DC is a great art city

On what has to have been one of the hottest days of the year, I had a revelation about DC and artists. The day ended at Busboys and Poets at 5^th and K streets. Anne Waldman channeled Ginsberg in a performance of Howl for a packed room. Matthew Hammerlein, Matvei Sigalov, Janel Leppin, and Karin Kilper accompanied her words with a string quartet. Their music filtered through Ginsberg’s poem like waves that amplified emotions and soothed harsh realities. It was stunning.

That was from 8 to 10pm, from 6 to 7pm I was at the Fringe performance of Elephant by Kelly Bond: absolutely brilliant and more about it in a moment.

From 3:30 to 4:30pm I was in Irvine Contemporary where Alexa Meade was creating one of her living paintings causing me to text friends to tell them to come by the gallery as soon as possible. On the walls were works by Meade, Robert Mellor and Gaia. Each incredible in their own way.

From 2 to 3pm I was in Transformer Gallery listening to artists Treva Elwood and Adam Dwight talk about E7, a mentoring program. What is really cool about this project is the diversity of the four artists selected to participate. Elwood makes paintings inspired by photographs of her family and her interest in genetics. They appear nostalgic and contemporary at the same time, and there's an element of mystery in the way a curved pattern on closer inspection is actually a large intestine. Dwight has two large drawings and a video. There is something in his cartoon-like characters that makes me think of a 21^st century Francis Bacon. Faces and limbs are distorted and askew. The video is particularly memorable and defies description. If you visited Transformer last month and saw the first two artists in the E7 program, a return visit is worth it. On view last month were thought-provoking works by Reuben Breslar and Jennifer DePalma; Elwood and Dwight use different material and explore their own distinct ideas in ways that are impressive.

So for anyone who says DC lacks an experimental community or fails to support new ideas, my only response is “do you get out much?”

For the first two events I happened to be in the Dupont neighborhood and remember reading about these offerings. Transformer had about 10 people in attendance; at times when I was watching Meade create in Irvine I was the only one there besides the people assisting and filming her. This is a 23-year old DC-based artist who has had her work selected for an exhibit at the Saatchi Gallery in London and has been featured on CNN. She turns people into paintings: her concept is bold and its outcomes are gorgeous and relevant.

I recently read a statement by Robert Rauschenberg about DC when he made a site-specific performance here in 1963: “The buildings have become in my mind ideas and symbols… My first impulse when meeting people in Washington, it’s like meeting movie stars. It’s like being in Hollywood and everyone’s an actor.”

Meade’s work comments on both the artifice of appearances, the costumes and roles we construct each time we put on our attire, as well as the projection of our own images and desires onto others.

Kelly Bond is similarly young and brilliant. Her piece Elephant is the most thought-provoking of the Fringe pieces I have seen at The Apothecary, and I have seen three other dance offerings there this year. Bond is a masterful craftsman: nothing is unnecessary, nothing superficial, nothing that may or may not resonate with you. Her work challenges our definitions of audience and performer. Stark naked, her trio of women shift the conventional gaze from spectator to performer, making the performers the ones who stalk the audience. It is not to be missed. The last show happens Sunday at 11am.