Civilian Art Projects Presents Late Night Music and Dance

On February 17, 2012, Civilian Art Projects will present an "epic late night music and dance happening" at the Warehouse Theater.  Featured performance by Man Forever from Brooklyn (a drum explosion featuring Kid Millions of Oneida) Heavy Breathing from DC (Jeff, Amanda, Erick from Apes), Plasma Expander from Sardinia,  DJ Jim, and a special guest DJ.  The party will start at 10:30 pm and will take place at the Warehouse Theater (enter on New York Avenue) and entry is $10.  Check out the facebook event page here.

MAN FOREVER, HEAVY BREATHING, PLASMA EXPANDER - LATE NIGHT
Presented by Civilian Art Projects
February 17th, 10:30pm
Warehouse Theater (enter on New York Avenue side) Cost: $10

Civilian Art Projects Presents "6 Painters"

The current show on display at Civilian Art Projects is called “6 Painters” and presents new paintings by six contemporary artists working in a variety of styles and media. Artists include Tom Bunnell, Eric Finzi, Cavan Fleming, Tom Green, Nora Sturges, and Champneys Taylor. Each painter presents several works grouped together in mini-exhibitions throughout the galleries in Civilian Art Projects.

Be sure to check out this great exhibition. The gallery hours are Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 1 to 6 pm. There's an artist talk on the final day of the show, February 25, at 6 pm.

Civilian Art Projects

1019 Seventh Street, NW, Second Floor

202.607.3804





Tom Green, "Puzzle," 1987







Eric Finzi, "Hot and Cold," 2009





Valor's Vision for Seventh, P and Marion

In case you missed it yesterday, check out the City Paper's post about Valor Development's plans for the empty lots across from the Kennedy Recreation Center at Seventh, P and Marion Streets!

Kelsey Gardens Raze Notices, Jefferson at Market Place

I got a tip this morning that raze notices have been posted on the old Kelsey Gardens apartment complex, which was recently acquired by Jefferson Apartment Group ("JAG") and which finally should see the long-planned and approved redevelopment commence soon. 

JAG now has the project listed on their website under the name "Jefferson at Market Place."  JAG describes the project as follows:

Jefferson at Market Place is a mixed-use development located at the corner of 7th and P Streets in Northwest Washington, DC. The project will include 281 luxury apartments, 230 below-grade parking spaces, and 13,400 square feet of retail space.

Jefferson at Market Place will feature modern amenity spaces that will include a boutique-style lobby with a 24-hour concierge, state-of-the-art fitness center, resident business center, and community lounge with bar and gaming areas. Residents will also have exclusive access to two private courtyards on the ground floor, a landscaped roof deck on the seventh floor, and a large pool deck on the 8th floor roof.

Jefferson at Market Place is located less than three blocks north of the Washington Convention Center Metro Station and two blocks south of the Shaw-Howard Metro Station. The project has tremendous visibility with over 455 feet of frontage along 7th Street NW and will be located adjacent to the future City Market at O, a 1 million square foot mixed-use project anchored by a new 58,000 square foot Giant Supermarket.

Jefferson Apartment Group Buys Kelsey Gardens!

I've heard rumors about an impending sale of the old Kelsey Gardens Apartment complex in the 1500 block of Seventh Street for quite some time, and it now appears that a sale indeed occurred!

Multi-Housing News Online reported on October 17 that Jefferson Apartment Group ("JAG") purchased the site from Metropolitan Development, LLC (which was represented by MAC Realty Advisors, LLC (MAC)).  JAG will redevelop the property into Jefferson Square, a 281-unit, urban infill, transit-oriented project.

This is great news for all who want to see this block of Seventh transformed into something great.  JAG has the experience and capability to deliver a first class product.

Saturday Night by Civilian Art Projects

This Saturday (October 22), Civilian Art Projects is hosting hosting an artists' talk for the closing of its shows Pan's Pipes and Site Schema at its gallery (free) and is then throwing a party at the Warehouse Theater with bands, djs, and and projections ($8 cover). Here's the schedule for the night:

Free at Civilian Art Projects (1019 Seventh Street, NW, Second Floor):
8pm - Artist talk with Nikki Painter for Site/Schema, her beautifully ambitious solo exhibition in the project space and The Entrance;

8:40pm - Artist talk with Ryan Hill, Erick Jackson, George Jenne for the wonderfully illicit Pan's Pipes exhibition.

$8 at the Warehouse Theater (Enter from New York Avenue, just around the corner from the gallery)
10pm - $8 - Experience the sights and sounds of Heavy Breathing (former Apes), Hidden Twin (Phil from Modey Lemon in from Pittsburgh), DJ Jim AND projections by Ryan Hill and other surprise guests.

Civilian Art Projects
1019 Seventh Street NW, Second Floor
202.607.3804

Bye Bye, Kelsey Gardens

CityPaper has the scoop on the raze permits filed for the vacant Kelsey Gardens complex.  From what I've heard, this redevelopment project in the 1500 block of Seventh (dubbed Addison Square -- not sure if that name will stick or not) will move forward soon with a new party taking the lead.

With CityMarket, Kelsey Gardens, and Progression Place all in motion, the Seventh Street corridor is really going to be transformed.

Civilian Art Projects: Danielle de Picciotto Reading Saturday

This Saturday (August 13) at 6:00 pm, Civilian Art Projects is hosting a reading by Danielle de Picciotto. From the press release:

The Beauty of Transgression is Danielle de Picciotto's memoir of Berlin. The book brings together her accounts of musicians, fashion designers, and club owners as well as other artists and their milieus with unique first-hand descriptions of milestone places and events. It is not only a fascinating collection of stories about key individuals, but also gives an authentic and detailed overview of why Berlin has become one of the most appealing metropolises for creatives from around the world.

Danielle de Picciotto's intimate text and personal selection of images penetrate through hype and commercialization and make The Beauty of Transgression a uniquely genuine documentation of the creative history of Berlin's underground. Danielle de Picciotto will be reading from her book on the 13th of August at Civilian Art Projects.

To underline the Berlin atmosphere she is portraying, film clips and photographs will be projected during the reading and her husband Alexander Hacke of the legendary German Band Einstürzende Neubauten will create live electronic soundscapes during the show.

Civilian Art Projects
1019 7th Street NW
202.607.3804
Hours: Wed-Thur-Sat 1-6pm

Civilian Art Projects Presents Dan Tague and Billy Friebele

This Friday (June 10, 2011) from 7 to 9 p.m., Civlian Art Projects will host an opening reception for its two new solo exhibitions, "The Kids Are Alright" by New Orleans-based Dan Tague and "New Loops" by Washington, DC-based artist Billy Friebele. The shows will be on view until July 23.

From the press releases:

"The Kids are Alright "
Dan Tague

New Orleanian Dan Tague is an artist and social justice advocate. Using a variety of media, techniques, and wordplay, Tague's work points to inadequacies in government policy toward education, environmental health, and financial reform. He incorporates dollar bills, screen prints, paintings, video, restored furniture, and propaganda poster art to create visual riddles and biting -- yet funny, and sometimes sad -- social commentary.

Installing artwork in a layout reminiscent of a classroom, Tague presents discrete works and editions including posters of U.S. Presidents distilled to facial hair; a Mobil oil sign screen-printed using oil from the Deep Water Horizon oil spill; deconstructed movie posters including the word "American"; and folded dollar bill pieces, some folded 100 times to create statements like "The Kids are Alright" (specially made for his show at Civilian) and "Lest we forget."

"New Loops"
Billy Friebele

For his first solo exhibition at Civilian, Billy Friebele will present three interrelated video projects; "Walking as Drawing," "Target Loop," and "Commute Loop" in the project space and The Entrance.

Exploring the spatial experience of contemporary culture, Friebele's works re-contextualize common notions of everyday public spaces and mundane routines. For "Commute Loop," the artist videotaped his lengthy daily commute to and from work for one year. Sections of the trek are sequenced into a time-lapse, looped, and mirrored on the wall, creating an endless journey of an all too familiar landscape. For "Target Loop," he attached a video camera and GPS unit to a shopping cart and traversed the aisles looking for a birthday present. For "Walking as Drawing," an on-going project the artist creates in varying locations, he invites participants to take a dérive walk within a contained space, and tracks their movements. He then color-codes and animates their paths to make a time-based collaborative drawing.

Civilian Art Projects
1019 7th Street NW
202.607.3804
Hours: Wed-Thur-Sat 1-6pm

Artist Talk at Civilian Art Projects Friday

Tomorrow (May 27) from 6:30 to 8:30, Civilian Art Projects will host an artist talk with Patrick McDonough. From the press release:

Join us for a talk with Patrick McDonough about "Opening Act," his exhibition in "The Entrance" at Civilian Art Projects.

Patrick launched our new project space with four discrete, interrelated projects on the topic of fan behavior. The pieces include: an accent wall painted to match the digital color hex hue corresponding to two Soundgarden's song titles from the "Ultramega OK" album; a handmade birdhouse based on the Smart Stud...ios building (in the artist's hometown) where sound engineer Butch Vig mixed albums by Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, and many others; a sound piece reversing the audio from an episode of Bob Ross' Joy of Painting, embodying the back-masking purportedly used by bands to subliminally influence listeners; and, a tattoo piece featuring lyrics from the band The Hold Steady tattooed on the artist back.

The exhibition closes on May 28th.

Civilian Art Projects
1019 7th Street NW
202.607.3804
Hours: Wed-Thur-Sat 1-6pm

Civilian Art Projects Presents Terri Weifenbach and Trevor Young

Two new shows open at Civilian Art Projects this Friday (April 22) with a reception from 7-9 pm. The shows will be on view until June 4.

From the press release:

Civilian Art Projects is pleased to present two solo exhibitions: Woods II, new work by photographer Terri Weifenbach, and "Thrust," new painting by Trevor Young.

Terri Weifenbach

Woods II

Terri Weifenbach's second solo exhibition with the gallery continues the Woods project with twenty-one large and small scale images from within the autumn and winter woods of the DC metro area.

Before she picked up her Leica camera 33 years ago, Weifenbach was first trained as a painter. According to the artist, she has always been drawn to the layering of surface and the sumptuous accumulation of material found in painting.

On occasion, she has contemplated Cecily Brown's brushstroke with deep understanding and curiosity. It is no surprise, then, that Weifenbach's photographic work embraces the tactile nature of non-photographic mediums. She understands the limits of photographic technology and, through focus, metering, depth of field, vantage point, film selection, printing strategies, and other more intuitive decisions, plays with and pushes them.

She is, in short, a master of her craft; and her selection of what may seem a familiar scene of a walk in the woods is transformed through her skill into a deeper examination of space, palette, and the growth and morphing of nature. These are not accidental shots.

Just as a painter cannot make a single brushstroke and call the work complete, Weifenbach cannot click a shutter and call it a photograph. Photographic projects of this nature take months, years; perhaps even a lifetime. One image lends weight and strength to the next, but each must be able to hold it's own as a work of art.

Trevor Young

Thrust

Civilian Art Projects is pleased to announce Thrust, new paintings by Trevor Young, his second solo exhibition with the gallery. Thrust is an installation of three paintings by Young inspired by airports, continuing his research of the French anthropologist Marc Augé coined term "non-places." Non-places are spaces that we use or pass through, on the way to other places, but to which no one really belongs. They are not often places of real comfort and exchange.

Young is drawn to places such as glowing gas stations, complex highway overpasses, lonely cash machines, and airports including the runway and the plane itself. These new large-scale paintings consider the way humans interconnect and assign meaning. Young sees these non-places as providing comfort and beauty through their familiarity and transience, commenting on our continual evolution and movement to and away from intimate connection and communication. No longer is the non-place something to pass through, or something lonely, it is something to behold.

The subject matter is enthralling to the artist, considered into paintings depicting strength, vigor, and an almost a spiritual worship of the built world. But it is the nature of his medium that brings him to paint non-places. According to Young, "painting is an awkward medium that shows the human hand and imagination. It is the challenge of painting that brings me to paint these concrete roads and shiny surfaces. I am interested in making these lonely places fill with atmosphere. To that end, I rework an area over and over to create the space and the surface. And then I go back into the painting, many times, to develop the mystery and wonder."

Civilian Art Projects
1019 Seventh Street NW, Second Floor
202.607.3804

Civilian Art Projects Hosts Artist Talk Saturday

Civilian Art Projects will host a talk with Baltimore-based artist Seth Adelsberger this Saturday (April 9) at 4pm. Adelsberger will discuss his exhibition, "Bordering on Painting" currently on view at the gallery.

Artist talks are the best way to dialogue one on one with the artist and learn more about technique, ideas, and opinions on art and artmaking.

Civilian Art Projects
1019 Seventh Street NW, Second Floor
202.607.3804

Civilian Art Projects Launches "The Entrance" with "Opening Act" Friday

This Friday (March 25) from 7 to 9 pm, Civilian Art Projects will host an opening reception for its latest show of works, "Opening Act" by Patrick McDonough. The show will be in a new space for Cilvilian Arts at 1019 Seventh dubbed "The Entrance" and will run from Friday through May 28.

From the press release:

Civilian Art Projects announces Patrick McDonough's exhibition "Opening Act" in "The Entrance," our new project space at 1019 7th Street.

Vinyl Record by Patrick McDonough

Utilizing all of the square footage of the 1019 space on 7th Street, Civilian excitedly launches a site-specific project space called "The Entrance." Literally the entrance of 1019, the space lends itself to installation-based projects including sound, video, and other concept based, metamorphosing opportunities for artists to experiment and unveil new work to the community for an extended period of time. Seeking to host up to four projects a year, each exhibition will be on view for at least two months.

Civilian launches "The Entrance" with "Opening Act," new work by Patrick McDonough, a recent MFA graduate of George Washington University whose work has made a splash at Flashpoint Gallery and many other places in recent years.

For the exhibition, McDonough creates four discrete, yet interrelated projects on the topic of fan behavior. The pieces include: an accent wall painted to match the digital color hex hue corresponding to two Soundgarden's song titles from the "Ultramega OK" album; a handmade birdhouse based on the Smart Studios building (in the artist's hometown) where sound engineer Butch Vig mixed albums by Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, and many others; a sound piece reversing the audio from an episode of Bob Ross' Joy of Painting, embodying the back-masking purportedly used by bands to subliminally influence listeners; and, a tattoo piece featuring lyrics from the band The Hold Steady tattooed on the artist's back.

According to the artist, "these pieces deal in issues of fan behavior, relationships between music and art production, decoration, sites of creative invention, class, accessible custom culture, free time, use value, and interactions between artists and their audiences and supporters. Below the surface this exhibition furthers my investigation into who art is for, what art is and does, and what it can and should be about."

Civilian Art Projects
1019 Seventh Street, Northwest
202.607.3804

Apartment Building Proposed for Seventh and R

One of the items that caught my eye on the agenda for the January 5, 2010 ANC2C meeting is "Lincoln Westmoreland Housing/WMATA, BZA Application 18182: requesting zoning relief for the construction of a new apartment building at 1710 7th Street, NW (2C01)."  Washington City Paper's Housing Complex has the story, with images, about the proposal.  City Paper reports the building "will replace a decked-over parking lot, have retail on the ground floor, and still leave some green space for a sculpture installation. . . . . According to a representative of the non-profit developer, some of the needed capital will come from low-income housing tax credits, which means the units would likely be priced to be affordable for people making 60 percent of the area median income."

 

James Beard Semi-Finalist Among Us

Derek Brown of The Passenger is a semi-finalist in the running for a James Beard Foundation award for "Outstanding Wine And Spirits Program." A full list of semi-finalists in all categories is available in PDF format here. The nominees will be narrowed to five finalists in each category by March 22. The awards will be given out in a New York city ceremony May 3.

Congrats, Derek! You make us proud (and thirsty!)!


The Passenger
1021 Seventh Street, Northwest
202.393.0220

Bar 7 Coming to Seventh Street

Last summer, I reported about a bar named "Wired" coming to 1015 1/2 Seventh Street, Northwest. Since then, I have not seen or heard of much to report. Yesterday, however, the Prince of Petworth posted an update, with pictures, showing that the bar appears to be nearing opening. No longer to be called Wired, "Bar 7" will soon add to the area's nightlife options.

DCist Reports Renovation, Gallery Coming to Seventh Street

According to DCist:

This week in Gallery Musical Chairs, Civilian Art Projects is moving to the Warehouse Arts Complex. . . . [C]elebrate Civilian's haul up 7th Street to Warehouse starting November 1. They'll be located on the first floor, until the second floor is finished being renovated in 2010, while the third floor will be artist studios managed by Civilian. In the meantime, join them Friday at Modern in Georgetown for a happy hour fundraiser for Civilian's Production Fund, a non-profit venture to provide micro-grants to artists, 6 to 9 p.m., or Saturday at the gallery for an artist's talk with Cara Ober, 6 to 8 p.m.

Civilian Arts will be a great addition to the arts scene around the convention center!

Warrenton Plaza Added to the Real Estate Development in Shaw Link

As a newcomer to Shaw, what’s old news to some is often news to me. Such may be the case regarding Warrenton Plaza, a new mixed use project coming to the corner of 7th and Q (1547 7th Street, to be exact). The project will include over nine residential units plus retail space. According to the Warrenton Group's Website, Warrenton Plaza will be a “Gut Renovation/New Construction” of the existing arts and crafts building and will feature “rooftop decks, industrial kitchens, exposed ducts, concrete floors and counters.” The website states that the project is waiting zoning approval. The architect for the project, Bonstra Haresign, has designed several recognizable, impressive projects in D.C., such as Q14.

I added this project to the Real Estate Development in Shaw link under the Shaw Resource Center to the right.

For more information, contact The Warrenton Group
email: info@warrentongroup.com
telephone: 202.234.1733