3 NEW SHOWS OPENING AT ART ENABLES!

November 9, 5 – 7 p.m.*

Our final opening reception of 2024 will celebrate three exciting new exhibitions:

- “sudden spoon, a rosy charm,” a playful group show inspired by Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons, including artists from around the country

- “ALIAS” a larger-than-life, abstract sculpture show by Art Enables artists produced in collaboration with visiting artist James Huckenpahler 

- and "Knowing Me, Knowing You,” a beautiful studio gallery show guest-curated by Amanda Jirón-Murphy

Please join us in celebrating incredible artists both with and without disabilities! We'll have temporary shape tattoos designed by our "ALIAS" artists and a playlist of Dada-related music in honor of Gertrude Stein and "sudden spoon, a rosy charm." Treats and refreshments will also be on offer. More info about each exhibition below.

*Please note: Art Enables will be closed prior to the reception on 11/9, opening for visitors at 5 pm.

sudden spoon, a rosy charm

a group show inspired by Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons

November 9, 2024 - January 25, 2025

Gertrude Stein's experimental 1914 book of poems, Tender Buttons, contains short, descriptive vignettes composed of surprising verbal juxtapositions aimed to shift our perception of mundane subjects. The writing subverts the familiar, rendering ordinary subjects surprising and alien.  Like the book, the group exhibition "sudden spoon, a rosy charm" borrows the categories "ROOMS," "OBJECTS,” and "FOOD" as a jumping-off point for organizing its subjects, and considers how the placement of works near each other can change our read of them. Unlike the book, the exhibition also leans on how multiple artists' varied styles and interpretations can do the same. 

We are proud to showcase talented artists from across the country in this exhibition, including some from other progressive studios, alongside our own resident artists: Jotina Ballard (PASC), Daniel Bauman, Jay Bird (Art Enables), Jaqueline Cedar, Marti Clark (Art Enables), Calvin “Sonny” Clarke (Art Enables), Jacqueline Coleman (Art Enables), Aaron Cunningham (North Pole Studio), Santina Dionisi (PASC), Lewis Foster (PASC), Mike Knox (Art Enables), Gracelee Lawrence, Helen Lewis (Art Enables), Keith Lewis (Art Enables), Ceej Maples (Art Enables), Matthew Mann, Alsendoe Owens (PASC), Lucy Picasso (Interact Center for the Visual and Performing Arts), Eileen Schofield (Art Enables), A.T. (Art Enables)

ALIAS

November 9, 2024 – January 25, 2025

"ALIAS" populates the gallery space with 12 large-scale, abstract sculptures that stand in for the personalities and artistic idiosyncrasies of their 12 makers. The sculptures - composed of layered and intersecting 2D shapes - sprung from a collaboration with artist and educator James Huckenpahler. Huckenpahler invited the artists to draw shapes that resonate with them, represent their personalities, or with which the artists feel a kinship. Designed by the artists as small paper maquettes, the sculptures were ultimately cut from cardboard on a CNC cutter at 12 times their original size. Sitting on the ground and suspended from the ceiling, the final works invite viewers to interact with them at the scale of the human body - or larger. Many works stretch as high or wide as 8 feet in a given direction. Encountering each sculpture in the gallery can feel like approaching a totem, monument, entity, or towering plant. Some have cloud-like, wiggly, or rounded personas, while others take more angular and architectural forms. In every case, the work intends to share some essence of the artist - each a playful, commanding alias to be met on its own terms.

Participating artists: A.T., Maurice Barnes, Jay Bird, Calvin “Sonny” Clarke, Toni Lane, Keith Lewis, Ceej Maples, Vanessa Monroe, Gillian Patterson, Dennis Quillin, Jamila Rahimi, Eileen Schofield

Heartfelt thanks to James Huckenpahler, Isaiah Aladejobi, and the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design at GW for their help and hard work bringing this project to life.

James Huckenpahler is an artist, educator, curator and lifelong Washingtonian. His laptop is his studio, and his practice firmly grounded in the digital realm. While contemporary technologies are generally considered a boon, his work encourages a critical assessment of the ways those tools can expand or limit our creative choices. He has taught extensively at The Corcoran School of Art and at George Washington University, and his work is represented in Washington DC by Hemphill Fine Arts.

Knowing Me, Knowing You

Curated by Amanda Jirón-Murphy

November 9 - December 21, 2024

This selection of artworks by the Art Enables resident artists hone in on not just their chosen subjects, but the essence of the thing that is being depicted. Through their canny use of color and medium, the Art Enables artists describe the nuanced ways their subjects feel, move and operate in the world.

A pair of water glasses have the weight and warble of water.

Portraits reveal a subject’s exuberance, or their pain.

Autumn leaves burn bright, and race cars are infused with their lightning-fast potential.

The works in “Knowing Me, Knowing You” reveal the artists’ acute sensitivity to the world while also showcasing their command of medium and confidence in creative vision. Through their work, the Art Enables artists communicate a vision of the world that is engaging, delightful, universal, and true.

Amanda Jirón-Murphy is an arts leader in Washington DC working on curatorial and artist advocacy projects. She is currently the Curator & Resident Artist/Collector Liaison at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Arlington. She holds a B.A. in Art History from John Cabot University in Rome, Italy and an M.A. in Modern and Contemporary Art and Connoisseurship from Christie's Education in London, England.