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Our first post holiday weekend of the summer begins early as three events cover ground around LA this Thursday evening. Read on reader:

• London street aesthetics come to Los Angeles’ gallery walls as Eine takes aim at the Carmichael Gallery of Contemporary Art on La Brea with his debut LA solo exhibition, The A-Z of Change. Internationally recognized for his super-sized lettering in urban areas as well as printing for Pictures on Walls, Eine will be on hand to unveil a new body of works on canvas that combine his trademark typeface, vivid color palette and provocative imagery to powerful effect.

• Alife presents Captured, a film documenting the the final era of raw creativity and lawlessness in New York City’s Lower East Side-a neighborhood famed for art, music, and revolutionary minds. Following documentarian Clayton Patterson, Captured comes to LA to captivate audiences at Hollywood’s Space 1520 on Cahuenga.

• Get your Potluck on at Country Club Projects on Fairfax as Chrstine Nichols curates the work of artists Fritz Chesnut, Alison Frey, Chad Marsh, Jason Meadows, and Mark Verabioff get together for a smorgasborg of a show.

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Apparently light paintings aren’t among Pablo Picasso’s 50,000 pieces of known artwork (seriously, he made 50,000 pieces of art! According to Wikipedia it breaks down as so: “1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics, roughly 12,000 drawings, many thousands of prints, and numerous tapestries and rugs”). Add to that total these 14 photos unearthed by LIFE magazine of Picasso doodling with a small flashlight in 1949 when LIFE photographer Gjon Mili paid him a visit in Vallauris, France. Click this link or the pics below to see the entire gallery.

Click this link or the pics above to see the entire gallery.

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Don’t ask, don’t think, just click the image below and journey through Marco Brambrilla’s Civilization. Serious amazement.

See more with his previous video installations here.

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In addition to their current curated video wall at the Cooper Design Space, Cinema Tuesdays at Nike’s Montalban Theater in Hollywood, as well as their screening series at the Hammer Museum, our fine Flux friends keep functioning phenomenally as they fearlessly fulfill yet another fantastically fun function. This one finds a place at their Venice based studio space tonight. Come down and get a full frontal face Fluxing! (I know, I know, too much.)

The fine Flux print:

Flux is proud to present Geometry of Ruins, an exhibition and salon by NY-based Brazilian artists Andrezza Valentin and Guilherme Marcondes. The mixed media exhibition includes photography, video and installation-based works.

June 18, 2009
8:00 pm - 11:00 pm

Please RSVP to attend the opening.

Exhibit: June 19 - July 11
Hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 2-5 pm and by appointment

Flux
326 Sunset Ave.,
Venice, CA 90291
+1-310-295-2523

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Group shows, group shows, and more group shows with Sarah Silverman, Z-Trip, Shepard Fairey, Diego Rivera, some graffiti, a dragon, and a Winnebago man mixed in to make your weekend well done.

• East coast meets West coast as artists Sage Vaughn, Dereck Albeck, Hiro Kurata, Mars Mario Martinez (MARS-1), G Bradley Rhodes, Britton Tolliver, and Oliver Vernon join forces for a group show at the Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica.

• At their not-so-secret Silver Lake comic book shop, The Secret Headquarters presents the Guilty Pleasures of artist Aiyana Udensen. Come for a drink or two and an “an informative slide presentation on rodent care”.

• Get down with superstar DJs and Darwin’s Revolution at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles for the last First Fridays of the season as Z-Trip, The Gaslamp Killer, and The Phatal DJ rock the hallowed halls of history.

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• You don’t have to be quiet as you laugh your ass off at the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax as The Cinefamily presents Sarah Silverman presenting Carl Reiner’s 1970 black comedy, Where’s Poppa? as part of June’s Comedy Death Ray (Upright Citizens Brigade) series.

• For those looking to take a weekend trip to Northern California, the Scion art tour makes a move to San Jose with Installation Five: Self Portrait featuring artists Blek le Rat, Jeff Soto, David Choe, Kelsey Brookes, Mark Mothersbaugh, Ron English, Sage Vaughn, and many, many more at the Anno Domini Gallery.

• LA’s downtown Crewest crew presents a group tribute show to the mecca of the LA graffiti scene with The Legendary Belmont Tunnel. Featuring writers Cab, Man One, and the legendary Saber, among others.

• Sometimes there’s nothing funnier than found footage and the Cinefamily has a bunch of it as the Silent Movie Theater presents TV Carnage Night, the equivalent of “a mystical night of channel-flipping, in which every single click of the remote lands you on that bizarre something that stops you in your audiovisual tracks”. Check out a clip here:
TV Carnage Night (feat. One Man Force)
Silent Movie Theater
Saturday June 6, 2009 at 10:45pm 611 N. Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90036 Cost: $10

• Giant Robot New York spotlights “indie-comics creators from across the country, ranging from stapled-and-folded stars of DIY to art-gallery superstars” with the group show Panelists V.

• The ever visceral Amanda Visell unleashes her latest vinyl toy, The Dragon Scout, for a release party at Pasadena’s Switcheroo workshop.

• For the Internationally inclined, the irrepressible street art icon Shepard Fairey opens a retrospective of his screenprint work at the Berlin arm of LA’s Merry Karnowski Gallery.

• See the Life-size Murals of Diego Rivera as educator Gregorio Luke leads an innovative multi-media lecture of the Mexican muralist’s life and work with the aid of 20,000 lumens at the Ford Theater. “Murals are projected life size using the most advanced projection technology and gives viewers the sensation of being in front of the original murals”.

• And finally, end your weekend on a f-ing high note with a sneak preview of Winnebago Man, a film in which filmmaker Ben Steinbauer takes on the seemingly impossible task of tracking down Jack Rebney (aka “the angriest RV salesman in the world”) and his hilariously foul-mouthed and ill-tempered outtakes from a Winnebago promo he made in the 80s. Check the original clip here:

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Huge art openings, major and not so major motion pictures, as well as Trashy and Smelly events in LA. The end of May is a busy busy weekend and finds a lil’ somethin’ somethin’ for everyone, even peeps in Cinci!

• Tonight pop art legend Coop brings his trademark grinning devils, voluptuous vixens, and hell-bound hot rods to the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City as he opens his highly anticipated and hyped first solo show since 2006.

• While on my latest editing stint with the Motion Theory crew, we put together a couple of charming Nintendo spots for the upcoming video game The Legendary Starfy. What we didn’t know then was that the commercials were going to be featured in front of a small indie Pixar film coming out this weekend called Up. For the kids, yo!

• When you put the music of Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse together with the mind and eyes of David Lynch you get The Dark Night of the Soul, a series of photographs influenced by the original songs created by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse for the album of the same name. This uniquely unusual collabo marks Danger Mouse’s first-ever gallery installation as well as Lynch’s first exhibition at the Michael Kohn Gallery in nearly 15 years. The album will be playing in the gallery’s two rooms as it is now one of the only places you can legally hear it.*

*As a result of a dispute with EMI, the record — featuring vocal contributions from members of the Strokes, the Cardigans, the Flaming Lips, the Pixies, and Super Furry Animals — is no longer receiving an official release. A book containing Lynch’s artwork, originally slated to be packaged with the CD, will now only include a blank CD-R, of which the artists cagily advise, “Use it as you will.”

• Sydney based street artist Kill Pixie (a.k.a. Mark Whalen) brings his latest works stateside with I’ll Hit You Up Tomorrow at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery on La Brea. Also featured in the project room, The Future Spa–collaborative Installation with Autolux. All this hosted by actor Tim Roth.

• Eat vegetarian, dance right, do yoga, and help raise funds for inner city youth as local artists make recycled art at Trashy L.A. sponsored by Breathe Los Angeles campaign. Proceeds go to the Art of Living Foundation Youth Programs in Los Angeles.

• If you’re feeling sleepy on Saturday sleep with the eternal sleepers at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery as Cinespia presents Woody Allen’s futuristic sci-fi romantic comedy Sleeper.

• Ohioans out in the naughty ‘Nati get two openings for the free price of one as Evan Hecox and Christina Seely open their respective shows, Unnamed Places and Lux, at the Country Club of course.

• One more event for Saturday night: Family member and fellow November 13er, DJ Nate Harrington, will be spinning the records before/after the Black Dice perform at The Escarpment presented by the folks at the F Yeah Fest.

• And finally, end the weekend on a high note as one of Aska (The Sads, AsDSSka) Matsumiya’s many bands, The Moonrats, rock The Smell’s Sunday show along with The Curious Mystery, Audacity, Devon Williams.

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A bit of International flavor as two of my favorite artists open firsts with their respective shows overseas; old school Miami graffiti writer come New York fine artist José Parlá in his first solo show in Hong Kong, and Southern California’s robot vs. nature painter Jeff Soto’s first solo show in London.

• Having hang out with José Parlá (Ease) at last years Art Basel in Miami, I found out why his old buddy and my editing mentor Fernando Villena calls him one of the “nicest guys with good taste you’ll ever meet”. José brings that taste to Hong Kong with his signature graf influenced canvases in Reading through Seeing at the Ooi Botos Gallery. Check a preview of the show here (via Arrested Motion).

Also check out José breaking down his method for Cool Hunting:

• Having seen and appreciated his work since he was grad fresh out of Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design, it’s been a pleasure to see Jeff Soto become one of Southern California’s most well known pop artists. Now London gets to see and appreciate his work too with his latest works in The Inland Empire at the StolenSpace Gallery. Check another fine interview and preview of the show here (via Arrested Motion).



The Inland Empire

StolenSpace Gallery
Dray Walk, The Old Truman Brewery
91 Brick Lane, London E1 6QL, United Kingdom
+44 (0) 207 247 2684
Show runs from May 14 through June 6, 2009

And here’s a clip of Jeff citing his childhood influences from FIFTY24SF Gallery and Upper Playground’s art doc The Run Up:

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By now you full well know I’ve been backing my boys from N.A.S.A. and taking any chance I get to help spread the good word of their collaborative venture and debut album, “The Spirit of Apollo”. And with a whole slate of music videos created for the album and accompanying film which features the work of some of today’s biggest names in the art world, all under the watchful eye of the man known as Syd Garon (Qbert’s legendary “Wave Twisters”), you know you’ll be seeing much more in the near future. Here’s a couple of N.A.S.A.’s latest AV offerings:

• “The People Tree” featuring David Byrne, Chali 2na, Gift Of Gab & Z-Trip with art by Marcel Dzama

• “Hip Hop” featuring KRS-One, Fatlip, & Slim Kid Tre directed by Splunny
  

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This Saturday February 21st, marks KAWS‘ long awaited Los Angeles solo show debut with “The Long Way Home” at the Honor Fraser Gallery on La Cienega. This opening will without a doubt be the biggest LA art show of the year so make sure to mark you calendars, grab a Companion, and be prepared to wait a while to get in. Click here for more on the ever so humble and quiet KAWS from the gallery’s press release.

Also, here’s Brian last year as he taught kids in New York the basics of character design as part for our Make Something!! web series we created in conjunction with Beautiful Losers and Nike Sportswear last year.

And finally, here’s a bit more of the street art icon in NY at an opening, giving a tour of his studio, and going legit for a day.

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Funny, Valentine’s Day actually means something this year.

“Passion for the Possible” The Work of Sister Corita

Opening reception

Saturday, February 14th, 2009 from 1-4pm
(Exhibition runs through April 4, 2009)

With D.I.Y. silk-screen gift stations and musical performance by the Ladies choir with special guests @ 3pm

Corita Kent was one of America’s most celebrated serigraph artists, creating works that won her international acclaim from the 1950s until her death in 1986. As art professor at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, her hallmark mixture of captivating images and provocative texts delivered messages of hope and joy to a troubled world.

Passion For The Possible is a retrospective exhibition of Corita’s works from the 1950’s to the 1980’s. It will be presented in a visually stunning installation comprised of original serigraphs, sculpture, photography, wall murals and ephemera related to her life and career.

A series of creative workshops based on Corita’s teachings will be held on selected Saturdays for the duration of the exhibit.

This exhibition is guest curated by Aaron Rose (Beautiful Losers) and is co-organized by the Corita Art Center in Los Angeles (www.corita.org), home of the largest collection of Corita’s serigraphs in the world.

Film screenings

Friday, February 13th, 2009 starting at 8pm

We Have No Art (26min)
filmed in 1967 at the Immaculate Heart College, Los Angeles
A Film by Baylis Glascock

Mary’s Day 1964 (12min)
filmed in 1964 at the Immaculate Heart College, Los Angeles
A Film by Baylis Glascock

BECOME A MICROSCOPE (22min)
90 Statements on Sister Corita
A Film by Aaron Rose

Cal State Northridge Art Gallery
18111 Nordhoff St.
Northridge, CA 91330

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