All's fair in love and war, and on this Valentine's Day, there's more war than love in fairs. The organizers behind artDC, an international art fair that had its inaugural run in April 2007, informed media today that this year's annual installment would be canceled "due to uncertainty in the current economic climate." (Read: It's not you, it's not me—it's the market.) The release noted that dozens of exhibitors had signed on to participate—indeed, both fair and galleries were pledged for three years, the run of time it typically takes to get an event like this off the ground and out of the red. Nevertheless, the release promised that "this decision has been made in the best interests of exhibitors." (Read: One day you'll see that this is really for the best.)

George Hemphill, director of Hemphill Fine Arts and a participator, was never told that the fair would be canceled. He says, however, that he's not surprised. "We participated in Art Chicago for several years"—whose director of eight years, Ilana Vardy, oversaw artDC—"and they refused to see the signs of a changing time in terms of art fairs," says Hemphill. "Their branding material remained the same for 10 years."

Hemphill explains that the fair failed to draw attendance from outside or inside the Beltway. "It's not [the fair's] fault, but there is not enough hotel space near the Convention Center. People are buying packages when they're coming for an art fair and they're not super-moneyed," he says, noting that museums often arrange deals for junior collectors to travel to fairs. He says that the fair started static by negotiating costs with dealers individually, not collectively, and adds that the charities associated with the fair (charities are to art fairs as remoras are to sharks) were all unknowns. Plus, there was no effort to reach out to the local collector base. "This is an extremely smart town, with people who understand---I don't mean this in a bad way---luxury living," he says. "If you don't respect them and cater to them in a way they're used to, you'll never get them." (Read: The signs were there all along.)

Problems like these, regarding the way that the fair approached the city of Washington, D.C., and its galleries, were the subject of an April 2007 arts feature. Losing money, though, was not on the list of problems. That was considered a feature, not a bug, of the inaugural version, on the theory that you have to spend money to make money. As Vardy wrote in e-mail just before the first fair, "Your question should be how much ArtDC expects to lose. The answer is hundreds of thousands."

Some dealers never saw this news coming. Rody Douzoglou, director of Douz and Mille and the curator of the new-media section at the first artDC fair, reportedly met with fair organizers last week to plan public art projects in coordination with the return of artDC. That meeting was at the request of artDC, and only in the last few days did they stop returning to Douzoglou, according to one source. (Read: Why didn't I see it coming?)

Hemphill says that there's still room for an art fair in D.C. "It's the last city in the United States in which you could roll in and expect to do well in the long haul"—a city in which income and education levels are high and the wealthy congregate in fairly dense, identifiable urban and suburban pockets. About this fair's failure, he says, "In truth, it might be a relief." (Read: There's always more fish in the sea.)

Left: Cara Ober. Right: Christine Bailey.

"Despite what the Baltimore Sun says, I am not angry about this any more," says Baltimore artist Cara Ober. She is the subject of a story on a Baltimore exhibit, one that sort of features her work. It's her work, all right, but by a different artist: Christine Bailey. For the show at 100 East Pratt Street in downtown Baltimore, Bailey made paintings that ape everything about Ober's unmistakable style.

"And I would be fine with this project if it had included 3 artists," says Ober, referring to Bailey's original vision for the show, in which she would style-check other artists, not just Ober. "And I would be fine with it if they had just named me from the start."

Now the Baltimore-based artist is fielding criticism from further afield: Blake Gopnik dismisses her in the Washington Post.

The newspaper's chief art critic, who writes a reported review of Bailey's show, discloses that his wife (artist Lucy Hogg) works with Christine Bailey. Bailey and Hogg are reportedly good friends, but never mind. Baltimore is a ways for a critic to travel who doesn't write the galleries beat. Not only is the show across the way, it's also not really a gallery show—Bailey's work is hung in the lobby of an office building.

By the Post's reporting, the show falls in line with the appropriation back-and-forth that's occupied artists for the better part of the twentieth century. (My favorite recent example is Jill Miller's mashup of Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott, John Baldessari, and herself, titled I Am Making Art, Too. This piece illustrates the way that appropriation almost always works: A younger artist samples a highly known piece by an established artist to make a point about practice, politics, or whatever. Appropriation is typically greeted as a sign of respect, a nod from teacher to student, and it tends to be more subtle, an Easter egg for critics on the lookout.)

Bailey's is a new escalation in a game of oneupmanship, Gopnik argues. Bailey and Ober are peers, both relatively unknown in the national context, and artists competing in the same market. That's something of a new commercial twist. In fact, there are a number of commercial twists in this show.

One is that it's hung in the lobby of an office building—a venue that's not adequate to the task of providing any historical or critical context for the show. Nor did Bailey and the exhibit's curator, Jordan Faye Block, make any effort to provide that context in explanatory text. The original text that hung with the show made no reference to Ober's work. In fact, it's arguable that Bailey obscured the fact.

“Combining imagery and text from various sources, including the web, pop culture, the urban environment and art history, the pictures are at once whimsical and melancholy,” the original press release reads. That sounds like Ober describing the work, not Bailey. Bailey didn't mention Ober at all—not even in a roundabout fashion—until Ober threatened legal action. (Block has since posted a "clarification," a revised statement in which Bailey writes that she "used the work of Ms. Ober, among others, as a point of reference" in pieces that adopted the notion of "designer replicas".)

"However much the paintings might look like Ober's," writes Gopnik, "Bailey isn't using that look to the same ends that Ober, or an Ober forger, would." If Bailey doesn't mention Ober—and if Bailey makes claims about the substance and not the situation of these paintings—how can this be true?

Another commercial angle: Block, who represents Bailey now, used to represent Ober.

"I did my first gallery show with [Block] when she was the director at Gallery Imperato—'Femme Effect Part Deux' in April 2006," Ober explains. "The Femme Effect show was during the height of the housing boom and she sold a good deal of my work. Like 16 pieces. Most were small and inexpensive. She even bought one for herself." Block left the gallery, but Ober stayed on. "I decided to stay with Gallery Imperato for professional reasons."

Block describes her own split with Gallery Imperato as "a philosophical difference in vision."

Ober's contract with Gallery Imperato allowed her to participate in group shows at other spaces (provided that the show included five artists or more). Ober says that Block pursued her, and she agreed to participate in two of Block's post-Imperato shows—curated independently under the mantle Jordan Faye Contemporary at various sites.

One of those shows was "Believe It: 14 Painters", a May 2007 show at the Creative Alliance at the Patterson in Baltimore, in which Block came in for some criticism for painting her gallery logo—a Tiffany box–blue outline of a square—on the gallery floor. Some, like commenters and contributors on Ober's art blog, thought this distracted from the work. "After that show, I decided that would be the last show I worked with her on."

"The show's not about Cara Ober," says Block. "It's about authorship, originality, it's trying to question all those things. It's a conceptual project. I stand behind my artists. I think Christine Bailey is brilliant. I don't think I crossed any lines. And I didn't make any work—I'm selling the work."

"Cara is someone I don’t know, so I had no personal connection and could be dispassionate about the work," writes Bailey on a January 21 post on Ober's art blog (where Ober offered Bailey a venue to address the growing controversy). Block cannot make the same claim—and much of the ire in comments to that post has been directed toward her.

"I was surprised that people were confused, as if I had made a mistake, which I didn't do," Block says in response. "I've been curating for over 9 years. I don't make mistakes."

Maybe not. But to answer that, viewers need more context than an office lobby affords, and more disclosure from the artist and curator than none at all. Post readers deserve more of both, too.

Typically the only panda trolling the 1515 14th Street NW galleries on an opening night is the fashion blogger who goes by that name. But "15 for Philip" drew supporters from far and wide, including, I suppose, jungles or zoos or wherever it is that pandas reside.

The show at Curator's Office is a portraiture jam dedicated to local patron and collector Philip Barlow, so our furry friend has gotta be an artist. Sources say performance artist Kathryn Cornelius (who has work in the show) donned the costume to show her affection for Barlow, a claim Cornelius steadfastly denies. (That she was in costume, not that she doesn't appreciate Barlow.) In any case, this figure was too short to be Cornelius. So Who Brakes for Philip Barlow? This writer has a hunch that it was another performance artist, Nilay Lawson.

Officials from the Corcoran Gallery of Art have confirmed the resignation of Christina DePaul, the dean of the Corcoran College of Art + Design since 2002. Corcoran Director of Media Relations Kristin Guiter said that DePaul will retain her title as dean through August 2008 but that Kirk Pillow, vice dean, will direct college functions. CCA+D will not be appointing an interim dean.

According to Guiter, DePaul will work for the next four months on a research project that will "focus on opportunities for the Corcoran to expand internationally in the art and design research field." The Corcoran did not specify where, but a safe bet may be the Middle East, where there's plenty of precedent set by art academies and institutions. Corcoran Dubai? Virginia Commonwealth University's School of the Arts in Qatar might serve as a model.

During DePaul's tenure, overall enrollment at the school increased, and the CCA+D received license to offer its first graduate program; the school now confers master's degrees in interior design, art education, and the history of decorative arts. The 2006 acquisition of the Randall School property in Southwest, which will host equipment-intensive classes in ceramics and sculpture, promises to expand college enrollment capacity further.

DePaul's responsibilities increased with the arrival of Corcoran director Paul Greenhalgh, who rolled museum-sponsored education activities into the college's mission. Greenhalgh and DePaul have brought some school functions into the museum's exhibitions—tapping students and classes for exhibition design, for example. But the museum's first show under Greenhalgh's tenure ("Modernism: Designing a New World") caused a flap among students, when DePaul announced, on the last day of the fall 2006 academic semester, that the massive exhibition would absorb space traditionally reserved for the senior thesis show. The show was relocated to the College Gallery, now called Gallery 1, off the New York Avenue entrance to the school. The museum, which was preparing "Modernism," was closed. Senior-thesis shows at the Corcoran serve as a high-profile opportunity for undergraduate students to publicly display their work, often for the first time.

DePaul, who is also an accomplished sculptor, has received a large art commission, according to Guiter, which will occupy her time. So after she leaves, what's the Corcoran going to do with DePaul's studio? Current and former students alike whisper about the space—a complex as vast as it is deep underground. Situated somewhere among the tunnels connecting the Corc to the White House, of course.

Earlier this week, D.C. Art News scribe Lenny Campello and Seattle Post-Intelligencer art critic Regina Hackett hashed out the significance of this lede by the Washington Post's Jacqueline Trescott in a piece about artist Jacob Lawrence:

In its recent renovation of the Green Room, the White House has given a place of honor to a newly acquired masterpiece by Jacob Lawrence, one of the greatest African American artists of the 20th century.

Why the "African American" qualifier? Hackett fires, "Because white appears to be this writer's assumed context, she notes only difference, black as a special case."

Jacob Lawrence, The Builders, 1947. Tempera on board.

Campello and Hackett has since moved on to squabbling over whether Lawrence was a nice guy. But here's a question: Is the painting a special case?

In the context of the august halls of the White House, most definitely. A phone call to the office of Betty Monkman, the curator of the White House, reveals that, while Lawrence's painting isn't the sole piece by a black artist in the executive mansion, it's close to it---there are only two others. A decade ago, there weren't any. Henry Ossawa Tanner's Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City (1885) also hangs in the Green Room, its home since 1996. And an 1892 painting by one "Bannister" (they likely mean Ed Bannister) acquired last year is currently undergoing conservation. That's three of an estimated 375 total in the White House's art collection.

Local fashion mavens Rachel Cothran and Svetlana Legetic criticize Helene Cooper, author of Sunday's New York Times T Magazine piece on D.C., for not reporting on the actual trends that might prove her story, i.e., that it's a cool place these days. There's a lot to complain about. Did Cooper expect to find the pulse of the city on the presidential yacht, where se spent an evening partying? Her insights from the 14th, H Street, and U Street corridors in NW all sound cribbed from a year-old Not For Tourists guide. Sure, if she'd confined herself to the bars, boutiques, galleries, and restaurants that are so visibly linked with gentrification, she'd have a limited take on the city. But ostensibly her audience has a greater interest in reading about the places they can, you know, visit, which for most doesn't include the deck of the Sequoia.

And anything is preferable to Cooper's kidding on the square about how everyone in D.C. is a wonk and that they'd be cute for it if they weren't in fact pathetic. It's a paradoxical take on the city: one that plays up the laziest stereotypes that exist about D.C. but also require some work to prove out. In my experience, locals don't gab exclusively about, say, the conservative right's new love affair with Nicholas Sarkozy when they're shopping—they talk about shopping, or work, or their personal lives, or whatever else. But it's a company town, and for some people dinner is just an extension of the office place. If you go to restaurants very near such offices, you will overhear office-place conversation. Next week: Cooper dines at The Ivy; is shocked, shocked!, to overhear Hollywood gossip.

Speaking of dining and gossip, doesn't Cooper's bit about Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) sound as though she's insinuating that the senator is gay? "Maine's all-female Republican Senate delegation" just means that both senators are women. I can't make heads or tails of Cooper's writeup of Collins's dinner conversation with Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), but it reads as breathless to me: "Snippets of their conversation reveal extensive breadth, to say the least." And it has nothing to do with cool whatsoever.

As for slanted depictions, the less said about the accompanying photo spread, the better.

"Strictly Painting" isn't merely a regional all-painting biennial. It's also a knock-down, drag-out, no-holds-barred, brass-knuckled throwdown between painters vying for that ultimate art-world trophy---recognition. (And a check.) Last night, during a reception at the McLean Center for the Arts for the 21 finalist painters, the show's juror and MC, Hirshhorn associate curator Kristen Hileman, announced the best in show: Timothy App, Ryan Carr Johnson, Cory Drieth, and Jo Smail. Each artist took home the same $500 in prize money. They settled all questions of ranking between themselves afterward in the steel cage.

Actually, the most brutal exchange took place before the awards were announced. During a Q&A session following Hileman's brief introduction to the show, one viewer put her in the hot seat: "What is color field painting?" No mean trick, answering that. Hileman explained that, in fact, critics and curators are a little quick to attach labels to artists. She said that instead of picking artworks that resonated most with the 1960s Washington Color School, she trusted that artists who submitted works for this color field--themed show probably had their reasons for believing they qualified---which gave her license to just pick the best works. (Yeah, it's a bit of a dodge, but I don't blame her. It's a tough question. I took a stab at answering it last month.)

What about the winners? I'd've put Jeffry Cudlin in the winners' circle. (Note: He's a City Paper contributing writer---also, he gave me a ride home.) This new abstract direction in his work is looks like it will be lucrative. But I don't quibble with Hileman's picks. Though I didn't get to it in my write-up of the show, I spent a lot of time looking at App's Meninas (pictured). His painting borrows from Lee Bontecou's russet palette; more than the Minimalist label he's often tagged with, his work recalls the geometric city paintings by Georgia O'Keefe. Definitely a winner. (The Baltimore City Paper ran a review on a short survey of his App's works.)

A dull Swiss army knife does not slice through penis foreskin like butter. That might have been the freakiest thing about last night's art performance by Adrian Parsons—why, if you've chosen this path, would you not invest in the finest in self-mutilation technology? Why saw when you could slice? Maybe there's no singling out any one freaky thing about "Shrapnel," a performance in which Parsons removed his own foreskin and stuffed it into a glory hole in the wall at The Warehouse. The performance was staged for "Supple", a group show of otherwise modest painting and sculpture. Hope you caught Parsons's act of auto-circumcision last night, since he won't be repeating it.

Warning: If I didn't mention it before, this guy circumcises himself in this video, so don't watch it if you don't want to see that or if your boss is looming over your shoulder.

Update: Someone cried foul, and YouTube responded by removing the video, citing a copyright violation. But I shot the video myself, and both the artist and curator seem fine with my posting it, so we'll do it our-damn-selves. Oh, and Parsons is fine, by the way—after the hospital, he even managed to avoid a layover at the psych ward.

In one sense, Kathryn Cornelius staged an Oscar-worthy event with "Recognition". Champagne bubbled and camera flashes flared as the artist, dressed in a stunning gown and decked out in jewels, spoke from a dais to the crowd. For their part, local artists and artists boosters dressed up for the evening—though it's not clear that they gussied up specifically for Cornelius's opening-night performance. After Cornelius's multimedia presentation, a camera crew trolled the audience, interviewing people about their feelings on the art fair.

The only things missing were the recognition event and, frankly, the Oscar-worthy performance. Cornelius's performance was produced very well: With a natural red carpet, she re-created a buzz-worthy reception. As she spoke about how much the community had grown, heaping praise on artists, collectors, and critics, Cornelius was interrupted again and again by Cornelius—remote pseudo–satellite feeds of the artist playing a variety of characters. Chakra-centric mystic Cornelius and Soho-bound bunny Cornelius each phoned in. When they could be heard, her funny clips were received warmly by the festive audience. Still, Cornelius is no actress, and she didn't play to her strengths.

The durational performance style for which she's becoming known never made an appearance. Though she read aloud an encyclopedic definition of performance art—seemingly to tax and test a crowd who had ostensibly assembled at the fair in the name of art—she ended her speech before anyone sincerely wished that the orchestra would cut her off. (There wasn't actually an orchestra.) It's clever to stage a recognition for a non-event. After all, no artists or curators brought the fair to the District—only the art market and Convention Center can take credit for that. But the performances themselves were executed in a way that made the piece, despite its good production, seem provincial.

Even the floor plan of the artDC art fair has the District written all over it. Plain as Mass Ave., there's a red-carpeted path cutting a swath through the grid of booths. Of course a District art fair has a diagonal state avenue.

It's otherwise distinguished by local galleries, who contribute the lion's share of the quality contemporary art on display. A trio of small wall-based installations by Evan Morgan at Martin Irvine's booth had me wondering: Where's this guy's solo show? Fresh from Mica, he contributed the only sculpture in the show that had me wanting to see more. His blown-glass, wall-suspended tear drops will draw immediate comparisons to Graham Caldwell, whose large blown glass and steel armature work is showing at Annie Gawlak's booth down the way. But Morgan's wall installation seems incidental to his work, and the blown pieces themselves put me in mind of Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle. Unfortunately, seeing more work might disappoint: Morgan's larger portfolio has more misses than hits. Nevertheless, Irvine picked the hits.

Brandon Morse makes sick video, and his video-plus-sound contributions to Leigh Conner's booth don't disappoint. They're like James Huckenpahlers set in motion.

DCist picked up on the strong District presence, too, and believes this is a good showing for the city. Critically, that review mistakes the fair for a curated show. The national and international galleries that exhibited alongside the locals weren't chosen—they bought in. The fact that there were so few decent exhibitors among them only points to a lack of confidence in the local market. Not a feather for the city's cap, really.