KINGSTON – The Kingston Midtown Arts District (MAD) and Arts Society of Kingston (ASK) have joined artistic forces to create a new annual fine arts exhibition and competition to premiere in September. The Kingston Annual 2020 (KA2020) will highlight exciting and emerging artists living and working in Kingston and the Mid-Hudson region: Prizes will be awarded for 1st ($500), 2nd ($250) and 3rd ($150) place entries.
MAD and ASK have extended the deadline for artists to submit work to KA2020 to July 31. KA2020 will be curated by Julie Hedrick, a world-renowned Kingston-based painter who has exhibited extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Colombia, and Europe.
Noted artist and MacArthur Foundation Awardee, Judy Pfaff, who moved to Kingston in 1993 and now lives in Tivoli, has accepted Hedrick’s invitation to be a KA2020 guest artist. Her work, which has previously been exhibited in three Whitney Biennials and represented the United States in the 1998 Sao Paulo Bienal, will be exhibited in the ASK Spotlight Gallery. Her works reside in the permanent collections of several prestigious galleries. Pfaff is widely considered the pioneer of installation art, where her multi-disciplinary focus—from painting to printmaking to sculpture—has been described as “painting in space.” Each of her installations considers the specific spatial geometries of the room, the ceiling, the street out the window, so no two shows are ever alike.
For more information and eligibility/submission guidelines, please visit
http://kingstonannual.art
“I am quite excited Judy Pfaff has accepted my invitation to be a guest artist!” says Hedrick. “The number of exceptional artists living in the Hudson Valley at this time is historic and Judy has been an integral part of the artistic movement that emerged here in the 1980s. I look forward to being part of this inaugural Kingston Annual 2020 Fine Arts Exhibition and am thrilled to have Judy’s participation.”
Since its founding in 2013, MAD has partnered with local organizations to showcase the power of art to inform, inspire, heal, and bring artists together within the broader communities of arts supporters and enthusiasts. This MAD partnership with ASK for KA2020 will be the first public art show since the pandemic, and it will showcase the talents and creativity of artists in Kingston alongside other artists from the region.
KA2020 is yet another signature event in the history of MAD efforts to revitalize and strengthen the arts in Kingston and the Mid-Hudson region. MAD reinstituted gallery openings on the first Saturday of each month; hosts an annual Celebration of the Arts/EXPO; has joined with the teaching artists of The D.R.A.W. to offer a wide array of arts education programs for people of all ages; and is an integral partner in Made In Kingston, a popular annual showcase for local artists. MAD has recently moved into a new office, exhibition and studio space at Energy Square, located at 20 Cedar Street in Kingston.
Works selected for KA2020 will be exhibited at the ASK galleries at 97 Broadway in Kingston (if COVID-19 permits) and will simultaneously be shown in an online gallery. Both galleries will open on September 5 and remain up through the weekend of September 26-27 for Art Walk Kingston. If the ASK galleries are open to the public, onsite opening and closing receptions will be scheduled for September 5 and 26. The online gallery will be active for one year and then archived for subsequent viewing.
For more information about Kingston Annual 2020, including application and submission guidelines for artists, please visit http://kingstonannual.art or send an email to mail@madkingston.org.
