Tara McPherson is one of the world’s top pop surrealist artists. Known for her heartless, candy pink and turquoise damsels, her staring balloons and her sweetly creepy creatures, McPherson has exhibited from the Phillipines to Sao Paulo. Along the way, she’s created an extraordinary range of merch.
Three hours outside of Rome is Pompeii, the once-flourishing pleasure center which was famously destroyed [and preserved] by an eruption of the nearby Vesuvius volcano. Pompeii’s sudden, violent end by heat and rain of volcanic ash lent archeologists a unique perspective into life 5,000 years ago. Because the city was buried in under six hours, it became an archeological goldmine hundreds of years later, when it was first rediscovered in 1599. Amusingly, the frescoes that were first unearthed back then were considered so obscene in nature, that they were quickly buried again, to protect the strict moral codes of the time.
Surrounded by a giant kid friendly map of Texas, flood control interactive computers, and a dinosaur bone reconstruction exhibit, Talib Kweli stood wiping sweat from his brow and deciding where to eat with friends. Realizing that not much was open in San Antonio, TX at midnight on a Sunday, they joked about heading down to the local Shoneys.
Every piece of plastic that has ever been stamped, “Made in China”, or by any other country for that matter, still exists. Yes, some small portion has been burnt, but that just released toxic gas to the atmosphere. The rest sits in land fills, in your neighborhood park, or swims with the fishes in one of many swirling pools of plastic debris the size of Texas in our oceans. Tonight, two So-Cal boys named Tanner Hoss and Clay Wendel are out to change that.
Their “Oceanic Awareness Collaboration” has brought together 70+ artists from around the world, including my lovely boss lady Barbie Brady and this photographer’s favorite “photo stylist”/artist Renee Lawter, for an art show and silent auction this past weekend in Pamona, CA. I had a chance to chat up the founders for a quick minute over the roar of the show and the following is what they had to say…
This month, Twin Peaks is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Conceived and created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, the haunting TV series ran its fleeting course in the early nineties, suffering tremendous interferences at the hands of ratings-hungry studio execs. Despite its untimely conclusion, Twin Peaks received critical acclaim and spawned a devoted cult following. The plot unfolded around the shocking murder of a prom queen in a fictional Washington town, and the arrival of Seattle FBI agent, Dale Cooper, sent to solve the mystery. The eccentricities and shady undercurrents of small-town life are the heart of the show, though. Coffee, pie, doughnuts, trees and owls – daily staples of Twin Peaks life – became the show’s iconic motifs, and were prominently featured in the artwork of In the Trees – an art event commemorating the series.
Conjoined – a superdimensional art show curated by supreme monster painter, Chet Zar, is currently up at Copro Nason gallery, and it is not to be missed.
Conjoined is a collection of work from the cream of the pop surrealism and lowbrow crops, alongside rare work by renowned special effects creators, some of whom have never exhibited in a gallery setting before.
Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions aka LACE – a nonprofit organization encouraging innovation, has been around since the ’70s and found its current Hollywood Walk of Fame home in the mid-1990s. It’s an unlikely site for an art institution: surrounded by “dancer” shoe stores, tourist traps and nightclubs, LACE seems a little out of place, but that’s the genius of it. Because of this prominent yet peculiar location, the space draws colorful crowds and exposes art to a wider arena than the gallery circuit can.
As I mentioned briefly in my magical music post, I’m one week into my three-week stay in good ol’ London and finding myself falling even more in love with this city. I’m lucky enough to get over here several times a year but generally when I’m over I feel rushed to squeeze everything in – seeing friends, having quality time with the boy, smashing in my favorite foods (oh Amigos, you make the best chicken and bacon sandwich in the world) and bars, making runs to Boots and Topshop, being dragged to Forbidden Planet and whatnot. So it’s been completely wonderful to just relax and enjoy the city, putter about and explore.
I dipped into a number of galleries this week but the following are my favorites.
The Boo-Hooray Gallery reluctantly announces the first SUCKADELIC retrospective gallery exhibition. Intentionally confusing, misleading, disappointing and really funny, these limited-edition parodies of action figures reverberate with a vicious wit and are oddly eyeball-pleasing in the manner of all kinds of toothsome 20th/21st century collage and montage art. The toys and their aggressively situationist piss-take packaging comment on pop culture commodification and the consumer habits of compulsively shopping kidults: The very process that made KAWS, Takashi Murakami, and Michael Lau art-stars on the Art Basel Miami/Armory Show/Venice Biennale tip.
Saturday night, the Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles was bustling. I passed by a plethora of shabu-shabu restaurants, bars, and boba tea joints and made my way into Hold Up Art to see the BUA Pops exhibit. Urban Art legend Justin Bua joined fans to proudly show off his collection on its opening night. I walked around the gallery for a bit and took in Justin’s masterpieces. He had a variety of work on display, some revealing city skylines, while others featured musicians, DJs, and other interesting urbanites. People were loving his art and after a gallery employee explained to me that the paintings with the red dots on the tag meant that they were sold, I took inventory and noticed that many purchases were being made. While Justin mingled with fans and autographed his original pieces, one of his friends ran around with a Macbook signing people into their Facebook pages and having them “Like” Justin’s page which really wasn’t a bad idea as far as a grassroots marketing campaign goes.