painter Nancy Unger while music played. They danced amid the art and Nancy narrated a poem. In the end, Sarah Barzmahri spoke her own words. The piece was about Iraq. In another performance, Mahasti and another artist choreographed a piece in which they painted each other to music. In August, they will perform at Anne C. Fisher Gallery in Georgetown, when we have our SYNERGY showing for some of the applying artists who did not get placed onto teams. Musician Michael Jantz, wrote an amazing song for the project that we will record. The instruments are bongos, guitar and violin. It has a Middle East, Caribbean, sexy energy that is awesome. There was also an inclusive art project by teacher/artist Nancy Unger in which everyone drew on paper to music. We hung the paper from the ceiling in a darkened room with lighting on the art while music played. It was very effective. More later.......