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Arts in Foggy Bottom, Washington’s award-winning public art program, presents Absence & Presence, its sixth Arts in Foggy Bottom Outdoor Sculpture Biennial, from Saturday, April 28 through Saturday, October 27. The exhibition, co-curated by internationally recognized Washington area-based artists Helen Frederick and Peter Winant, will feature contemporary sculptures—many of which are site-responsive—by 15 emerging and established local and regional artists. In cooperation with neighborhood homeowners, all sculptures will be displayed in front of private homes throughout the Foggy Bottom Historic District between 24th and 26th Streets NW, and H and K Streets NW. The six-month exhibition is free and open to the public.
Inspired by the rich history of the Foggy Bottom Historic District and stories of its residents, Absence & Presence explores what we can see and not see, what is visible and invisible. Through sculpture, the artists will tell their own stories and unite the seen and unseen while exploring what exists now and what may in the future.
“Absence and presence are inextricably linked. One cannot exist without the other. We see it in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood, we see it in the sculpture,” says Frederick and Winant. “We hope that their juxtaposition affirms meaningful feelings and thoughts within the visitor, as well as raises questions about those same feelings and thoughts.”
Absence & Presence will feature works by the following artists: Adam Bradley, David Brooks, Brian Dailey, Emily Fussner, Erwin Timmers, Jeremy Thomas Kunkel, John Ruppert, Linda DePalma, Lisa Scheer, Melissa Hill, Nancy Sausser, Nehemiah Dixon, Richard Lew, Sean Hennessey, and Valerie Theberge.
Frederick and Winant will lead a free opening day tour of the exhibition Saturday, April 28 at 4 p.m. The tour will begin in front of the yellow house on 842 New Hampshire Ave. NW and will be followed by a 5:30 p.m. reception at the Watergate Gallery (2552 Virginia Ave. NW). The reception will feature works for sale by select Absence & Presence artists.
In addition to the opening day tour, Arts in Foggy Bottom will host free curator and artist-led tours throughout the course of the six-month exhibition. Visitors are also encouraged to tour the exhibition at their convenience. Self-guided tour brochures will be located at each sculpture site in addition to downloadable programs on the Arts in Foggy Bottom website.
For more information about Absence & Presence, the 2018 Arts in Foggy Bottom Outdoor Sculpture Biennial, and to view photographs from past shows, visit artsinfoggybottom.com.
ABOUT HELEN FREDERICK, ABSENCE & PRESENCE CURATOR
Helen Frederick is recognized as a distinguished artist, curator, educator, and coordinator of international projects. She founded Pyramid Atlantic and served as its director for 28 years. As an advocate for and an active participant in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area arts scene, Frederick has served on the directorial boards of alternative art spaces, various local and national boards and national peer-review panels. Her work has been exhibited at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, Japan, and is in collections of the Whitney Museum and Brooklyn Museum in New York, the National Gallery of Art and Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., among many others. Frederick as Professor Emeritus in the School of Art at George Mason University has fulfilled speaking engagements around the world with the emphasis of collaboration across disciplines.
ABOUT PETER WINANT, ABSENCE & PRESENCE CURATOR
Peter Winant is a recognized sculptor who works on individual projects and in collaboration with other artists. For twenty years, as a founding member of the collaborative group, Workingman Collective, and as a core member of the group, Art Attack, he has engaged in making pieces that question the domain and currency of personal authorship, the context of location and the creative process. The groups’ works have been commissioned/exhibited/performed and intervened in settings as diverse as PS.1, Artist’s Space, parking lots, abandoned houses and public spaces, and in public and alternative galleries and spaces in Berlin, Prague, Slovakia, Marseilles, Warsaw, Krakow, Chicago, Washington, New York, the US Embassy in Liberia, Butte Montana, and the North Carolina Museum of Art. Winant currently serves as the Director of the School of Art at George Mason University. Since 2006, he has reviewed Washington area fine art exhibitions as a panelist on public television station WETA’s Around Town.
ABOUT ARTS IN FOGGY BOTTOM
Founded in 2007 by Foggy Bottom residents Jackie Lemire, Jill Nevius and Mary Kay Shaw, Arts in Foggy Bottom sponsors outdoor sculpture exhibitions in the Foggy Bottom Historic District of Washington, D.C. on a biennial basis. Its mission is to foster creativity and community dialogue by serving as a conduit for expression through the arts and providing exhibition space to emerging and established artists. Seven works have become a permanent part of the neighborhood since the first Arts in Foggy Bottom Outdoor Sculpture Biennial in 2008. In 2009, Arts in Foggy Bottom was the recipient of the District of Columbia Mayor’s Arts Award for Innovation in the Arts. Arts in Foggy Bottom is supported by the Foggy Bottom Defense and Improvement Corporation.
