IAN AND JAN: The Undiscovered Duo
A Secret History of the Washington Body School
Jeffry Cudlin and Meg Mitchell
Exhibition Advisors: Rex Weil & Central Intelligence Art
May 11 - June 3, 2007

Press Release: 5/11/07--This spring, many local museums and galleries have been celebrating the Washington Color School, a group of abstract painters who, in the early 1960s, briefly made D.C. the center of the visual arts universe.

Local artists Jeffry Cudlin and Meg Mitchell aren't playing along. At DCAC, the two are staging an art historical intervention, weaving an alternative history for Washington art.

Cudlin and Mitchell have mounted a retrospective for their alter egos, Ian and Jan—a fictitious husband-and-wife performance art duo. According to the exhibition’s premise, Ian and Jan led the Washington Body School , a group that, in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, exhibited their body art alongside the work of prominent Washington abstract painters.

Ian and Jan: The Washington Body School provides humorous commentary on Washington ’s cultural legacy, on revisionist art historical agendas, and on gender bias and power politics in the arts. The show includes photographs, drawings, props, and videos of the couple in action.

The centerpiece of the show is a video featuring interviews with D.C. gallerists, collectors, and historians, all recalling the rich, heretofore unexplored history of these two obscure performance artists. Participants in the video include: Jonathan Binstock, Curator for Contemporary Art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art; Sam Gilliam, celebrated artist; J. W. Mahoney, contributing writer and editor for Art in America; Joshua Shannon, Professor of Contemporary Art History at The University of Maryland, College Park; Andrea Pollan, Director of Curator’s Office; Janis Goodman, critic for WETA’s Around Town and instructor of art at the Corcoran College of Art and Design; and Tyler Green, blogger for Arts Journal and contributing writer for Fortune magazine and The Wall Street Journal.

 

Above: Sam Gilliam and Jonathan Binstock discuss Ian and Jan.

Though the show exists as a parody, it also investigates the seductive power of master narratives, even discredited or demonstrably false ones. Ian and Jan may make you laugh, but they will also change the way you think about the business of cultural production—and Washington , D.C. —forever.