Artist Websites and Social Media

Artist Websites and Social Media
Virtual program
Thursday, April 25, 5–7pm

When was the last time you updated your website? Do you have a professional mailing list? How do you engage your following on Instagram? In this digital age of SEO's and Explore pages, emerging artists have more access to self-promotion than ever. But with great power comes greater responsibility. Join PR experts Nathan Lucrisia, Director of Business Development (Threespot) and Mackenzie Spriggs, Founder and CEO (The Contemporary Creatives) for a crash course on how to make the most of your website and social media. 

About Nathan Lucrisia

IG: @threespot
https://www.threespot.com/

Nathan Lucrisia is the Director of Business Development at Threespot. Nathan drives the agency’s growth by reaching out to new clients, engaging stakeholders, and building partnerships in the community. His background in marketing and business development, combined with a focus on technology, helps him define innovative solutions for clients in the social impact space.

Threespot is a Black woman-led digital strategy agency built to fight for socially conscious organizations. Founded in 1999, Threespot aims to interrupt the status quo and reshape how organizations think and talk about themselves. That’s translated into dynamic digital strategies, custom user experiences, and enlivened brands for the likes of the ACLU, Color of Change, and the National Park Service. As a Certified B Corp™, Threespot is committed to solving complex problems by bringing diverse perspectives and voices to the table and an empathetic ear to every conversation.

About Mackenzie Spriggs

IG: @thecontemporarycreatives
https://www.contemporarycreatives.com/

Mackenzie Spriggs is the Founder of The Contemporary Creatives®, a leading marketing agency in Washington, D.C. Mackenzie and her team specialize in crafting compelling campaigns that resonate with audiences and drive engagement through authentic storytelling and sustainable strategy. Clientele includes contemporary artists, art dealers, galleries, and leading art institutions. 

There was no marketing agency specifically tailored to directly serve independent artists until Contemporary Creatives came into existence in 2020. From a background entrenched in the gallery and museum world, Mackenzie observed the pressing need for independent artists to have access to digital marketing services and educational resources. Mackenzie spearheaded the launch of Contemporary Creatives and aimed to bridge the gap in the artistic space, empowering artists with the tools they need to achieve their professional goals with creativity and marketing precision. 

Artist Walkthrough: Abed Elmajid Shalabi

Artist Walkthrough: Abed Elmajid Shalabi
1353 U St NW, Washington, DC 20009
Saturday, April 13, 2024
3pm

Titled after a line from Mahmoud Darwish’s poem A State of Siege (2002), Abed Elmajid Shalabi’s exhibition When Tomorrow Arrives We Will Love Life will present completely new works that confront the realities of modernization in the post-oil Arab world, leaning into the question of the future.

Shalabi’s material vernacular ranges from fragile ceramics to commercial concrete. Castings of vehicular and industrial objects such as construction truck seats, gas pumps, shock-resistant rubber mats, and truck beds function as emotional provocations, interrogating the illusions of progress, safety, and direction that have been prescribed by the Western gaze. By exposing surface cracks, emptiness, and other moments of vulnerability, Shalabi pushes against the speed of modernity and the ways in which its false promises alter our connection to the body, gender, and self.

Open Call for Programs

Host a Program at Hamiltonian Artists
Open call

Have you ever had a public program or performance art idea and no space to bring it to life? Hamiltonian Artists is opening up its U Street gallery space as a platform for professional presentations by artists, organizers, and cultural workers in need of a spacious, publicly accessible venue to host their concept.

Selected proposals will be invited to utilize Hamiltonian Artists’ gallery space and marketing resources, receive on-site program support from Hamiltonian Artists staff, and benefit from access to gallery inventory.

Pricing, Editioning, and Archiving Works on Paper

Pricing, Editioning, and Archiving Works on Paper
In-person
Thursday, April 4, 2024
5–7pm

Join us for a conversation on collecting works on paper, featuring artists Gail Shaw-Clemons and Cory Oberndorfer and collector Phillip Barlow. The panel will be moderated by artist and gallerist Mary Early.

How do you get started collecting original works of art? How do prints and other works on paper figure into a collection of original art? We are here to help! In partnership with the Washington Print Club, Hamiltonian Artists is hosting a panel discussion to address these very questions and more.

Image: Cory Oberndorfer, Ice Cream and Pops (after Bass), 2020, screen print on paper, edition of 30, 14 1/2 × 10 1/4 inches. Image courtesy of the Washington Print Club

How to Buy Art [Internal]

How to Buy Art
In-person
Monday, February 5, 2024
6–7pm ET

Kinetic members are invited to join Hamiltonian Artists for a panel discussion on how to buy art. Hamiltonian Artists’ executive director Lily Siegel will moderate the discussion of various approaches to the art market and building an art collection. Our panelists are as follows:

Brady Doty, Senior Director of Sales, David Zwirner, New York
Lauren Hilyard, Art Advisor and Appraiser, Hilyard Art Advisory, DC
Maria Sancho-Arroyo, Adjunct Faculty, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York

This first program is open to all levels of Kinetic members. Future programs of this kind are only open to the $250 level or above.

How to Give an Artist Talk [Internal]

How to Give an Artist Talk
Internal program
Thursday, January 25, 2024

Visiting artist Nekisha Durrett is offering an exclusive talk to share artist talk best practices. Each Hamiltonian Artists exhibition involves a corresponding public talk, and this program will be helpful for anyone looking to gain insight on artist talk preparation. There will be time set aside for a Q&A and an open forum conversation.

Nekisha Durrett (b. 1976 | Washington, DC) is a mixed-media artist who employs the visual language of mass media to bring forward histories that objects, places, and words embody, but are not often celebrated. Her expansive practice includes public art, social practice, installation, painting, sculpture and design. Through deep research and material investigation, she finds historical traces in the present that are filled with stories easily overlooked. Her work contemplates biases and the unreliability of memory, as information is filtered over time. Durrett illuminates individual and collective histories of Black life and imagination, addressing her own younger self and the stories she wished she had learned.

Criticism and Theory for Artists and Curators

Criticism and Theory for Artists and Curators
Virtual mentor presentation
Thursday, September 15, 2022
6–7pm ET

Join Tim Doud, Hamiltonian mentor, artist, and professor of art at American University, in conversation with Michele Carlson, multidisciplinary practitioner and professor at George Washington Corcoran School of Art, and Jordan Amirkhani, Curator at Rivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought, New Orleans. They will discuss the use of criticism and theory for artists and curators.

Museums and Wealth: Who Benefits from Public Collections?

Museums and Wealth: Who Benefits from Public Collections?
Virtual mentor presentation
Thursday, June 23, 2022
12–1pm ET

Join Hamiltonian mentor Terence Washington and guest speaker Dr. Nizan Shaked, who will discuss issues Shaked takes up in her 2022 book Museums and Wealth: The Politics of Contemporary Art Collections. How exactly are art museums and ultra-wealthy people invested one another? How does being placed in a public collection affect an artwork's value? Art museums and extreme wealth are good friends—this is increasingly clear. Through readings of history and theory, Shaked explains how that relationship works and how it might be restructured more equitably. This topic will be of great interest to museum workers, social justice advocates in and out of the art world, and especially artists, on whose work we all depend.

Download: Museums and Wealth: Chapter 1, The San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art And Economic Inequality: Art And Imperialism.

About

Terence Washington is an independent curator, educator, and writer. He currently works as a guest curator on the curatorial team for the Philip Guston Now exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He was previously the program director at NXTHVN, a residency and gallery space in New Haven, Connecticut, and an organizer of public programs at the National Gallery of Art. Washington’s publications include forthcoming essays on the work of Kevin Beasley and Holly Lynton as well as contributions to photobooks by Zora J. Murff.

Nizan Shaked is author of Museums and Wealth: The Politics of Contemporary Art Collections (Bloomsbury Academic 2022). For her book The Synthetic Proposition: Conceptualism and the Political Referent in Contemporary Art (Manchester University Press, 2017) Shaked was awarded the 2019 Smithsonian American Art Museum Charles C. Eldredge Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in American Art, and a Wyeth Foundation for American Art/College Art Association Publication Award in 2015. Shaked teaches contemporary art history, museum and curatorial studies, at California State University Long Beach.

Digital Distribution for Artists: NFTs and the Economics of Immaterial Art

Digital Distribution for Artists: NFTs and the Economics of Immaterial Art
Virtual mentor presentation
Thursday, April 14, 2022
6–7pm ET

Join Hamiltonian mentor and alumnus Jonathan Monaghan, who will discuss topics, such as art markets; best practices for digital media; and concerns and issues surrounding crypto art. The digital age makes it easier than ever for artists to disseminate their work to audiences worldwide. Getting proper remuneration is a different story. How can visual artists sell digital media or other immaterial artforms? How can these artists support themselves in the digital age? Digital marketplaces and the explosion of interest in NFTs and cryptocurrency have given rise to new audiences, patronage, and support for artists. At the same time, this space is fraught with issues.

Download: PowerPoint

Supplementary readings

“Making the Multiple Singular: Artistic NFTs, Speculation and Redistribution”
By Anthony Masure and Guillaume Helleu, translated by Aviva Cashmira Kakar

“The Skeptics’ Introduction to Cryptoart and NFTs for Digital Artists and Designers”
By Justin Cone

“The Third Web”
By tante

Through and with Images: Artist Strategies of (In)Visibility

Through and with Images: Artist Strategies of (In)Visibility
Virtual mentor presentation
Thursday, March 26, 2023
6–7pm ET

Hamiltonian is pleased to present Through and with Images: Artist Strategies of (In)Visibility with Gina Osterloh, current Hamiltonian Mentor. Gina Osterloh will share key artist strategies particularly by women of color who amplify their relationship to visibility, invisibility, and the function of representation through photographic and video works. Artists include performance and video artist Nao Bustamante, Miami-based artist Antonia Wright, and selections from Gina Osterloh’s own work.

About

Gina Osterloh is an artist whose photographic practice embodies the printed image, drawing, film, and performance to explore the resonances between the physical body and its representational imprint, trace, or stand-in. She has exhibited internationally and nationally in places, such as Hong Kong, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Yogyakarta, Madrid, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Columbus, and New York City. Recent solo exhibitions include Gina Osterloh at Higher Pictures; Slice, Strike, Make an X, Prick! at François Ghebaly Gallery; Nothing to See Here There Never Was at Silverlens Gallery; Group, Dynamic at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), and Anonymous Front at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Her work has been reviewed in Art in America, the New Yorker Magazine, Hyphen Magazine, Art Asia Pacific, Asian Art News, Art Papers, Giant Robot, Artforum Critics Pick, and KCET Artbound. Honors and awards include a Fulbright in the Philippines, a Woodstock Center of Photography residency, and a Create Cultivate Grant with LACE and the LA County Arts Commission.

Structuring an Artist Talk

Structuring an Artist Talk
Virtual mentor presentation
Thursday, January 27, 2022
6–7pm ET

Hamiltonian is pleased to present Structuring an Artist Talk, with Michael Dax Iacovone, 2008 Hamiltonian alumni. This lecture will present fundamentals in creating a compelling artist talk for both virtual and in-person formats. I will go over what to and what not to do when presenting your work in a professional manner. I will demonstrate how to tailor your talk to your audience, how to reference your influences without seeming derivative, and how to get your point across while leaving room for the audience to interact and ask questions.

About

Michael Dax Iacovone spends his time investigating public space, walking through cities, driving across bridges and borders, and digging trenches in the desert. He is interested in formulas and creating systems to experience spaces, leave marks, and generate art. He has a BS in Photography from the State University of New York, an MI in Contemporary Art History from Middlesex University in London, an MFA in Photography from VCU, and an MFA in Studio Art from MICA. His work has been exhibited internationally in Sarajevo, Belgrade, Warsaw, Budapest, Paris, Warsaw, London and Pyramiden (a soviet ghost town in the Arctic Circle). Domestically he has exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St.Louis, Orlando, Baltimore, Salt Lake City, and Washington DC, among other places. He has written art reviews and articles for Sculpture Magazine, BMoreArt, and The Brooklynite.

Roadmap to O-1 Visas

Roadmap to O-1 Visas
Virtual mentor presentation
Tuesday, November 16, 2021
7–8pm ET

Join Hamiltonian Artists for a panel discussion, Roadmap to the O-1 Visa, with artist mentor Naoko Wowsugi. We will discuss the process of applying for an artist visa aka the O-1 visa in the United States. In support of international artists and art professionals in the US, our panels will address the O-1 Visa process and what an international artist has to go through, examine the role art communities can play, and inspire wider audiences to build solidarity for the survival of international artists. Wowsugi will share her extensive immigration experience and will be joined by curator Adriel Luis and immigration attorney David Camacho.

About

Naoko Wowsugi is a first-generation immigrant and community-engaged artist who lives and works in Washington, DC. Wowsugi's interdisciplinary projects, ranging from conceptual photography to socially-engaged art, explore the nature of belonging and inclusive community building while highlighting and fortifying everyday communal and interpersonal identities.

Wowsugi received an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BFA from both the Kansas City Art Institute and Osaka University of Arts in Japan. Notable exhibitions and fellowships include “Fungus Among Us” at Redux Contemporary Art Center, Charleston, SC (2019); “Ae Kai: A Culture Lab on Convergence," presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Honolulu, HI (2017); "The Outwin: American Portraiture Today," at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery (2016) and The Hamiltonian Artists Fellowship in Washington, DC. (2014–2016).

Adriel Luis is a community organizer, artist, writer, and curator who believes that collective liberation can happen in poetic ways. His life’s work is focused on the mutual thriving of artistic integrity and social vigilance. He is a part of the iLL-Literacy arts collective, which creates music and media to strengthen Black and Asian coalitions, and is creative director of Bombshelltoe, a collaborative of artists and leaders from frontline communities responding to nuclear histories. Luis is the Curator of Digital and Emerging Practice at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, where he advocates for equitable practices in museums and institutions. His ancestors are rooted in Toisan, China, and migrated through Hong Kong, Mexico, and the United States. Adriel was born on Ohlone land.

Luis has curated projects in a range of venues including several museums across the Smithsonian in Washington DC.; MoMA and Pearl River Mart in New York City; Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia; Silo Park in Auckland, Aotearoa; Atom Bar in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and an abandoned Foodland in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. His writing has appeared in Poetry Magazine, the Asian American Literary Review, and Smithsonian Magazine. He has spoken at the Tate Modern, Yale University, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the China Academy of Fine Arts. His performance venues include the Brooklyn Academy of Music, SXSW, the John F. Kennedy Center, and the American University of Paris. He has a degree in human ecologies from UC Davis in Community and Regional Development and a minor in Asian American Studies.

David Camacho is an immigration attorney who has been working with artists and creative professionals for over a decade. His practice focuses on collaborating with international professionals to obtain their immigration goals in the United States through an efficient and thorough process. Having worked as an actor in theater, and as a vocal performer, David brings his creative background to the forefront when developing and presenting his clients’ cases.

Camacho received his Bachelor’s of Music degree from New York University, studying musical theater and vocal performance at the Steinhardt School. He received his Juris Doctor from Seton Hall University School of Law, obtaining a concentration in Entertainment Law and Intellectual Property. He further received the ABA/BNA Award for Excellence in the Study of Intellectual Property Law. He is admitted to practice law in the State of New York.

Taxes Workshop

Taxes for Artists
Virtual workshop
Saturday, October 23, 2021
11–12pm ET

Dunia Best Sinnreich will discuss the basic tax equation; self-employment tax; the estimated quarterly tax system; audit concerns for the working artist; and other tax issues relevant to artists, followed by a Q&A session.

About

Dunia Best Sinnreich is a musician, composer, and an enrolled agent (EA), designated by the US Treasury to represent taxpayers before the IRS. She became an EA when she saw a need for more tax representation in the arts community. An enrolled agent is authorized by the US Department of Treasury to assist taxpayers with tax compliance. Her clients are globetrotting, world-renowned independent artists of all stripes. As an artist and enrolled agent, Dunia is able to recognize and address many of the unique questions artists have about tax compliance. She can contact the IRS on her clients’ behalf and prepare taxes for people with multiple sources and types of income. She focuses on the needs of independent artists worldwide who are US taxpayers, leaving her clients free to focus on their art.

Artist Talk: Amber Eve Anderson & Madeline A Stratton

Artist Talk: Amber Eve Anderson & Madeline A Stratton
Virtual artist talk
Saturday, November 14, 2020
7–9 pm ET

Hamiltonian Artists is pleased to present two artist talks, with Amber Eve Anderson and Madeline A. Stratton, in conjunction with their solo exhibitions This is Who I Am Now and Welcome Back, on view now at two Hamiltonian satellite locations.

The exhibitions will be on view from October 31 to November 28, 2020. On view by appointment Tuesday - Saturday, 12pm - 4pm.