The Ritz art exhibition was a collaboration between

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

COLAB Colab is the commonly used abbreviation of the New York City artists' group Collaborative Projects, which was formed after a series of open meetings between artists of various disciplines. History Colab members came together as a collective in ...

group and

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

Washington Project for the Arts Washington Project for the Arts, founded in 1975, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the support and aid of artists in the Washington, D.C. area. History Alice Denney, a contemporary art collector active on the Washington scene, founded th ...

. The idea started when two groups collaborated to produce an event similar to COLAB's Times Square Show (1980), where the New York group occupied a building in the then-dilapidated red-light District that

Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...

was in 1983.

History and location

The Ritz took place in downtown Washington, D.C. in the Spring of 1983 at 920 F St., one block from the

Martin Luther King Memorial Library The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library (MLKML) is the central facility of the District of Columbia Public Library (DCPL). Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed the 400,000 square foot (37,000 m2) steel, brick, and glass structure, and it is a r ...

. Artists removed the plywood covering the building's entrance and entered the space furnished with artworks and supplies, turning the abandoned residence hotel into a temporary museum. After two weeks, the City prevailed by calling in the local Fire Department and condemning the building for safety violations, evicting all of the artists and securing the building.

Significance

What is both remarkable and ironic about the Ritz Hotel show is that New York artists were apparently disappointed by the lack of political content in the work of Washington artists. Despite the presence of

Washington Color School The Washington Color School, also known as the Washington, D.C., Color School, was an art movement starting during the 1950s–1970s in Washington, D.C., in the United States, built of abstract expressionist artists. The movement emerged during ...

artists Gene Davis, Ann Truitt and

Sam Gilliam Sam Gilliam ( ; November 30, 1933 – June 25, 2022) was an American color field painter and lyrical abstractionist artist. Gilliam was associated with the Washington Color School, a group of Washington, D.C.-area artists that developed a form ...

. At the time, most of Washington's alternative culture was to be found on the city's independent music circuit and its primary venue was the 9:30 Club, just five doors away, then located at 930 F St. N.W. Had the New York City artists stayed through the weekend, they might have discovered the city's DC HarDCore scene, which was explicitly political, featuring bands such as

Minor Threat Minor Threat was an American hardcore punk band, formed in 1980 in Washington, D.C. by vocalist Ian MacKaye and drummer Jeff Nelson. MacKaye and Nelson had played in several other bands together, and recruited bassist Brian Baker and guitar ...

Bad Brains Bad Brains are an American rock band formed in Washington, D.C. in 1976. Originally a jazz fusion band under the name Mind Power, they are widely regarded as pioneers of hardcore punk, though the band's members have objected to the use of this ...

, and Black Flag.

Footnotes

"The Ritz" (1983) was held in an abandoned flea-bag hotel in downtown Washington, DC,, 98Bowery.com, retrieved 11/2010

External links

The Ritz Project, Washington Project for the Arts
Art exhibitions in the United States Art exhibitions in Washington, D.C. Non-profit organizations based in Washington, D.C. {{WashingtonDC-stub