Strangely Removed
By Rich See

The DCAC offers irreverent, possibly blasphemous art for the avant-garde.

In the heart of Adams Morgan, situated in an inconspicuous location between Ray the Homeless Man's occasional sidewalk sale of "found home items" and the regular Saturday morning farmer's market, lies Washington's closest relative to New York's avant-garde arts scene: the District of Columbia Arts Center.

While it's smack in the middle of trendy eateries and bars, you won't find Saturday morning watercolor courses for over-worked professionals seeking inner peace at 2438 18th Street. Touring companies don't stop here to perform Eleanor: Her Secret Journey, starring Jean Stapleton. But you will find an eclectic panorama of visual and performing arts, which might include a nude painting of Marion Berry chopping off his arm or a pink sculpture installation devised to look like the world, if it was inside of a piece of Bazooka bubble gum. In the space's black box theater you'll discover up-and-coming local theatre companies staging performance art, one-man shows, or low-rent versions of off-Broadway offerings such as Eating Raoul: The Musical.

DCAC's urban edginess is apparent as soon as you arrive at its yellow-speckled entrance, tightly wedged amidst a nameless convenience and electronics store and a women's upscale clothing boutique. Ascending the echoing wooden steps, you get the feeling you're not so much visiting an art center as stopping in for a psychic reading with Miss Cleo. But once at the top of the stairs, you're plopped right in the middle of an intimate gallery. Emerging artists have chosen this quiet space, strangely removed from the hustle of Adams Morgan, to push the envelope and expand Washington's view on what constitutes "art."

B. Stanley, the center's executive director, recalls DCAC's history back to when the original Washington Project for the Arts was established in 1975. (The current incarnation of the WPA, founded in 1996 and based at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, is not the same organization.) Back then, the WPA was created to assist local artists in the development, creation, and showing of their artistic endeavors. However, with the infamous Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit "The Perfect Moment," ideological differences within the organization came to a head.

Under attacks from Sen. Jesse Helms, the Corcoran Gallery of Art cancelled its planned exhibit of Mapplethorpe's controversial show, and the first WPA took over the installation as a form of protest against government censorship. "The Perfect Moment" was a smash success, with 4,000 people crowding into its cramped space during the first weekend. But shortly afterwards, one contingent of WPA members wanted to keep the focus national, while another wanted to stay true to the Project's local nature. This small band of artists created their own nurturing space, later called the District of Columbia Arts Center.

Stanley says over the past 20 years, Washington's art scene has changed tremendously. "Back in the early '80s, you could rent a dance studio for $5 an hour and put on a show," he says. Today, theatre and dance groups scurry about, competing against each other in the hunt for affordable space. At one time, artists printed a flyer and performed. Now the first question is, "How do I form a 501(c)(3) non-profit and find funding?"

There were a handful of performance companies in 1982. Today, the number of arts organizations in the Washington area is increasing faster than the rent prices. But through this burgeoning arts market, DCAC has remained, according to Stanley, nestled comfortably in the same location where it was founded in 1989. Pretty amazing considering that the center commits itself to fledgling avant-garde artists, and that the Adams Morgan neighborhood has gone from blighted to uber-trendy.

Stanley credits DCAC's existence and stability to its board of directors, who assure the center maintains its mission, yet allow the director and his staff a free hand to manage day-to-day operations and build DCAC's audience.

Humble Beginnings

Originally two one-bedroom apartments, DCAC's first visitors walked through a gallery of small rooms that included a kitchen to view the works. To get to the black box theatre, located outside in a former carriage house, patrons walked around the building and through the side alley. Today, the gallery area is one open space, while one finds the theatre out the second floor, down a set of fire escape-like metal stairs to the former garage's side door. For DCAC, that's upscale.

The center hopes to create a dialogue within Washington's artistic community. Developed by artists for artists, DCAC strives to be a place where emerging visual and performing artists can meet, intermingle, and share their works. "Artists don't live normal lives," Stanley says. "That goes for visual as well as performing artists." So the center attempts to create a welcoming environment for artists to meet and talk -- not just about art, but creativity and the artistic life. To develop the quality of Washington's emerging artists, DCAC brings non-regional painters, sculptures, and photographers to its gallery, offering local artists a chance to discuss and view other arts scenes.

Home to daily rehearsals, acting classes offered by the Theatre Lab, monthly art salons, open-mike nights, poetry readings, theatre productions, and a revolving array of art openings and receptions, the DCAC is also the first Washington venue to regularly program shows at 10 p.m. for a later, bar-going crowd. Stanley says it's busy seven days a week, so there's never a dull moment. And that's just one reason he stays on as the center's director. Another is for the sake of dialogue.

"DC is a tough place to be an artist, especially a visual artist," he says. "You get no good criticism. The Washington Post used to do side-by-side pro and con reviews." But it's not just the Post that lacks useful dialogue, he says -- it's all of our local arts reviews. Stanley says he's compelled to foster that needed dialogue.

Lastly, Stanley stays for the humor. A few years ago, a company put on a production of Also Known As, a drama about Christ and his disciples, with a decidedly non-orthodox Christian bent. A vanload of Baptist church members arrived, not knowing what the show was about. At one point during the performance, church members deemed the production blasphemous. They stood up and evangelized to the cast, trying to save their souls from eternal damnation. The cast and audience were momentarily shocked. But instead of breaking character, the actors jumped into the fray, arguing the finer points of Biblical reference until the Baptists left the building.

If you want to find out what the Baptists are missing, check out DCAC's current line up. On August 23, self-taught Cuban artist Alejandro Lazo Montaner brings an energetic view of idols, fetishes, artifacts, and fabricated landscapes to the gallery's walls. In the black box, Phoenix Theatre DC's Independence and Mr. Mayhem Studios' and she was run in repertory. In September, Venus Theatre brings Suffragette Plays, and B. Stanley's own Theatre Du Jour stages Last Minute.