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18th Annual Critics' Residency Program

Critics’ Picks: SIX PLUS TWO

Amei Wallach: 18th Annual Critic in Residence
with participating writers: Blake De Pastino and Cathryn Keller

and participating artists: Seth Adelsberger, Laura Amussen, Anthony Cervino, Brandon Morse, Nora Sturges and Rebecca Weber

“Baltimore is … fortunate in the range and depth of its artists. It has the art schools that train and sustain an artists’ community… spaces in which artists can work, and which they can afford… a diverse number of galleries and exhibition venues. But in the current situation, artists who live here must, for the most part, make the decision that life and work choices outweigh career ambitions. It seems to be difficult to be noticed in the wider world if you live in Baltimore… There are two important kinds of people who can change that situation: good writers and great collectors.

…Look at Miami, Florida. In the past five years, Miami has become a magnet for young artists. It has everything that Baltimore has (with the addition of winter sun, of course, but that has never been a particularly necessary ingredient in the making of an artistic center). But Miami also has writers who are capable of getting national attention… Miami writers began writing articles about the art scene … and newspapers like The New York Times noticed. That’s how it happens.”   
Amei Wallach, Maryland Art Place’s 18th Annual Critic in Residence

Baltimore, MD – Seldom are artists and writers provided essential guidance of how individuals and communities can transform the challenges artists face when living in regions outside major national and international contemporary art markets. Yet, during recent months, as part of the longstanding and innovative Critics’ Residency Program at Maryland Art Place, a group of writers and artists have focused on creating dynamic new works and then spreading the word about it via a published catalogue. Since September 2003, Amei Wallach, a prominent New York art critic has been working behind the scenes to mentor and further the careers of two Maryland-area writers and six area artists.  Last summer, Wallach, the 18th Annual Critic in Residence at Maryland Art Place, selected writers Blake De Pastino (Takoma Park, MD) and Cathryn Keller (Washington, DC) to write critical essays on diverse new works byartists selected by Wallach from a large field of applicants. These six Maryland artists (from Baltimore: Seth Adelsberger, Laura Amussen, Anthony Cervino, Nora Sturges and Rebecca Weber; and from Takoma Park, Brandon Morse) represent the best of a strong field of applicants showing (in Wallach’s words) that our area “is fecund soil for the maturation of art and artists.”

MAP’s’ innovative residency program was designed to promote the work of area writers and artists, while advancing their careers and providing artists, writers and audiences with a venue and forum to address critical issues of contemporary art. Critic Sarah Tanguy recently reflected on her participation as a Critics’ Residency writer in the early 1990s, commenting, “it was really helpful in launching my career as a critic.”

Each year, the program culminates with an exhibition of selected artists, on view this year from March 23 to April 17. An essential element of this program is the Public Forum, which includes Critics’ Residency participants, and will take place on March 27, from 2-4pm, followed by a reception from 4-6:00pm. This event is free and encourages the public to join program participants in a discussion about issues relevant to contemporary art. In addition, the exhibition was documented by the publication of an exhibition catalogue designed to make the exhibition more accessible to local and national audiences.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS:
Critic in Residence Amei Wallach was born in New York where she has worked as an art critic throughout a noted career. In addition to working as a full time critic published (among others) in the New York Times, Art in America , Smithsonian Magazine, The Nation, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest and ArtNews, Wallach is now the director of public programs for the Aperture Foundation and curator of a series of panels on spirituality and art for the 92nd Street Y. She is President Emeritus of the International Association of Art Critics/USA. Wallach’s books include the first monograph on Ilya Kabakov: The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away (Abrams, 1996) and Reflections on Nature: Paintings by Joseph Raphael (Abbeville, 1997). She is currently completing a feature film on the life and work of Louise Bourgeois with the filmmaker Marion Cajori, which will debut in Zurich and NY.

In the spring of 2000, Wallach organized a panel of artists who deal with issues of spirituality in their work, in conjunction with the Henry R. Luce Foundation’s seven-year exploration of the intersection of art and religion in American life. She contributed to the resulting book, Crossroads: Art and the Public Sphere (New Press, Spring 2001), and chaired the panel introducing the book.

Wallach comments on art for television and radio in the USA and Europe, and for many years was the on-air art essayist on the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour and chief art critic for Newsday and New York Newsday. She is also a member of the board of CEC International Partners, which sponsors cultural and artistic exchanges between the United States and former eastern bloc countries, in addition to having been twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Seth Adelsberger currently resides in Hampden, working out of his basement studio, not far from his childhood home of Emmitsburg, a small town in northern Maryland. As a painter, his formative years began at Towson University, where he graduated in 2002. Adelsberger’s work has been exhibited in galleries in Baltimore as well as the surrounding region. On the national level, his work was recently featured in The Open Studios Press publication, New American Paintings and was included in National Drawing 2004 at The College of New Jersey.

Laura Amussen was born in Auburn, CA in 1973, and in 2002, Amussen received a BS degree from Towson State University. Amussen’s work has been included in several juried exhibitions in galleries throughout the mid-Atlantic region and Hawaii, and has been featured and reviewed in many publications, including Sculpture Magazine, The New York Times, City Paper, The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Magazine, and The Washington Post. Amussen has an upcoming solo exhibition at the Artemis Gallery in Seattle, WA.

Anthony Cervino began his undergraduate work as a veterinary science student for three years at Penn-sylvania State University, before transferring to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC where he received a BFA in 1997. Cervino moved to Baltimore in 1999, and was the Assistant Director of Exhibitions at the Maryland Institute College of Art and in 2003 received his MFA from Towson State University. Currently, Cervino is producing a site-specific sculpture commissioned by John Hopkins University for their upcoming Sculpture at Evergreen Biennial.

Brandon Morse was born in Arlington, Texas and grew up in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, before coming to teach Digital Media at the University of Maryland, College Park in 2000. Morse has exhibited both nationally and internationally at film festivals, animation festivals, galleries, and on the Internet, and received awards for digital artwork from the 14th Annual Multimedia Festival, presented by the Multimedia Content Association of Japan and the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, and from the CG Grand Prix ’99 in Aizu, Japan.

Nora Sturges uses imaginary events from the adventurer Marco Polo’s travels to explore ideas of xenophobia, tourism, exoticism and cultural difference. She studied at Temple University in Tokyo, Japan during the summer of 1988, and later received her BA in 1990 from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME. Sturges received a MFA from Ohio University in Athens, OH in 1992. She has has participated in numerous exhibitions throughout the nation. Sturges currently lives in Baltimore, MD where she teaches at Towson University.

Rebecca Weber traveled widely as a child to Haiti, Europe and throughout the US assisting her father in humanitarian work, and in 1994, she assumed ownership of Sheppard Art Gallery in Ellicott City, MD. Weber has curated over twenty exhibitions of contemporary realist painting, photography and sculpture. She currently resides in Baltimore with her ten-year-old daughter, while pursuing continuing studies at the Maryland Institute College of Art and the Art Student's League of New York City.

PARTICIPATING WRITERS:
Blake de Pastino has worked as an Editor and reporter in the alternative press for eight years, mostly focused on covering the arts and popular culture. De Pastino served as managing editor, arts editor, and/or editor-in-chief of alternative newsweeklies in Montana, Arizona and New Mexico, and currently is the arts editor of the Baltimore City Paper. In 2004, he received the A. D. Emmart Award, presented to one Maryland writer each year for excellence in journalism in the humanities. De Pastino lives in Takoma Park, MD.

Cathryn Keller currently lives in Washington, DC where she writes fiction, hopes to establish herself as an art reviewer for the Washington-Baltimore area, and heads museum communications for The Phillips Collection. On the Ground, her collection of stories set in the contemporary Middle East, was a 2001 finalist for the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. Her review of Douglas Gordon at the Hirschhorn Museum, Washington, DC is forthcoming in the quarterly publication, Curator, The Museum Journal.

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Maryland Art Place (MAP) is a non-profit center for contemporary art established in 1981 to: develop and maintain a dynamic environment for regional artists to exhibit their work, nurture and promote new ideas and new forms, and facilitate rewarding exchanges between artists and the public through educational leadership. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11am to 5pm. There is no admission charge to enter the gallery.  For more details, please contact MAP’s Director of Programs, Lisa Lewenz at 410.962.8565 or llewenz@mdartplace.org

Mercantile Bank & Trust is a proud sponsor of the 2003-2004 Critics’ Residency Program.