Curator's Office
1515 14th Street NW
#201
Washington, DC
20005
District of Columbia
North America
p: 1.20 387.1008
m: 1.20 360.2573
f: 1.20 387.1066
w: www.curatorsoffice.com
Rob Parrish, 252 Works of Art Owned by Philp Barlow, 2008 video monitor, packing peanuts, paper, bubble wrap, magnifying lens, headphones, wood 8+min 8.25" x 16.5" x 14" (closed box)
Curator's office is pleased to present a twist on portraiture for its inaugural exhibition of 2008. Co-curated by artists Linda Hesh and Ian Jehle, 15 for Philip: Fifteen Artists Look at Arts Patron Philip Barlow celebrates the presence of Washington DC's most steadfast arts supporter, political activist, and involved art collector. The exhibition includes works in a range of media by this city's emerging and established artists including Colby Caldwell, Kathryn Cornelius, Joseph Dumbacher and John Dumbacher, Nekisha Durrett, Alberto Gaitán, Max Hirshfeld, Linda Hesh, James Huckenpahler, Ian Jehle, Amanda Kleinman, Al Miner, Rob Parrish, Eric Powell, Robin Rose, and Jeff Spaulding. An opening reception for the artists and Philip Barlow is scheduled for Saturday, January 12, from 6 - 8 pm.
In the words of co-curators Linda Hesh and Ian Jehle, Philip Barlow is an unmistakable fixture of the D.C. arts community as a collector, curator, and overall arts benefactor. A quick scan of almost any arts event in Washington will find Philip, at 6'4" - usually head and shoulders above the crowd - somewhere in the room. More than a presence, Philip is also known by connection to more controversial events including his removal by the Washington Project for the Arts/Corcoran in 2004 as the curator of their Options Biennial as well as his weekly early Saturday morning volunteer work for Planned Parenthood. An actuary by day, Philip becomes an arts fanatic at night and on weekends, albeit a reserved and wise one of few words. Although Barlow has no car, he manages to find his way to the most obscure openings in the outer suburbs of the city as well as the established and growing contemporary arts scene downtown.
Of additional interest is the critical role that portraiture has played in the past decade in contemporary art. Each artist in this exhibition develops an idea of Philip Barlow, be it photographic, representational, abstract, or conceptual. In the realm of new media, the show includes a sound piece by multi-media visionary Alberto Gaitán, a music video by rocker Amanda Kleinman of The Apes, and a video by Rob Parrish. The range of styles and media reflect not only Philip's many roles within the DC arts community but also of the many possibilities of contemporary portraiture. Hesh and Jehle continue, "While some of the artists pick up on the idea of icon, celebrity, even saint, others react to Philip's dry humor and distinctive appearance (once described as part John Lennon, part Alan Greenspan, and part Apache.)" For example, Washington's most noted abstract painter Robin Rose comments about his contribution on rice paper, "the piece has a distinct quality of being somewhat aloof like Philip. The pieces are rubbed in lead and gold, a fitting motif for Philip, I think."
The exhibition is presented salon-style in honor of Philip's own personal art collection presentation in his longtime Adams Morgan apartment. The salon-style arrangement of portraiture has deep art historic roots in European palaces and manor houses. This exhibition, displayed in a micro-gallery, is a 21st century play on portraiture and its presentation.
Similar to how contemporary art grapples with its own identity, portraiture has also had many complex issues to embrace. Portraiture should do more than just show the subject. It should offer an experience of recognition or identification with the subject. To render the subject anonymous - literally to de-face - is to challenge his or her individuality, and upends the historic notions of portraiture allowing instead the metaphoric capacities of the artistic media to trigger questions of identification. In this exhibition, portraiture is more than the recording of Philip Barlow's appearance. In some cases the artists have remade their subject or played tribute to the individual through idiosyncratic means. In the century and a half since the birth of photography, the representation of the visible world has changed fundamentally. Having freed itself first from art historic conventions, followed by photography, and finally from academicism, the contemporary portrait has revitalized our ideas of identity and its depiction in art.
