::: Jessica Dawson of The Washington Post on Ian and Jan

::: Kriston Capps of The Washington City Paper on Ian and Jan

A Secret History of the Washington Body School

Jeffry Cudlin and Meg Mitchell

DCAC
May 11 - June 3, 2007
Opening reception, Friday 5/11 7-9pm

Exhibition Advisors, Rex Weil & Central Intelligence Art

This spring, many local museums and galleries will celebrate the Washington Color School, a group of abstract painters who, in the early 1960s, briefly made D.C. the center of the visual arts universe.

Local artists Jeffry Cudlin and Meg Mitchell won't be playing along. At DCAC, the two will stage an art historical intervention, weaving an alternative history for Washington art.

Cudlin and Mitchell will mount a retrospective for their alter egos, Ian and Jan-a fictitious husband-and-wife performance art duo. According to the show's premise, Ian and Jan led the Washington Body School, a group that, in the late '60s and '70s, exhibited their body art alongside the work of prominent Washington abstract painters.

Ian and Jan: The Washington Body School will provide humorous commentary on Washington's cultural legacy, on revisionist art historical agendas, and on gender bias and power politics in the arts. The show will include photographs, drawings, props, and videos of the couple in action.

The centerpiece of the show will be a video featuring interviews with D.C. gallerists, collectors, and historians, all recalling the rich, heretofore unexplored history of these two obscure performance artists. Participants in the video include: Jonathan Binstock, Curator for Contemporary Art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art; Sam Gilliam, artist; J. W. Mahoney, contributing writer and editor for Art in America; Joshua Shannon, Professor of Contemporary Art History at The University of Maryland, College Park; Andrea Pollan, Director of Curator's Office and independent curator; Janis Goodman, critic for WETA's Around Town and instructor of art at the Corcoran College of Art and Design; and Tyler Green, blogger for Arts Journal and contributing arts writer for Fortune magazine and The Wall Street Journal.

All of these interviews will suggest that new scholarship is irrevocably changing the legacy of D.C. art. No longer will Washington be remembered as a home for colorful decorative paintings; instead, it will be associated with ephemeral, experimental works involving performance and body art.