chumpchampion

If you’re not going to be lining up to see one of the thousands of sold out Dark Knight showings this Saturday the 19th, you might want to check out the Santa Monica Pier anywhere from 7pm to 7am for the event known as Glow. After perusing the website and checking out the scheduled events (DJ’s, live bands, parades, and a possible Grunion run sighting!), this fairly huge and ambitious art offering may not be right for me. Maybe if I had gone to a Burning Man or two I would be all over it. But lucky for me I’ll be enjoying a glow of another kind, namely the glow of a 60 foot Joker’s smile on an IMAX screen.

From the Glow website (not to be confused with the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling-G.L.O.W.):

Back in the day when Jackie Chan just started to Rumble in the Bronx and people still thought Chow Yun-Fat was a Chinese dish, I sent a letter to a (then) little known fledgling magazine called Giant Robot. I gave them props for highlighting the rise of Asian pop culture as they brought it to the attention of American audiences who wanted more. In return I got my first ever letter published in a mag I love and they also sent me the coolest Bruce Lee sticker ever (here in shirt form)! Today I get to return the favor as the awesome Asians continue their support of emerging artists with their latest group show at GR2.

Suggestion Box at GR2

July 19 - August 13
Reception: Saturday, July 19, 6:30 -10:00

GR2
2062 Sawtelle Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90025
gr2.net
(310) 445-9276

Giant Robot is proud to present Suggestion Box, a group show featuring new works by artists selected by our own store and magazine staffs in addition to pieces by many of the staffers themselves.

We intend our publication and shops to be catalysts as well as showcases, and are excited to mix artists that provide inspiration with homegrown talent that is inspired by them. Pieces will include drawings, paintings, comics, sewn work, and other mediums.

Contributors will include (but are not limited to) the following:

Aaron Brown
Jeffrey Brown
Seth Drenner
Jordan Fu
Michael Hsiung
Benjamin King
Diana Kwok
David Magdaleno
Tru Nguyen
Molly Colleen O’Connell
Sidney Pink
Yumi Sakugawa
Emilio Santoyo
Eric Shaw
Ryan Jacob Smith
Mark Todd
Christiaan Van Bremen
Katie Vonderheide

A reception featuring many of the artists will take place from 6:30 - 10:00 on Saturday, July 19. For more information about the opening, the artists, GR2, or Giant Robot magazine, please contact:

Eric Nakamura
Giant Robot Owner/Publisher
eric@giantrobot.com
(310) 479-7311

Yesterday I ran a post on the upcoming global graffiti film Bomb It, so I thought a good follow up would be to point you in the direction towards more of the same. Specifically an interview with Barry McGee a.k.a. Twist, one of my favorite artists whose work started on the streets. Vice’s online broadcast network, VBS.TV, has a plethora of cool shows on many cultural topics one of which is Art Talk. Recently Aaron Rose did an interview, of sorts, with Barry for the show. My only problem with this genius little video is that I didn’t get to edit it.

(animations by the über talented new dad Max Erdenberger of Central Office and Viewers Like You.)

(You can check out part 2 of the interview by clicking right here.)

And if you want to see more unique videos, VBS also features shows ranging from the photographically sexy (Shot By Kern), to our polluted environment (Toxic-Garbage Island), to iconic skateboarders and their craft (Epicly Later’d), to even more garbage (Manila’s City of Garbage), to inside looks into places we’re not really allowed in (The Vice Guide To North Korea). Collect them all!

Boasting “the largest exhibition of cutting-edge Chicano art ever presented at LACMA”, Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement features works created during the counterculture revolutions of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The exhibition explores the more experimental tendencies within the Chicano art movement—ones oriented less toward painting and declarative polemical assertion than toward conceptual art, performance, film, photo- and media-based art, and “stealthy” artistic interventions in urban spaces. (I guess graffiti is still a bad word to the ears of L.A. county.) Paintings, sculptures, installations, conceptual and performance art, and inter-media works that incorporate film, digital, and sound art make up the museums offerings.

Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement runs from April 6, 2008 through September 1, 2008. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is located on 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036. Admission is $12 for non-members and grants access to the other current exhibitions, members are free. On the second Tuesday of each month, general admission to the permanent galleries and non-ticketed exhibitions is free to all. After 5 pm, you may pay what you wish.