1213 Girard Street, NW

Washington, DC 20009-5325
Tel: 202-239-8450
mel@millenniumartssalon.org
PRESS
www.millenniumartssalon.org
Melvin L. Hardy, Chairman
Juanita Boyd Hardy, Executive Director
RELEASE
Monday, January 24, 2011 Millennium Arts Salon (MAS) announces its newest
exhibition “In Unison: 20 Washington, DC Artists”, on view at the Kreeger Museum of
Washington, DC (www.KreegerMuseum.org) through February, 26, 2011. The exhibition
represents MAS’ strategic vision for inter-cultural collaborative creativity, between and
amongst mid-career artists across all verticals of cultural, ethnic, age, gender, artistic and
aesthetic identities. Significantly, MAS has produced an exhibition of scale and scope with
impacts in the arts and cultural life of the Greater DC region far beyond that expected from
a small non-profit, local community, arts advocacy and education organization based in the
Columbia Heights village of DC. MAS is in its 11th year of arts and cultural programming
from its Washington base in the DMV (District, Maryland, Virginia).

To date, in certain particular but important reviews of the exhibition, some art criticism
provides a recitation of recent shows over the last number of years, such, perhaps, being out
of context for what one might observe in the display of this sampling of a body of works on
view at the Kreeger and created at George Mason University’s sparklingly new and state-of-
the-art print production studio. What the casual reviewer could not have observed was the
origination of vision of a major artist in Washington pillar Sam Gilliam, and its interplay
under the sponsorship of a local arts-advocacy and DC arts-community building
organization in Millennium Arts Salon, the fiscal convener of the exhibition.

In auguring the prowess of this show, there has been attribution of the "patronage" of
Kandinsky and Klee as a wonderful gift from an established art critic to each of the "In
Unison" artists hanging at the Kreeger. It is lost on no one that Kreeger Director Judy
Greenberg's willingness to accept this exhibition represents a major advance in the careers of
many of the artists, also, a mission of Millennium Arts Salon. Physically, the “Patrons”
welcome the viewer to the exhibition by their placement at the entrance to the Gallery where
“In Unison” is on view.

In this, perhaps the initial viewer may miss the point with a focus on a backward looking
predisposition, to the restrictions on innovation and creativity imposed on our local
Washington artists by a less-than-assertive Washington cultural infrastructure. Millennium
Arts Salon and the project team structured a framework for persons across the spectrum of
cultural, ethnic, aesthetic, experience, gender, and age identities to experiment with artistic
and aesthetic dialogue whilst in the process of creation of works.

In an initial viewing of the exhibition, one cannot have known Sondra Arkin's frustration
with running her typical encaustics through a press only to work with the master printmakers
to innovate in finding process to present her beautiful details. The casual observer cannot
have known the truly vanguard applications of tools applied by Akili Ron Anderson in the
creation of his works, and for which each of the five "small paintings" he created are tour de
force works of art.
To what many observers of this important exhibition might immediately attach to recent
historical reference, the viewer is guided not to miss the prospective references to our
national need for modeling how Americans, regardless of station, cultural, or ethnic identity,
can find ways to interact in the spirit of innovation, in the finding of new ways to re-calibrate
our national dialogue for building a sense a national identity, an American culture. This
meets both purpose and strategy for the project, the third such print publication project by
Washington’s own Millennium Arts Salon. Of note is Millennium Arts Salon’s newest
program entitled “Millennium Arts Salon Diasporan Dialogues”, a strategic overture of
outreach to the culturally and ethnically specific communities in the Greater Washington
SMSA (Richmond through Baltimore) which includes the monolithic “blocs” we will call the
African, Latino and Asian immigrant communities. MAS has developed it confidence to
conduct such programming, the first of which will occur at the Kreeger Museum on
February 5, 2011.

The project team was lead by: Sam Gilliam in identifying the artists who would inspire a new
Washington signature in collaborative creativity; Juanita Hardy of Millennium Arts Salon
who initiated and funded the enterprise; Helen Frederick and Susan Goldman who
"mastered" the printmaking and counseled many of the artists in innovation; Claudia
Rousseau, who provided art historical and critical context; and Judy Greenberg, who housed
this new vision of the American experiment with American inter-culturalism.

Of course, none of this is possible without the creatives themselves, and Millennium Arts
Salon, its Board of Directors, and supporters are all grateful that the artists would lend
themselves to this highly managed strategy. The “In Unison” exhibition provides that
essential balance that fuels all of us in the creative classes to look forward to our leadership
in the better America that is to come.

Contact: Melvin Hardy: 202-239-8450 • Email: mel@millenniumartssalon.org