Artomatic

Artomatic is a multi-week, multimedia arts event held in the Washington, D.C. area. It was founded by Washington, D.C artist and arts activist George Koch, and has been held since 1999 up to the present at intervals from one to three years, depending upon the availability of a site. The non-juried, open event provides a forum for artists of all types (visual, performance, and literary) and abilities (from novice to professional). There are also arts education and professional development workshops and discussions.
Structure.
A steering committee comprising local artists, arts administrators, and community activists develops outreach procedures and participation guidelines to ensure the broadest possible artistic representation from the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Each participant pays a fee and commits to volunteering for 15 hours. Most participants, however, give much more of their time; volunteers execute every task, from hauling trash and building exhibit structures to maintaining the website. As a result, the show draws artists and visitors of different races, cultural backgrounds, ages and experience levels.
Artomatic provides a mechanism for emerging and established artists to have the chance to work with and learn from one another. The diversity of artwork and performances attract a broad range of people, providing a forum to build institutional connections; linking public and private schools, universities, community development organizations, human service organizations, corporations, foundations, and cultural organizations.
Artomatic Inc is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that organizes Artomatic events. Artomatic, Inc was incorporated on April 22, 2005.
Artomatic Inc is overseen by a volunteer board of directors, led by Co-Presidents Jamila Canty and Olivia Garcia. Artomatic hired Natalie Graves Tucker as its first executive director in October 2019.
History.
The first Art-O-Matic, as it was spelled then, ran from May 21 to June 19, 1999. It started as a fairly spontaneous event in the Manhattan Laundry buildings on Florida Avenue in Northwest Washington. The location, in an old laundromat, accounts for the name. The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities acquired about $25,000 of artwork from this show for permanent display in the capital's public buildings through its Art in Public Places program.
The second Art-O-Matic was held from September 29 to October 28, 2000. This time, it was held in the Tenleytown neighborhood of Northwest Washington, in a then vacant building that had at various times been a Sears and a Hechinger. Artist Tim Tate's "artwork at Artomatic 2000 was seen by the curator of the Smithsonian’s Renwick Museum, and that show both got his work into the Museum’s permanent collection, and his sales at the show provided the seed money that started the Washington Glass School."
October 31 to November 30, 2002 saw the third Art-O-Matic, in a former EPA building in the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood of Washington, D.C., at 401 M Street SW, adjacent to Waterside Mall (the EPA building and the mall were both later demolished). At this Art-O-Matic, for the first time, the Figure Models Guild of the Washington, D.C., area sponsored open life drawing events. There would be live, often nude, models posing, and artists drawing.
The fourth Artomatic, as it was now spelled and has been spelled since, was held from November 12 through December 5, 2004, at the old Capital Children's Museum in the H Street Corridor of Washington, D.C. "The Washington Post" art critic, Blake Gopnik, wrote a review of the show labeling the majority of the work mediocre or worse, and decrying the waste of money and effort that could have gone to worthwhile, professional arts activities in DC.
The fifth Artomatic was held from April 13 to May 20, 2007. This was the first time Artomatic was held outside the District of Columbia. It occupied two floors of a vacated office building in Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia. The space had previously been occupied by the Patent and Trademark Office.
Artomatic returned to the District of Columbia with the sixth iteration, held from May 9 through June 15, 2008. This time, they occupied 10 floors of Capitol Plaza I, a new – not yet completed – office building in the NoMa neighborhood.
In February 2009, Artomatic collaborated with the Pink Line Project for "Luck of the Draw: An Art and Music Experience." This event attracted over 1,500 people and was held at the Capitol Riverfront Neighborhood. Also in this seventh version of the event, several artists received interesting letters from someone who called himself "The Benefactor", causing both admiration and alarm in several of the artists.
The seventh Artomatic was also the tenth anniversary event. It ran from May 29 to July 5, 2009 in the Navy Yard neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It occupied a brand new building, 55 M Street SE, in a development near the new Washington Nationals ballpark located right over an entrance of the Navy Yard Metro Station. Over 76,000 visitors attended.
The eighth Artomatic was held from May 18 to June 23, 2012, in Crystal City, Virginia. It was held in a vacant office building, the event's largest space ever.
The ninth Artomatic was held in New Carrollton, Maryland, from October 30 to December 12, 2015.
The tenth Artomatic was held in Potomac, Maryland, in November 2016. Diane Tuckman, a pioneering silk artist and author on the same genre exhibited and taught classes at this Artomatic.
The eleventh Artomatic returned to Crystal City, Virginia running from March 24 to May 6, 2017. It was staged using seven floors of an empty office building.
The artfair organizers wanted to mark the 20th anniversary year in a meaningful way. However, 2019 came and went without finding a location to host the exhibition, so anniversary plans were moved to 2020, only to be upended by the outbreak of COVID-19. It was announced that for 2020, the production of Artomatic would be a totally online exhibition.
Licensed events and partnerships.
The Artomatic concept has been licensed out to other places, including Frederick, Maryland, in October and November 2011, and Toledo, Ohio, in April 2015.
In 2005 the Fraser Gallery of Bethesda, MD exhibited "Artomatic Top 10." The show was curated to exhibit the work of the top ten artists selected by the gallery director from the 2004 Artomatic, and included work by Mark Jenkins, Michael Janis, Tim Tate and others. The show was selected as a "Hot Pick" of the week by "The Washington Post". Also in 2005, the Anne C. Fisher Gallery in Georgetown selected an exhibition selected from Artomatic artists titled "10 Most Wanted." The exhibition was curated by Fisher and by F. Lennox Campello, and included work by Frank Warren, the creator of the PostSecret project.
In 2007, three art galleries in Bethesda, Maryland, put on a coordinated selected show of artists who had taken part in Artomatic. The galleries mounted the art for their monthly Bethesda Art Walk of January 12, 2007.
In 2009 this was repeated by the Fraser Gallery in Bethesda, with a second curated exhibition of Artomatic artists.
Smaller events and partnerships have also happened in following years, including a small display in the oldest wing of National Airport in 2011 and select Artomatic artists were featured with poetry by BRASH at Studio Gallery on R Street NW in Washington, D.C., in 2010.
In 2013, thirty-five artists who participated at Artomatic 2012 were curated by juror F. Lennox Campello to show work at the PEPCO Edison gallery in Downtown Washington, D.C.
Artomatic has also partnered with art groups from other cities and countries, specifically glass studios from England for the 2009 iteration, in order to bring work from elsewhere into the DC art scene. The 2009 Artomatic included of one of Washington, DC's Sister Cities: Sunderland, England. Thirty seven artists and businesses from Sunderland participated in Artomatic including glass artists and musical acts.