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Art event expected to bring 50,000 visitors to NoMa
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Related Topics: Washington Metro Area
Washington Metro Area (Map, News) - Fire-dancing troupes and purses made out of encyclopedias are among the visual and performing arts exhibits expected to draw 50,000 visitors to the burgeoning "NoMa" neighborhood over the next five weeks for Artomatic.
Since 1999, Artomatic has been one of the District's biggest opportunities for artists both established and unproven to display their work in an unconventional setting - an abandoned or unoccupied building made over as an arts studio.
The North of Massachusetts neighborhood's business improvement district saw the event as an opportunity to draw visitors and publicity to the developing area.
"Artomatic is going to start the rush," said D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton at a press event Friday.
The private sector has invested more than $1 billion so far in the area, which will soon see the arrival of Harris Teeter, the Department of Justice and NPR.
This year's Artomatic, which opened Friday, is the largest of its kind, with eight floors of art, 823 visual exhibits and 280 performance art exhibits.
The exhibits are a wide-ranging mix of two-dimensional and three-dimensional displays, paintings, photographs, collages and performance works.
Gennara Moore's "Murder of Crows," for example, features stark, red and black silhouettes of ominous -looking birds. Caitlin Phillips is behind the book purses, displayed on a chalkboard in a classroom-style setup. Patrick McMullen's bold photos of carousels and shrines play with the idea of how lighting influences photographs, while Eric Petersen's snapshots are of iconic images such as the Cyclone roller coaster and a Bowl America sign.
The event will also give local artists the chance to become more than starving ones; the majority of the physical works at Artomatic are for sale.
melissa.frederick@dcexaminer.com
