‘Twirling Fire at Artomatic’
courtesy of ‘starbuck77’

The building at 55 M St SE, right above the Nationals Park entrance of Navy Yard Metro still hasn’t become much. With area development on hold due to the economy, the completed, but unoccupied, monolith along the Capitol Riverfront is a perfect host for this year’s Artomatic. This the tenth anniversary of the roving art show that takes place in the District’s most ad-hoc gallery. This year, it covers 8 floors of the building, with several performance artist spaces, as well as the traditional art-mounted-on-plywood.

Artomatic09.35
courtesy of Ghost Bear

On hand to launch Artomatic, in addition to founder George Cook, were Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Councilman Tommy Wells (Ward 6) and the deputy mission chief of the British Embassy. This year’s Artomatic features a large contingent from DC Sister City Sunderland, England, including several glass artists from the doctoral program at the University there. The calendar for the five month exhibiton is pretty amazing, with movie screenings, performance art, family-oriented art projects, music shows & DJs.

It’s hard to explain just how important art is to a city. It’s part of the soul, and certainly part of the day to day life. Artomatic is where all the artists get to show off what they’re working on in a much more grand environment than your basic gallery. Go. It’ll be amazing. There’s a lot of floors that may not be kid-appropriate (there are many artistic nudes) but there are floors designed for families. Check it out, it’s absolutely worth seeing. Here are a few of our shots from the 8th & 9th floors yesterday:

‘Robot Portrait’
courtesy of ‘tbridge’

‘Dana Ellyn’
courtesy of ‘tbridge’

‘Neon Presidents 3’
courtesy of ‘tbridge’

‘Artomatic09.40’
courtesy of ‘Ghost_Bear’

‘Artomatic09.30’
courtesy of ‘Ghost_Bear’

‘Catharsis & Karma’
courtesy of ‘tbridge’

Artomatic, through July 5th
55 M St SE
Washington DC 20003

Tom Bridge

I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.