Dissident Display
|
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
Eric Brewer, 39, Adrian Loving, 37, and Ayo Okunseinde, 34
The fashionable, charismatic men of Dissident Display have injected the D.C. art scene with a dose of coolness. They throw underground parties, such as when they converted an empty retail space on 14th Street NW last May into a concert/art event called "Underwater."
"Three or four years ago, you didn't have the art scene that exists today where people will take abandoned spaces or places in transition to have spontaneous art gatherings to promote artists and the idea of socializing around and about art," says Brewer, top right.
Dissident Display operates an art gallery at 416 H St. NE, where they threw a 25-year-anniversary tribute to the hip-hop documentary "Wild Style" last fall. (The top floor of the building houses the group's commercial arm, which they pitch as a one-stop shop for video production and Web design.) "Because our space is not so sterile," Okunseinde, top left, says, "it gives access to people who might be intimidated by the white walls of art museums."
This spring, Dissident Display launched Scene, an online art magazine. Scene features three-minute video interviews with creative types as disparate as a tattoo artist and a National Gallery of Art curator. The secret to moving between such different social circles? Portray an image of success, Loving says. "We're sort of like self-styled celebrities."
-- Rachel Beckman
