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A double dose for the east coast as Giant Robot New York get’s Lost in the Woods with Rhode Island’s Andrea Kang and Scarygirl acclaimed creator Nathan Jurevicius.

From the Robots:

“For Lost in the Woods, the artists will be creating medium- to small-sized works depicting children and animals finding their way through a dream-like forest, in muted colors on variety of media. Their collaborative pieces will combine ink, acrylic paint, and cut paper. For her personal work, Andrea is using ink on cut paper, while Jurevicius is using pens and watercolors. Each will also debut two new silkscreens at the show (including a skate deck design) as well as a limited-edition giclee print. There will be new plush owlets, too.”

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The behemoth known as Buff Monster invades New York with his latest artistic goodies as Giant Robot NY hosts Adventures in Lollipopland.

Check out the preview here.

From GRNY:

“In Adventures in Lollipopland, Buff Monster is celebrating “the duality of cute and ice-cream-inspired traditional imagery, along with heavy-metal-inspired darker imagery. Some pieces are cute and fun; others are darker and more Satanic.” In contrast to his last show at GRNY, which featured kaiju-inspired characters along with a lot of writing in kanji, he considers this to be a neo traditional show. Pieces are slated to include 3 16″ x 16″ paintings, 30 10″ x 10″ wood panels, and some small, fun 7″ x 7″ pieces, as well as custom toys.”

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For the east coasters who weren’t able to view Giant Robot’s Biennale 2: 15 Years at the Japanese American National Museum, you’ll soon be able to see what made Giant Robot’s anniversary show such a success as Prints and Pieces comes to GRNY this Saturday.

Among the artists featured will be Takashi Murakami, Chiho Aoshima, David Choe, Ai Yamaguchi, David Horvath, Dehara, and Le Merde.

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The day after Thanksgiving, a.k.a. Black Friday, is upon us which of course means the holiday shopping season has officially begun (in the United States). Let the commerce commence!

• In a novel approach to bring the art to the people, artist/designer Parra drives around LA with his mobile pop-up truck where he’ll be peddling both his art and clothing from his Rockwell Clothing line including various Stones Throw collabos. Truck stops at UNDFTD in Silver Lake from 12-2pm, HVW8 Gallery on Melrose from 3-5pm, and Archrival in Little Tokyo from 6-8pm. Take a peak at what items you may find via Freshnessmag.com.

• Giant Robot stores in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and on the interwebs go the more traditional route as they conduct their salesmanship in-store.

• Possibly the best place to do your gift shopping on the east side of LA is at the uniquely school themed boutique, Reform School. They may not have the crazy sales that many other chain stores are having today but they certainly have an abundance of those not-so-common gifts that are the hardest to find.

• And last but certainly not least is this little show I failed to mention last week and I can’t forgive myself for missing this one. Barry McGee (TWIST) and Phil Frost, two masters of graffiti-to-gallery art opened their group show Mind the Gap at the Prism gallery in West Hollywood last Friday. Curated by RVCA founder and fight aficionado PM Tenore.

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Openings all over Los Angeles, a walking tour that turns into a Big Parade, and a dime bag to take home from New York.

• The Clayton Brothers come home to Santa Monica’s Patrick Painter Gallery with Jumbo Fruit, their latest series featuring their trademark surreal twist this time focussing on the standard issue still-life model of fruit.

• A big two for one opening for Culver City’s LeBasse Projects summer season with Distorted Lens, featuring “Superflat” styled pop artists David Flores and Lisa Alisa.

• Make a move to the group show Momentum, featuring Tiffany Bozic, Chigi (also known as Neri), Ina Kyung Lim, Tessar Lo, Veronique Meignaud, and Brooks Salzwedel at Alhambra’s Nucleus Gallery.

• Giant Robot New York goes tiny for their massive group show Dime Bag 3. Among the over 200 New York painters, illustrators, graphic designers, filmmakers, photographers, and product designers, are Cynthia Connolly, Evah Fan, Maya Hayuk, Rich Jacobs, Andy Kehoe, Matt Leines, Jeff Soto, and Tobin Yelland.

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This weekend’s events and openings look swell and all but you know the whole world will be dancing their collective asses off to the music of Michael all weekend long. So tonight, you gotta leave that 9-5 up on the shelf and just enjoy yourself!

• The LA Film Festival pays tribute to some of the most iconic music videos that completely raised the bar with Where It Was At: A Propaganda and Satellite Films Tribute featuring classic clips from Spike Jonze, David Fincher, Mark Romanek, Stephane Sednaoui, and more. Also, the Propaganda Class Reunion, with many of the co-founders and early executives, will follow the Friday, June 26 screening!

• The Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax conclude their Comedy Death Ray (Upright Citizens Brigade) series with Adult Swim’s Tim and Eric presenting David Byrne’s 1985 quirky look at Texas with True Stories. Bonus: Tim and Eric will be presenting a sneak preview of some of their latest sketch work from their hilariously creepy show, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

• The second installment of Subliminal Project’s Park Life series brings together a diverse group of creatives for the opening of The New Utopia at Echo Park’s Studio Number One. Featuring Shepard Fairey, Amanda Fairey, Florencio Zavala, Cleon Peterson, Zach Gibson, Kristian Henson, Casey Ryder, Jesselisa Moretti, Simon Steinhardt, Philip Lumbang, Ernesto Yerena, Marissa Textor, Adrianne Read, Jeremy Kaplan, Fighting, Seth Ferris, Sage Vaughn, Maya Hayuk, Michael Muller, Mansi Shah, Tanya Rubbak, Gail Swanlund, Jeremy Landman, Nicholas Bowers, Spencer Elden, Z James, Edwin Bethea, Eric Elms, The Date Farmers, Devin Gallagher, HelloVon and more…

• APAK (husband and wife duo of Aaron Piland and Ayumi Kajikawa Piland) bring their magical little creatures to Hollywood’s Tinlark Gallery with their Rainbow Garden.

• Korin Faught’s hauntingly beautiful paintings come to the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City with her solo show Echo.

• INVADER and WK Ineteract dually attack New York’s Jonathan Levine Gallery with their respective solo shows Top 10 and Motion Portrait.

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• Jack Long goes long with his latest paintings for his show Singing Her to Sleep at Giant Robot’s New York shop.

• And finally on Sunday, come to Silver Lake and Hunt and Gather in a garden filled with one of a kind treasures culled from the collections of local collectors.

More from the locals:

“Local Silverlake peeps have come together to put their items on display. There’s gonna be music, $1 refreshments (margaritas, mimosas, & lemonade) and the CUTEST KITCHEN BOUTIQUE selling HOMEMADE VEGAN BAKED TREATS and CANNED GOODS.

Other items you will find on your hunt: VINTAGE bags, shoes and clothing. ANTIQUES, HANDCRAFTED CLOTHING, RECORDS, BOOKS, HANDMADE TERRARIUMS, ORGANIC APOTHECARY PRODUCTS, ORIGINAL ART and so much more!”

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Come one, come all! LA is once again hustlin’ and bustlin’ this weekend with art, film, food, and music galore.

• Arkitip gets down with the ubiquitous Shepard Fairey tonight in Hollywood for the release of issue no. 0051, art installations, and of course Shep and guest djs on the 1’s and 2’s. All courtesy of Alife.

• Celebrate at Chinatown’s Ooga Booga with good ol’ Cali and crew for the unveiling of Teenage Teardrop’s six latest drops: three new 12″s by Nick Dewitt, Lucky Dragons, and Infinite Body, two new t-shirts for the summer, and one new zine! Live performances by the aforementioned artists as well as a dj set by Eddie Ruscha.

• The Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax continue June’s Comedy Death Ray (Upright Citizens Brigade) series with Patton Oswalt presenting Larry Cohen’s 1976 thriller, God Told Me To. Says funny man Patton, “I picked God Told Me To because I’ve never seen it — and I’ve always wanted to see Andy Kaufman go on a shooting rampage.” I smell unintentional comedy brewing.

• Opening this Saturday at the Scion Space on La Cienega is This Must Be The Place, a collection of art and oddities by eight American artists (Gluekit, Maxwell Loren Holyoke-Hirsch, Damien Correll, Joel Speasmaker, Matt Curry, Skull Phone, Dan Funderburgh and Jemma Hostetler) who explore the notion of ‘home’ with the loose limitation of a two-toned color palette.

• After unleashing their brand of Asian pop culture to the world in magazine form way back in 1994, Giant Robot has expanded their operation quite significantly with stores in LA, NY, and SF. Celebrate their quinceañera with them as they launch their 15th anniversary group show at the bay area branch.

• Toy Swap! Toy Swap! Toy Swap! Sale! Sale! Sale! On Saturday dork out and trade your toys with other toy dorks at Los Feliz’s venerable Wacko/Soap Plant/La Luz De Jesus.

• Bike down and get your design and dim sum on deliciously with DeLab (design east of La Brea). Read details and more from Alissa (Gelatobaby) here. Don’t forget to RSVP to hello@designeastoflabrea.org!

*Also, it’s not too late to submit your tasty designs for Dwell’s Coolhaus ice cream contest also being judged by the cream loving Alissa.

Gelatobaby meets Coolhaus from Alissa Walker on Vimeo.
• With schools coming to a close for the summer all aross the land, Cinespia apporpriately screeens Mike Nichols’ 1967 classic, The Graduate starring Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

• Watch iconic music video classics when the LA Film Festival screens Where It Was At: A Propaganda and Satellite Films Tribute with clips from Spike Jonze, David Fincher, Mark Romanek, Stephane Sednaoui, and more.

• And finally, dance the weekend away Hollywood Bowl style Sunday night with Femi Kuti, Santigold, Raphael Saadiq, and host KCRW’s Garth Trinidad.

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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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