C8 GALLERIES At Katzen, Metro Lady’s admonition inspires by Jessica Dawson
“See something? Say something!” By now, most Washington area commuters tune out Metro Lady’s re- corded admonition, the one that’s broadcast through subway stations at all-too-regular intervals. Unpack those two sentences, though, and you’ve got a chilling mes- sage. Isn’t she really saying: “People might want to kill innocent Metro rid- ers. Would-be terrorists could act strangely or leave unattended pack- ages. Let us know if you spot one”? Pair that subterranean warning with its incongruously chirpy delivery and you’ve got a particularly 21st- century American dissonance. It’s the paradox of post-9/11 society in a coun- try that came late to the notion of do- mestic terrorism. Does Metro Lady speak of the ba-
nality of evil? The futility of mass paranoia? The ubiquity of surveil- lance? Yes, yes and yes. The richness of Metro Lady’s cau- tion was not lost on Gery De Smet when the artist, 49, visited Washing- ton two years ago. De Smet’s work en- gages many of the issues implicit in Metro Lady’s message, even as he ap- proaches them from a more Eurocen- tric vantage (he’s based in Belgium and exhibits largely in Europe). “See Something? Say Something!” is the title of the artist’s sharp, sardon- ic solo exhibition at American Univer- sity’s Katzen Arts Center. The suite of paintings tucked into the museum’s uppermost reaches (and, happily, the only Katzen galleries genuinely hospi- table to painting) is a worthy visual expression of Metro Lady’s concerns. In one painting, De Smet paints the
phrase into a hillside as if it were Los Angeles’s “Hollywood” sign. Imagine that warning blasting silently across the L.A. basin — it just might happen in a not-too-distant future. What’s striking about De Smet’s work is that he packages a contempo- rary message in the old-fashioned, messy medium of painting. And not just painting, but painterly painting — in his best works, De Smet’s tactile surfaces and curious color juxtaposi- tions make you want to reach out and touch them. (Or, in my case, steal a
gallery is hosting an exhibition that most of D.C.’s more-intimate galleries couldn’t: Two accomplished area ar- chitects created galleries within the gallery, scaling down the outsize space to art-friendly proportions. And while both installations included art- works by area creatives, design and architecture are the standouts here. In the front room, Ernesto Santalla installed carpet tiles to demarcate his gallery zone, which includes painting, sculpture and Santalla’s own photo- graph. But all of these works take a back seat to this installation’s star: a very long and very low wood block of a bench that the architect hand- rubbed to a near-reptilian finish. Al- most too low to pass as seating but too high to be anything else, the bench has an animal presence. Long View’s main room hosts archi-
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST PLUMS FOR THE TAKING: Gery De Smet’s “Pflaumen Abzugeben” (2005) is from his “U loot I shoot” series.
few.) His charismatic surfaces bring humanity to subjects that might otherwise feel blisteringly cold. De Smet’s strongest works hail from a series called “U loot I shoot,” a group of smallish canvases that are roughly notebook-page-size. The art- ist derived that label from a spray- painted warning in post-Katrina New Orleans, but removed from that con- text, the phrase suggests a more gen- eralized trigger-happiness. One of my favorites is the strange
canvas called “Pflaumen Abzugeben.” Its title comes from the sign that hangs, almost abstractedly, from a fence in the foreground. That fence, traced in heavy black acrylic, stands before a house and a tree painted in broad black outlines. Filling in those lines is a hue so vivid it’s probably best
described as “security orange.” The pigment alone gives off a sense of ur- gency and watchfulness. The sign, written in German, in-
dicates that plums are for the taking — sort of. De Smet says such signs are posted in areas where selling fruit isn’t legal; instead, vendors claim to be giving them away. So “Pflaumen Abzugeben,” with its pirated fruit sell- ing and five-alarm palette, becomes an emblem of toeing some (not always clear) moral or public line. Other works in “See Something?
Say Something!” reference GPS, air- ports and crowds. The exhibition’s largest canvases hail from a series called “Today All Circuits Are Closed,” a title evoking clogged phone lines or jammed airwaves but depicting some- thing more literal. Each painting is a
portrait of a racetrack: Germany’s Nuerburgring, Britain’s Silverstone, Indianapolis Motor Speedway. De Smet paints them with a vagueness reminiscent of satellite images. You might briefly mistake them for air- port runways. As in all of De Smet’s work, a surveiled world emerges. Metro Lady, we see everything. Should we say something?
‘Informed Design’ Long View Gallery tops the list of
Washington’s most art-unfriendly gal- lery spaces — the 5,000-square-foot concrete canyon is tailored to the many parties and events held there, not the art on view. But what’s not good for art can be great for architects. Right now the
tect David Jameson’s hallway “gal- lery” hugging a south wall. Jameson defined his installation with remark- able grace using steel I-beams. Snak- ing up, down and around, the beams trace lines in space like a three- dimensional sketch. Inside the hallway, Jameson in- stalled work by four area artists, most culled from the Hemphill Fine Arts stable. (Jameson designed the gal- lery’s 14th Street space.) In a clever move, Jameson fashioned wooden boxes to house a Mary Early sculpture and two James Huckenpahler pig- ment prints. Both artists benefit from these jewel box-like houses, which lend their elusive works a bit of heft.
style@washpost.com
Dawson is a freelance writer.
“Gery De Smet: See Something? Say Something!”
at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW, through Aug. 8. Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m. — 4 p.m. 202-885-2787.
www.american.edu/katzen
“Informed Design”
at Long View Gallery, 1234 Ninth St. NW, through Aug. 1. Wednesday-Saturday, 11 a.m. — 6 p.m.; Sunday, noon- 5 p.m.
202-232-4788.
www.longviewgallery.com
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KLMNO
FRIDAY, JULY 16, 2010
Va. activist hopes McDonnell family ties can strengthen LGBT fight deane from C1
suadeMcDonnell to speak publicly about how people should accept those who are gay or transgender.
Deane said she decided to announce
her relationship to McDonnell on April 21 because she feels that her situation hard- ened some of his views on sexual ori- entation. The governor opposes same-sex marriage and has not backed measures that protect gay state workers from dis- crimination. “Maybe I sealed an anger in him toward people like us,” she said at the ral- ly.
Deane also believes their past relation- ship makes her the most qualified person to persuade the governor to change his views, even though the last time they saw each other was at a family Christmas gathering more than a decade ago, just before Deane divorced a younger sister of McDonnell’s wife, Maureen, in 1999 after 17 years. “He should be able to see what social
intolerance does,” she said. “He’s in a po- sition that he can talk about it.”
An ‘awkward position’
Though Deane has not spoken to Mc- Donnell in more than a decade, her activ- ities threaten to become a nuisance and embarrassment to the governor and could cause trouble with social conserva- tives if he were to engage Deane. “It puts the governor in a very awk- ward position,” said Mark Rozell, a politi- cal scientist at George Mason University. “It could inflame activists who don’t want their leader to try so hard to be liked by everyone.’’
But Rozell and other political observ- ers said the situation could end up mak- ing McDonnell look good because Deane appears to be trying to use her past rela- tionship to the governor to get attention. Del. C. Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah), one of the legislature’s most conservative members, said McDonnell is already well aware of Deane’s history. “It’s not like it’s going to change his worldview,” he said. McDonnell, who has turned down in-
vitations from Deane to meet and has not spoken publicly about her, declined to comment for this article. “This is a per- sonal matter,” said his spokesman, Tucker Martin. “The governor wishes Robyn the very best.”
Deane and McDonnell, who met when
they were 22 and began dating sisters from a large Northern Virginia family, be- came close despite religious and philo- sophical differences as they raised their families, Deane said. Boyd Marcus, who served as chief of
staff to former governor James S. Gilmore III (R) and now serves as a Republican consultant, said many people quickly show up from the past once someone is elected governor. Marcus suggested the
SARAH L. VOISIN/THE WASHINGTON POST MAKING UP FOR LOST TIME:Robyn Deane went public in April about her connection to Virginia’s governor.
public would understand if McDonnell ignored Deane and her cause. “They want their 10 minutes,” he said.
“Your wife’s sister’s ex-husband doesn’t really have any standing. Was he lobby- ing before he was governor? Will he be lobbying after he is governor?” Deane, 55, who lives outside Richmond and has been advocating for years behind the scenes, has made it clear since the April rally that she does not intend to go away, though her children, 26, 22 and 19, are opposed to the public activism. She sought a formal position last month within the state Democratic Party as executive vice chair of its gay, bisexual, transgender caucus, but the slate she was a part of lost. She is now talking with par- ty leaders about a different role. Deane said she also plans to campaign for Democrat Rick Waugh in his race against U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who represents her, and she plans to take va- cation time this summer from her job as a supervisor at Home Depot to lobby mem- bers of Congress on a federal nondis- crimination bill. Deane has emerged after a pair of high-
profile controversies over gay rights that have caused trouble for McDonnell. The governor alienated gay rights ac- tivists shortly after taking office when he excluded sexual orientation from an ex- ecutive order that barred discrimination in the state workforce, a break in tradi-
“It puts the governor in a very awkward position.”
— GMU political scientist Mark Rozell, on Robyn Deane’s activism
tion from his Democratic predecessors. The issue became even more heated when Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II advised the state’s public colleges and universities to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual ori- entation. That opinion led to protests — including the rally in which Deane re- vealed her connection to the governor — and eventually led McDonnell to issue an executive directive that prohibits dis- crimination in the state workforce, in- cluding on the basis of sexual orientation. But unlike an executive order, a direc- tive is not legally binding and McDon- nell’s action was widely seen as an at- tempt to quell the uproar over what Cuc- cinelli had done rather than a shift in position for the governor.
Fighting for the cause
Even before she changed her name from Bob to Robyn, and transformed her- self from a cleanshaven, dark-haired man to a blond woman saving her pennies for sex reassignment surgery, Deane was qui-
etly speaking out against McDonnell and his views on sexual orientation. Deane first became interested in lobby-
ing five years ago when McDonnell ran for attorney general and the Republican- controlled General Assembly began pushing for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. She started stuffing envelopes at the Richmond offices of the gay rights group Equality Virginia every Tuesday night. She attended the group’s annual lobby days, in which activists visit state legisla- tors. She approached Sen. R. Creigh Deeds (D-Bath), McDonnell’s opponent in the attorney general’s race, to offer help. At the time, she was still dressing like a man and came accompanied by one of her daughters. Deeds said in an inter- view that Deane “offered advice and in- sight.’’
Deane said she became more “ener-
gized” to work against McDonnell after he issued a legal opinion in 2006 as attor- ney general that stated the marriage amendment would not put thousands of unmarried couples at risk of losing ben- efits, as opponents had argued. Deane testified in front of the General
Assembly last winter for the first time when the House considered a bill to ban discrimination in public employment, which would have included sexual ori- entation, gender identity or expression. But she didn’t tell them about her con-
nection to the governor. “I’m very blessed . . . to work for an em- ployer who gives me those protections,” she said in brief remarks to a House sub- committee. “What I would like to see for my friends in the state and local govern- ment is the same opportunity.” Deane, who has been estranged from much of her family since she came out as a woman, says her children have made it clear they oppose their uncle’s — the gov- ernor’s — positions but that they also op- pose their father using McDonnell’s name when lobbying. The children’s mother declined to comment for this arti- cle and also asked that her name not be used.
Despite the potential resonance of her
connection to McDonnell, activists in Virginia’s gay rights community are also divided about whether Deane’s approach is the right one.
‘A private matter’
Sen. A. Donald McEachin (D-Rich- mond), who sponsored one of the nondis- crimination bills this year and has been a vocal advocate of gay rights, said several activists have told him they are worried that Deane will shift attention from the cause to her. “It’s incumbent to all of us to keep the issue front and center,” McEachin said. “The more all of us do to speak out about the issue, the more it becomes about the issue.”
Guy Kinman, a longtime gay activist from Richmond, said he was so dis- appointed with Deane’s strategy that he considered writing a letter to McDonnell to tell him he did not support her. “Robyn Deane caused deep embarrassment for the governor,” he said. “It is a private mat- ter. I don’t think it’s any of your business.” But Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, a lobby- ist for Equality Virginia, said research shows that people are more likely to sup- port an issue if they know someone close to them who is affected. She points to for- mer Republican vice president Dick Che- ney, who broke with his party in express- ing support for gay marriage. Cheney’s daughter, Mary, is gay. Deane scoffs at the notion that she will
hurt the cause. She insists she can only help, particularly now that gay rights have taken much more of a role in the state policy debate than in recent years. “I raised my kids to question every- thing — always challenge status-quo thinking and make a difference,’’ she said. “I wouldn’t be true to those values if I felt this way but stayed over here, worried about what this, this, this person thinks. Nothing would ever change.
“I think the voice needs to be heard,” she said. “I can’t sit back and wait.”
kumaranita@washpost.com
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
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