Art Calendar: N*des-of-the-Month April Contest

via MMD Newswire

New York, NY – March 31, 2008 – Barebrush.com, dedicated to the art of the n*de, announces the twentieth N*des-of-the-Month art calendar contest, April 2008. The contest continues at the website as five art works on the April calendar vie for the top award of N*de-of-the-Month.

Guest art curator, Michel Allen, director of the Allen Gallery in Chelsea, selected twelve artists for the n*des calendar from among 39 artists who submitted 474 "art of n*de" artworks to the contest: paintings, drawings photography, sculpture and mixed media. "It was a lot of fun," she said, "I especially enjoyed picking the top five [for the top contest awards]."

The artists represented for the April 2008 N*des-of-the-Month calendar are: Roger Cummiskey*, Donna Cleary, Donelli J. DiMaria, Charmaine Frost*, Guenter Knop, Lucinda Luvaas, Jen Mazza*, Jacqui Morgan, Emily Rich*, Jennie Rosenbaum, Chanit Roston, and Suhas Tavkar*. Asterisks(*) indicate artists nominated for the Curators Choice Awards.

About N*des-of-the-Month
The N*des-of-the-Month art calendar contest has been published at http://www.barebrush.com/ since 2006. The artwork for each calendar is selected by a different guest art professional. Winners of the Curators Choice Awards receive recognition and prizes. The contest to choose the N*de-of-the-Month continues at barebrush.com.

Barebrush.com is dedicated exclusively to the art of the n*de giving artists recognition for their work in this controversial art genre and helping them to connect with interested dealers and collectors.

See the press release at the Mass Media Distribution Newswire website, here.

Note for barebrush members and visitors:
We've streamlined our press release to get better responses based on advice from the PR firm. We've also changed the contest timing. Voting is open now. The April 2008 N*de of the Month will be announced May 1, 2008.

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N*de of the Month -- Updating an ancient tradition

Winning Painting with a Japanese Flavor

New York - barebrush.com announces the N*de of the Month, February 2008. The winning artwork is a large format Japanese brush drawing entitled Rice Paper Collection by Yukako who is currently currently working and living in NYC. The painting will grace the front page of the barebrush website for a month.

The February N*des-of-the-Month calendar was curated by Peter Scott, founder and director of SHAG in the Chelsea art district in New York City. Peter also selected the nominees for the Curators' Choice Awards. All previous barebrush curators were sent ballots to rank the selections. The poll opened for public voting on the nominees February 10th and closed March 15th. The winners are determined by a statistical combination of the curators and popular vote. All nominees receive complementary listings. First, second and third place are also awarded cash prizes. The results are below:



1st: Rice Paper Collection by Yukako


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2nd: Fortress by Judith Araujo-Volkmann


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3rd: 2 Figures in Abstraction by Emily Rich




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Honorable Mention: Nude at Rest #1 by Donelli J. DiMaria


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Honorable Mention: Luminous by Jennie Rosenbaum





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Congratulations All!

To see the February 2008 N*des-of-the-Month calendar and further details, click here.

To see the archives and all the barebrush curators, click here



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Art 'Round Town says censorship led to cancellation

By ROEL GARCIA and STEVE RALPH

hollandsenteniel.com
Holland, Michigan, USA

Organizers of Art 'Round Town decided against holding the event for an eighth year this summer in Saugatuck in part because of perceived censorship by the city.

Saugatuck city officials were surprised this week when they found out the event wouldn't take place.

"I'm saddened by it. I personally supported it," said Saugatuck Mayor Tony Vettori Friday afternoon.

A nude 3-foot tall statue of a toddler writing "Who's Responsible Here?" onto a wooden board may be to blame for the event's demise.

City council members voted 4-3 to move the statue away from the city hall area last summer, Vettori said.

Event co-founder Gayle Lipsig said this was a form of censorship.

"We didn't have council support. They censored the work. They took offense to the sculpture that was placed in front of city hall," she said.

"It was probably that misunderstanding that led to this," said Vettori.

Lipsig said the event helped the city.

"We've done this for seven years with very little cost to the city. ... This is all self-inflicted by the city of Saugatuck, as far as I'm concerned," she said.

Vettori said the city did what it could to help organizers.

"We paid for the insurance for the program. We provide labor to install the sculptures," Vettori said.

Vettori agreed the art event helped out Saugatuck, adding to the city's art image.

"It added culture to our community and it played its part in our local economy because people came to see the Art 'Round Town exhibit," he said.

To see the original article or write to the Holland Senteniel, click here.

If you write, be sure to tell them you read about it here on the Art News & Events blog of barebrush.com, dedicated to the art of the nude.


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News of the N*de from Vietnam

Self-censorship disappoints art gallery patrons, and encounters official ambivalence

Wither Calligraphy?

Thanh Nien News --www. thanhnien.com.
Thanh Nien is the tribune of Vietnam’s Youth Association, under the auspices of the Communist Party of Vietnam

A showcase of painting letters onto human bodies raises discussions about redefining the ancient handwriting art in Vietnam.

Themed as Chu va nguoi hoa nhap lam mot (Letters and humans unite), the opening of a calligraphy exhibition at Hanoi-based Maison des Arts last month found special characters adorning all surfaces of doors, walls, and ceilings inside the space.

Yet, the sight that most visitors had eagerly come to see - the showcase of calligraphy on human bodies - was underwhelming.

Semi-nude male models revealed only the upper-half of their bodies, while females remained dressed, wound up by 10-meterlong silk cloths.

The subjects were subsequently penned with letters while protected by such coverings.

A gallery representative named Ngoc said her art house did not aim to write directly on nude models since it was difficult to get permission from authorities....

From an official’s perspective, Head of the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism’s Department of Performing Arts Le Ngoc Cuong said, “We do not prohibit the showcase of calligraphy on either nude or semi-nude bodies; nonetheless, drawing or writing on human bodies is an inflexion of calligraphy, which is not the tradition of Vietnamese people.”

For more about writing on the n*de form in Vietnam and other parts of Asia, and to see the complete article, click here



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Call for Entries -- N*des-of-the-Month April 2008

Chelsea Gallery to Curate BAREBRUSH calendar # 20

Deadline Sunday, March 23. All visual artists are encouraged to submit art of the nude to the BAREBRUSH.com for selection by Michel Allen, director of the Allen Gallery in Chelsea for the April 2008 N*des-of-the-Month exhibition.



New York, NY – Mar. 4, 2008. BAREBRUSH.com announces today that Michel Allen, director of the Allen Gallery in the Chelsea art district of NYC, will select and curate the April 2008 N*des-of-the-Month virtual exhibition. The entry deadline for the April 2008 calendar is Sunday, March 23. Art must be uploaded to BAREBRUSH.com on or before Sunday, March 23 to be eligible for the April exhibition. Artists are strongly encouraged to upload their entries early and avoid being closed out due to overflow in the closing days of the contest.

About Allen Gallery and Michel Allen

Allen Gallery exhibits the work of emerging and mid career artists in a variety of media. The majority of the artists are New York based. The gallery opened December 2006 in New York's Chelsea art district. Allen Gallery has exhibited in, and worked with Kemble Interiors on 10 West End Avenue Showhouse, curated a show for Brunschwig & Fils in New York and Philadelphia, and most recently spoke at SVA’s Artist Talk on Art. Allen Gallery has had editorials in The Art Newspaper, House Beautiful and Chelsea Clinton News.

Director Michel Allen completed a Masters in Visual Art and Business Administration from NYU. Michel has a certificate in appraisals from NYU and has passed her USPAP exam. Before working at Allen Gallery, Michel worked at artnet.com, ART + AUCTION, and Sotheby's in trust and estates. While working in art publishing, Michel was an art consultant and represented several artists. Michel has been actively volunteering for Art In General since 2002, co-chairing the well known studio tours, and is on the committee for the 25th Anniversary benefit, http://www.artingeneral.org/.

When asked what she will be looking for when she selects the artwork for barebrush, Michel wrote,

I'm interested in figurative work that digresses from the traditional approach
and style of figurative painting...artists that entice the viewer by emphasizing
the curvature of the body and the sensuality of the figure and cause us to
examine the human body in a new light...also exposing the rawness of the human
figure.

"Michel Allen is both charming and dynamic and the Allen Gallery reflects her sense of style and the economics of the art market. I am really excited to announce her participation for the April 2008 N*des-of-the-Month calendar," says BAREBRUSH CEO Ilene Skeen. "Michel has a zest for the dramatic and an appreciation for the subtle. She was just recently interviewed by Crains Business Magazine about the economics of the current art market. She has a solid grounding on the businesss side, which continues our program of interesting a wide variety of art professionals in BAREBRUSH."

To see the complete call for entries and link to the Allen Gallery, click here

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