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So my culinary ass is on the Save Our Taco Trucks bandwagon. Tomorrow, May 1st, 2008 isn’t just for labor & immigration rights rallies here in Los Angeles, it’s also Taco Truck Night. I’m going to represent by eating at every truck or stand on Pacific Avenue in San Pedro. Get your ass outside and stuff your taco hole till you can’t take it anymore! And sign the petition!

Technorati Tags: May Day, Mat 1st, Taco Truck Night, Save Our Taco Trucks, food, tacos

Made it back to see Phantom Sightings, this time without the crowds. I didn’t take that many pictures, but the ones I took are in this Flickr set.

Above - Vocho, Margarita Cabrera - This piece steals my heart. A sewn Volkswagen bug, with the non-Mexican parts removed and replaced by fiber elements. This piece has a funny bit, kind of a little gag - it rides on casters, and I found the idea of pushing a stuffed VW around on casters to be kind of performative and funny. I don’t know why. The interior is really well made. Here’s a shot of the whole car, and here is her label.

Above - Vocho, Julio Cesar Morales - This body of work, which everyone in LA has had blasted into their heads by the promo for the exhibition, drips with completeness and intent. These are reproductions of materials documenting human trafficking at the US border, downloaded from the website of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. I’m seeing more and more works based upon the web cross my desk over the past three years, especially a lot of things based on or in reference to Google maps, and this is really some of the more mature and well-thought work that I’ve seen based upon anInternet source. Here are three more works, and his bio is here.

Above - Shizu Saldamando - Point of disclosure - I work alongside Shizu as a Getty Multicultural Undergraduate Internship Program Discussion Leader, but I don’t know her that well. I first saw her work at her 2007 Tropico de Nopal show. I was really taken with her ballpoint on cloth drawings, her ability to use mixed media in a contextually solid way and I was also very much impressed by her navigation of her own tricky, multi-racial identity politics in her artist’s talk. Her bio is here.

Above - Cruz Ortiz - This picture is here because I love catapults, especially scratch built ones. This is actually a trebuchet, the most awesome species of catapult, and I love the sling made from a piece of cut-off jeans. I thought that this installation was slightly unfocused, but this element latched onto me.

Above - Treasure Room, Eduardo Sarabia - A little square tiled room at the back of the space holds Treasure Room, which I can only describe as temple-like. Masonic, even. I was filled with a kind of cautious reverence while I was in this space.

Above - Nicola Lopez - I saw this work installed in Santa Fe over a year ago, and I’ve been trying to find an opportunity and the resources to bring her work out to LA. Looks like LACMA beat me to it, and I’m glad to see her work in this show. This picture really doesn’t do the work any justice at all - This whole piece is composed of prints. Go see the show, dammit.

Technorati Tags: Nicola Lopez, Eduardo Sarabia, Cruz Ortiz, Shizu Saldamando, Julio Cesar Morales, Margarita Cabrera, VW, VW Bug, Beetle, Volkswagen, Fiber Art, sculpture, painting, Buttercup, Powerpuff Girl, human trafficking, smuggling, LACMA, Phantom Sightings, Catapult, Trebuchet, art, contemporary art

In what is described as the largest settlement awarded under the federal Visual Artists Rights Act or the California Art Preservation Act, both intended to protect public art, Twitchell will receive a total of $1.1 million from the U.S. government and 11 other defendants. It may still be possible to restore the mural, but it’s great to see an important work of Los Angeles public art have its rights protected in court. The Times has the story.

Photo by Flickr user View From a Loft.

Technorati Tags: Kent Twitchell, Ed Ruscha, Ed Ruscha Monument, public art, art, mural, portrait

I think he stole a few extra minutes, personally.  Seen over at C-Monster.net.  Photo by Flickr user shoehorn99, in New York. For my American-in-British-exile comrade, Ally, who, by the way, has a new beer blog, Impy Malting!

Technorati Tags: Damien Hirst, street art, art, contemporary art, YBA, 15 minutes of fame, sticker, shoehorn99, C-Monster, Impy Malting

Flickr user xarene has posted an awe inspiring set of 265 Fluids related images from today’s happening at LACMA. They’re great shots, too, hardcore documentation of every bit of the process, start to finish. I gotta tell you, this ice is a photographer’s dream.

We’re building Fluids at Angels Gate on Sunday, starting at noon. If you want to get in on the action, E-mail me at the office.

Also noticed a curiously beautiful image from LACMA in the Fluids Flickr Pool, 2:20 PM, captioned “The southeast corner after the walls gave way - - -”

Technorati Tags: Fluids, LACMA, Xarene, ice, happening, sculpture, Allan Kaprow, reinvention, art, contemporary art, performance,

As someone who’s been to both Comic Cons and Art Fairs and found both akin to waking up and finding oneself to be a cockroach, I found this post at Art Fag City and the fun test within (seen above) to be priceless . I scored a 900 on my first try. (seen at Boing Boing)

Technorati Tags: Comic Cons, Art Fairs, Art Fag City, Boing Boing, quiz, test, fun

You know, the gallery all caught up in the middle of the recent raids of multiple Southern California institutions, due alleged smuggling and a long history of arranging possibly fraudulent tax deductions related to donations to various institutions.

Got this in my inbox this morning. Looks like they’re closing shop and liquidating.

Technorati Tags: art, Silk Roads, art crime, fraud, smuggling, liquidation, raid, crime

This weekend in LA is all about Angels Gate, as far as I’m concerned. We’ve got so much stuff going down that I’ve got tunnel vision at this point. But there is non-AGCC stuff going down, too.

Friday - Sunday

“During three days, about twenty rectangular enclosures of ice blocks (measuring about 30 feet long, 10 wide and 8 high) are built throughout the city. Their walls are unbroken. They are left to melt.”

LACMA has taken on the job of organizing nine venues to re-invent Allan Kaprow’s Fluids, in my opinion, the most spectacular of all of the Kaprow happenings that will be accompanying the current MOCA exhibit. We’re building one on Sunday at Angels Gate, but they’re happening all over the city.

Saturday, April 26

Jim Ovelmen: Queens of Sorrow @ Kristi Engle Gallery. Pen and ink megatalent Jim Ovelmen engages in a one night only performance. Gallery opens at 6, performance starts at 7:30, sharp.

Sunday, April 27

Open Studios + Allan Kaprow’s Fluids + Portable Potluck Project + Two Opening Receptions + Other Fun Stuff @ Angels Gate Cultural Center. All this adds up to a lot to do. About fifty studio artists, including a pack of new folks. We’re building Fluids starting at noon (not to late to volunteer if you desire to be an ice hauling slave for art - just drop me an E-mail), and capping it off with a 60’s themed potluck at 5 PM, Salty Dog Bites the Hand, an exhibition curated by Allan Sekula and featuring work by 2008 MFA graduates Ian Arenas, Allie Bogle, Louisa Conrad, Lindsay Foster, Sidonie Loiseleux, Justin Long, Alejandro Sanchez, and Carlin Wing, 2007 MFA graduate Heather Rasmussen and CalArts Photography and Media faculty members Andrew Freeman and Allan Sekula. Also opening is Labor: Black and White Work, a solo show by Studio Artist Slobodan Dimitrov. Both shows are focused on port and maritime issues. Download the .pdf map & brochure for the event here. The whole shindig runs 11 - 5, with the potluck going until we’re done eating and watching ice melt.

Finally, Studio Artist and general pal Edith Abeyta will be dishing out cotton candy and other brightly coloured whatnots as her studio is transformed into the Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe (Flickr set here)

At Top: Fluids, 1967, Photo courtesy of Dennis Hopper, all rights reserved.
Technorati Tags: art, open studios, Angels Gate, Angels Gate Cultural Center, Allan Kaprow, Allan Sekula, Jim Ovelmen, Kristi Engle Gallery, LACMA, MOCA, Fluids, happening, Slobodan Dimitrov, Edith Abeyta, Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe, Salty Dog Bites the Hand, CalArts, art opening, contemporary art, Los Angeles art

I keep an eagle eye out for harbingers of doom. A lot of my personal work is about either catastrophe or apocalypse, so in a way, it’s my job. My future has never been the flying cars, white robes and food pills version, I’m expecting to trudge through middle age in a world of food and water riots, amid the Balkanization of the United States, as we enter a new dark age.

Rice prices have hit records, and for the past month there have been several reports of riots and protest related to increases in the price of rice in Asia (70%), and now Sam’s Club and Costco are limiting (read rationing) the amount of bulk rice that customers can buy. Even if it’s just meaningless hype, Why can’t I get the garbage truck/people catcher from Soylent Green out of my mind today?

Technorati Tags: apocalypse, food prices, harbinger, rationing, food rationing, Soylent Green

Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina is in league with Satan, I tell you. On April 15, following her the Board of Supervisors passed a law proposed by Molina (whom I suspect to be in the pocket of Big Taco - OK, maybe I don’t really believe that she’s on the take, but when else do I get the chance to imagine a smoke filled room of taco executives conspiring?) that requires mobile eateries to move every hour, or else face $1000 fines. This is intended to protect brick and mortar restaurants from the competition of the trucks. There have been a lot of attacks on taco trucks recently, in my town a massive waste of taxpayer money/police raid briefly shut down the trucks, a form of state sponsored harassment that I believe is motivated more by racism and bigotry than any valid concern about the operation of the trucks.

Taco truck culture is a key component of Los Angeles culture, these trucks thrive because they feed a demand for good late night food, something that LA sorely lacks everywhere. The argument that they are unfair competition to brick and mortar based businesses is bunk. This is a free market, if a legally operating, delicious taco truck is putting your restaurant out of business, maybe it’s because they serve the public better than you do. I live off of Pacific Avenue in San Pedro, and on any given night there might be as many as 4-5 taco trucks working the street, each one serving loyal customers, many who live within walking distance of the trucks.

Any Angeleno with taste buds knows that these trucks are home to some of the most delicious late night eats in the city. For $5 you can fill up on the meat of your passion, get a soda, some limes and radishes, walk home and enjoy the late movie. Where else am I supposed to get hot greasy tongue on demand at midnight? Nowhere, my friend. As a dedicated foodie, I consider any measure designed to curb the operation of taco trucks in my County as an attack on my rights as an American citizen to have hot, greasy, late night meat, preferably dispensed from a mobile eatery.

What can you, my fellow food lover do about this craziness? The folks at SaveOurTacoTrucks.org have a petition going, but feel free to contact Gloria Molina at molina@bos.lacounty.gov and let her know how you feel about her attempt to destroy the Los Angeles we know and love.

Technorati Tags: tacos, taco trucks, Gloria Molina, stupid law, Mexican food, food, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Culture, Save Out Taco Trucks, Carne Asada is Not a Crime