“Violinist and singer Emily Wells loves rap music and Vivaldi. Money Mark (Mark Nishita) is a musician and producer who transformed the sound of the Beastie Boys. From these unique perspectives, the two artists come together for a special collaborative performance, where classical roots meld with hip-hop rhythms, looped violin melodies, and funk, folk, Afro-Cuban, and Latin-inspired jams.”
Painter, photographer, pro skateboarder, loving husband, Toy Machine leader, vegan. Ed Templeton is many a thing. But as Ed describes himself and his artistic brethren in our film Beautiful Losers, “In titling the show Beautiful Losers, that gave it a label and people are now ‘oh, you’re a beautiful loser’. Well you can’t tag me as a one thing or the other, you can’t tag anyone in the show as just a painter, as just a photographer…we’re just artists.”
Ed’s The Seconds Pass passes through Roberts & Tilton in Culver City starting this Friday.
Ed Templeton-The Seconds Pass
Opening reception: Friday, February 26th, 6-9pm
Roberts & Tilton
5801 Washington Blvd. Culver City, California 90232
Show runs from February 26 through April 3, 2010
Beautiful Losers graphic/poster designer and my good buddy Keith Scharwath is now also a good art director as he guest art directs the upcoming Neighborhoods issue of GOOD magazine. In his new do-gooder role he’s looking for a few good contributors and that’s where you good creative types come in. Get in while the gettings good!
From Keith’s Carwash (obvs cover deadline has passed but content submissions ongoing through Feb 15!):
“Are you an artist or a photographer? We’ve opened up the issue to the greater creative web community through Society6 for visual artists, and Pictory for photographers. What this means in a nutshell is if you are interested in having your art in (or on the cover) of the magazine, you can participate on these sites and your art may be chosen.
The Society6 deadline is end of day tomorrow – Feb. 9th. Click here for more information about participating on Society6.
The Pictory deadline is Feb. 15th. Click here for more info about submitting a photo to Pictory.”
“for a week (more or less depending on demand), the only artwork that will be on offer will be all Steve Powers, all week long. All your favorite icons, punchlines, poignant reminders of the futility of life, hilarious illustrations of our inadequacies, True depictions of true love from the Love Letter project, and of course, PIGEONS. Its all here, it’s cheap, its permanent. No, I’m not tattooing, no skills. I will, however, sign your arm and let one of the skilled pros on staff at Todd’s shop re-ink it, fair enough?”
“Another Elebration, another storm bringing massive precipitation. In spite of the snow, Espo’s Love Letter Tattoo Shop (a division of ICY SIGNS, a subsidiary of Mark Surface Intl.) opened right at the happy hour of 5. Two excellent co-defendants stepped right up: Nick encouraged me to invent something on the spot, while Michelle chose “whats mine is yours” and got it bolder on her shoulder. WHOA, I’ve got that feeling I get when I put work in a good spot. It’s like a seeing diamond in a moonbeam. 10 sheets of flash are in the shop now, we’ll add 10 more on tuesday, 10 more on thursday, and 10 more on friday. Dont see that special piece of flash? come again, rewind till you find the fine line to put on your spine. Or if you want, you can suggest to Es what works best, HELL YES”
Projections
Opening reception: Saturday, January 16th, 6-9pm
Roberts & Tilton
5801 Washington Blvd. Culver City, California 90232
Show runs from January 16 through February 20, 2010
Now that the excess known as Art Basel Miami Beach is all but wrapped up and ready to ship to rich art collectors around the world, the most interesting piece of Basel news I’ve come across was Barry McGee’s (TWIST) venture down to the Southeast. Barry’s reluctant art star status is well documented, so seeing him join in on the Miami madness was surprising at first but upon seeing the project he was working on it made more sense: a group of 15 influential artists from around the world brought together by long-time supporter Jeffrey Deitch of New York’s famed Deitch Projects to do what they please on warehouse walls in Miami’s Wynwood art district for The Wynwood Walls Outdoor Mural Project.
Stephen Powers (ESPO), one of my favorite graffiti artists (or artists for that matter), is currently working on a Love Letter-an ambitious project in which he’s literally painting a love letter to his hometown of West Philly. In conjunction with The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, Steve has been outfitting the city of brotherly love with his signature slogans in his uniquely bold style for this “public art project consisting of a series of 50 rooftop murals from 45th to 63rd streets along the Market Street corridor” which has been ongoing since July of this year.
And if you’ve seen our film Beautiful Losers you’ll have a much better understanding as to why this project means so much to the “handmade myth” known as ESPO (see how Steve eloquently puts it in the Coney Island section of the film).
Groundbreaking ad agency Wieden+Kennedy (Nike, Coca-Cola, EA) aims to break some internet ground with their own web-based television channel called WKE (WKEntertainment). Spearheaded in part by homeboy Aaron Rose, WKE is “an arts and culture digital content delivery platform, a subsidiary of advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy. Whose (sic) goal is to renegotiate the relationship between art, media, advertising and the consumer.” With a handful of videos already rolled out to the masses, new episodes will continue to be released every Tuesday at WKE.
Here’s the rundown of their current lineup of shows:
A serialized show focusing on leaders in the youth/punk/DIY movement. Subjects include over two decades of leaders from the skateboarding, punk, graffiti and hip-hop worlds. Assembled using footage shot for (but never included in) the Beautiful Losers film. Examples: Ian MacKaye, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Glen Friedman, Tony Hawk, etc. (current episodes on Skate and Create and NY artist SWOON both produced by BlackLake Productions, shot by Tobin Yelland and edited by Meg (Decker) Ramsay of Therapy Studios)
A series focusing exclusively on the burgeoning underground music scene in Portland. Using a combination of interviews and live footage we will expose the world to all the interesting bands, record labels and underground venues that make Portland’s music scene so unique. Featured guests include YACHT, Lifesavas, Marriage Records, Jackpot Studios and more. (Cinematography by the great Tobin Yelland!)
Embracing the concept of hybrid, music and visual label W+K Tokyo Lab has been experimenting with new forms of creative expression to bring new experiences that can only be created in Tokyo. Twenty video works are the best selection of music videos made through the collaboration of W+K Tokyo Lab and our label’s artists, such as Hifana, Jemapur and Afra. Also added two of the latest works from “Chinza Dopeness,” a new artist we released in September 2009.
A “weekly” series of web shows based on “how-to” videos commonly found on YouTube. Shot in-agency on a permanent set, basically anything goes here. How to fold a fitted sheet, how to make bacon, how to change your name, etc. Participation will be open to all agency employees as well as outside contributors.
(And no, I didn’t sign up for any back-end points, DVD residuals or anything like that when I edited the film. I just sincerely believe that we made something that is truly worthy of your time. Watch it!)
Beautiful Losers
Starring Starring Thomas Campbell, Shepard Fairey, Jo Jackson, Chris Johanson, Margaret Kilgallen, Harmony Korine, Geoff McFetridge, Barry McGee, Mike Mills, Stephen Powers, Ed Templeton, with Cheryl Dunn, Clare Rojas, Aaron Rose and Deanna Templeton
Directed by Aaron Rose
Co-directed by Joshua Leonard
Produced by Rich Lim, Jon Barlow, Chris Green, Noah Khoshbin
Executive Producers Ravi Ann and Jared Moshe
Cinematography by Tobin Yelland
Edited by Lenny Mesina
Original score by Money Mark
Graphic design by Keith Scharwath