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





Shaw Art Walk: The Convention Center and Beyond

Mark your calendars: on Wednesday, February 8, six Shaw galleries will host open houses and the Convention Center will offer a rare evening guided tour of its extensive art collection!  View the press release here and RSVP/share on Facebook here.

Below are the details:

A night of arts including a tour of the Convention Center’s art collection and open houses at six galleries

(Washington, DC) Today, Shaw Main Streets, Events DC, and ANC2C04 Commissioner Rachelle Nigro announced they will host the inaugural “Shaw Art Walk,” a rare evening tour of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center’s extensive art collection and open houses at six notable galleries. This special event will take place on Wednesday, February 8th beginning at 6:30 p.m.

Ralph Brabham, President of the Board of Directors of Shaw Main Streets, noted “Shaw is the epicenter of arts in Washington, DC. Anchored by the Walter E. Washington Convention Center – which boasts the largest public art collection in D.C. – numerous galleries opened in the historic neighborhood in the past decade, all within walking distance of one another. This evening will be a celebration of our rich cultural resources.”

The galleries include Civilian Art Projects (1019 7th St., NW), Contemporary Wing (1250 9th St., NW), Lamont Bishop Gallery (1314 9th St., NW), Long View Gallery (1234 9th St., NW), Maruka Gallery and Boutique (1300 9th St., NW), and Touchstone Gallery (901 New York Ave., NW). Galleries will remain open until 9 p.m. for the Shaw Art Walk. Maps and descriptions of the galleries’ shows will be available at each gallery and at the conclusion of the Convention Center tour.

The Convention Center tour will start from the Mount Vernon Square entrance to the Convention Center and will last approximately one hour. The tour will start promptly at 6:30 p.m., and participants are encouraged to arrive at the Convention Center at 6:15 p.m.

Following the event at 9 p.m., participants are encouraged to enjoy the art of the cocktail at The Passenger which is located at 1021 7th St., NW.

This will likely be the first of many Shaw Art Walk nights.

Shaw Art Walk: The Convention Center and Beyond

6:15 - Convention Center Art Collection Tour (Meet at the Mount Vernon Square Entrance to the Convention Center)

6 to 9 p.m. - Open House at Galleries

9:00 p.m. - After-Party at The Passenger

Facebook Event Page

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

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