Gettin' Brain: A New York Times reporter takes Bluebrain's "location-aware" Central Park app for a spin.

We Already Knew This, But: DCist commenters deem the site's freshly hired associate editor, Washington City Paper contributor Benjamin R. Freed, totally sketchy.

Downbeat: Capital Bop weighs in on the Kennedy Center's new jazz advisor, Jason Moran.

Today on Arts Desk: More on Wolf Trap Foundation president Terrence Jones' impending departure, plus all the juicy contents of this week's new issue, out today in boxes!

Earlier this week, DCist reported that Artomatic organizers have been scouting Hine Junior High School at 7th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue SE as a possible location for the gargantuan, uncurated exhibition this fall. Rebecca Stone Gordon, a member of the board of directors for AoM, partially squashed the rumor in the comments section: In all likelihood, she wrote, the next Artomatic won't happen until 2011.

Chatting with Arts Desk today, she gave a few reasons: Even after a building is found, it takes months to nail down lease agreements and relaunch the website, and for artists to complete the registration process. So far, no building has been found, though several are under review, including Hine.

Currently, Artomatic's board is dealing with what could be seen as identity issues. The show started as a smaller cluster of artists exhibiting in a laundromat in 1999, and in the 10 years since it has mushroomed into a 501(c)(3) juggernaut of 1000 artists exhibiting in a massive space. The show has moved from a biennial to an annual, and in recent years has become a sophisticated pop-up operation—even as the people who help it run electricity, build partitions, and keep the show running are unpaid.

Because of Artomatic's increasingly elaborate needs, the cost for participation has gone up, moving the event out of reach for some participants, a fact Gordon says she laments. Artomatic won't be able to reduce prices anytime in the future, but its board is hoping to keep them at current levels. That's why a place like Hine is of interest: The space will have fewer associated costs because the electricity is wired, there are ready-made places to hang work, and the plumbing offers few mysteries.

So, should we breathe a sigh of relief, or of disappointment? It's easy to unload on the copious amounts of schlock Artomatic exhibits each year. Since Duchamp exhibited a urinal in 1917, the question of what constitutes worthwhile art at an uncurated, come-one-come-all exhibition gives critics plenty to ponder, and Artomatic is no exception.

Gordon has a special place in her heart for such criticism. "It means that we have so engaged them that we have done something right," she says. "We have caused them to expend a lot of energy thinking about this art." She recalls fondly the night in 2004 when people came in droves, in heavy rain, to see the exhibition following a disparaging critique by Blake Gopnik.

To declare Artomatic a sprawling display of schlock that has all the personality of a dormitory (minus the scent of incense and the aggravation of sexile) is easy. On the other hand, what a sprawling display of schlock! The fabulous thing about Artomatic is this: It creates a community in which hundreds of people, trained and untrained artists alike, work together. Given Mera Rubell's observation that artists in D.C. are isolated, any sort of community-minded art show, frenzied or otherwise, is welcome.

If it takes until 2011, that's OK. For the sake of volunteers, a biennial schedule may be a good thing. As for audiences: We can wait a little longer to cheer and jeer.

Artomatic 2009, courtesy Vincent Gallegos

“Shoshone Falls, Snake River, Idaho, View Across the Top of the Falls, 1874" by Timothy O'Sullivan from "Framing the West: The Survey Photographs of Timothy H. O’Sullivan” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

OPENING: "I Dream Awake" opens today as part of Pop-up Project; photographs by John Brown open tomorrow at Cross Mackenzie Gallery; work by Craig A. Kraft opens tomorrow at Osuna Art; "Pentimenti: After the Flood" opens Saturday at AU's Katzen Arts Center.

CLOSING: Work by Craig Kraft closes tomorrow at Washington Sculptors Group; "Roads and Paths" closes tomorrow at Goethe-Institut; "Go for the Gold!" closes Saturday at Civilian Arts Projects; "On/Off the Grid" closes Saturday at Irvine Contemporary; "Women in Art" closes Sunday at Del Ray Artisans Gallery; "The DCist Exposed Photography Show" closes Sunday at Long View Gallery.

ONGOING: See our listings.

THIS WEEK'S REVIEWS AFTER THE JUMP:

The Phillips Collection plays host to "Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction," an exhibit of the artist best known for painting what she calls flowers, and, well, the rest of us call vaginas. Though Georgia O'Keeffe always maintained that audiences were projecting their own erotic thoughts onto her benign work, there is no denying the sexuality of the photographs taken by Alfred Stieglitz, O'Keeffe's lover and mentor, on display with the rest of the collection at Phillips. "Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction" allows observers to look at the range of O'Keeffe's work, ranging from Stieglitz's racy boudoir shots to geometrically chaste work like Sky Above Clouds III/Above the Clouds III. Read critic Maura Judkis's review here.

While D.C.'s museums and galleries have no shortage of snaps from professional photographers, some of the entries in the 9th annual International Photography Competition at Bethesda's Fraser Gallery prove that amateur and semiprofessional photography is a force to be reckoned with. While some pictures tend to pay respect to the professional photographs that came before them, others offer a new perspective, such as Edward Hahn's photo of a small dock floating in calm waters. Some of the artists use digital manipulation to great success, while others do just as well playing it straight, like David Orbock's portrait of the Lincoln Memorial. The amateur entrants' works at Fraser span countries and range from landscape images to photos of circus performers. To read Louis Jacobson's review, go here.

Wide-set, sepia-toned images of barely settled Western lands are not uncommon to find in this day and age, but Timothy O'Sullivan, largely overlooked until the 1970s (nearly 100 years after his death) is considered one of the best photographers of the discipline. Referred to as "the most experienced expeditionary photographer in the country" by historian Beaumont Newhall in The History of Photography, O'Sullivan took risks photographing in mines, capturing images of dead people during battle, and using a wet-plate photographic process. The exhibit showcases the extent of O'Sullivan's photographic range, displaying everything from shots of large geological formations to soldiers lying dead in fields during the Civil War, but doesn't give much explanation as to how one interest led to the other. Though he was not well known during his own life, the Smithsonian American Art Museum's O'Sullivan exhibit is a fascinating, albeit incomplete look at one of the finest photographers of 1800s Americana. To read Louis Jacobson's review, head here.

But this point was sorta dead on:

"Sure, 30 years ago DC had Bad Brains and Minor Threat, and today it still has, uh, Ian Svenonius (the Sassiest Boy in America!), but the intervening years have gentrified the hell out of a quarter of the city proper and kept the rest in abject urban poverty, more or less. Not a great recipe for 'cool'!"

Except, last time I checked New York was gentrifying the hell out of its grid. The last time I checked, the most influential band in Brooklyn doesn't reside there. No, that band's early albums were put out by a guy who lives in D.C. and its members grew up around here. That band is called Animal Collective. We really like Animal Collective.

I dig the writer's interest in fighting economic inequality. But if the writer really cared about "abject urban poverty," what the hell is he doing blogging for Gawker? It's not like that job really sticks it to the Man. I might be wrong, but Gawker hasn't exactly turned into Human Rights Watch or hired a renowned sociologist to write engaging narratives about urban poverty.

And New York didn't invent go-go. I'm shocked the writer didn't at least give it a mention! Anyway, all this ranting is just an excuse to post this Junkyard video from 1985. I discovered this video at the Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum (which I sort of critiqued a while ago).

But last Thursday local blog DCist acquired and published an e-mail that Gypsy Eyes had privately circulated to its artists stating that it was "time to shutter" the label and that the musicians were being released from any contractual obligations. In other words, it's the bitter end.

When contacted for comment Tifford stated that Gypsy Eyes wasn't entirely through–it's just through putting out records. "We are still pitching tracks for licensing, still doing shows, and will still be fulfilling mail orders. We just are not actively doing anything to help promote our bands as we just don’t have the money," said Tifford. "As a result of that, I can’t in good conscience pretend that we are doing anything for our bands and rather just let them go, give them the albums we have and wish them luck."

Tifford made it clear that the label's artists are still making music, even if Gypsy Eyes will no longer be putting that music out. "When that letter leaked–it just sheds a bad light because people will think that none of these guys [the bands] exist anymore," explained Tifford. "That's not true, they're all still doing things."

As for the decision, Tifford states that a number of factors were involved–including declining record sales, distribution woes, and the current state of the market. "We had been talking about it for a while, we had to look at the cold hard financials of it," he said. "We can't make the money, just flat out. Financially we all need to focus on things that are putting food on the table and paying the bills."

Obviously, this is disappointing news for the artists on the label's roster, but despite the leaked e-mail, Tifford says everybody has taken the news gracefully. "Everybody's supportive of it," said Tifford about the roster's reaction to the news. "They're like 'It sucks, but thanks for trying.'"