marshallastor.com

Flashback to 2006.  When John O’Brien asked me to organize a show for The Brewery Project.  It was awesome, because I usually don’t get to participate actively in the shows that I put together.  What came about was Contemplating Apocalypse, an examination of apocalyptic themes by nine artists.  If you’ve been reading this site for a long time, then you might remember my writing about the project as it was happening.

Forward to 2008.  When the Brewery Project ended its 10-year run in 2007, John started talking with me about re-visiting my project as part of a re-visitation of the Brewery Project, to take place in 2008 (The Finale for the project opens December 6th, at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena - don’t miss it).  This was a huge opportunity.  During the run of Contemplating Apocalypse, I realised that there was a series of parallels between my work and Edith Abeyta’s work, mainly a focus on domesticity, shackitecture, practicality and a reference to film narrative, and I wanted to join forces with Edith to create a project that would allow us to riff further off of those ideas, and maybe create an experimental space for actions and process.  So I made a proposal to John, that Edith and I build a house inside of the gallery, during the run of the exhibition, and although John was incredibly supportive of it, the venue was not (and rightly so - it’s an out of place project), and the concept was homeless.

Once I’ve latched onto a project, I don’t like to let it go. I get obsessive, convinced that something “needs to be”.  So when Jan Govearts at San Pedro’s The Loft asked me if I wanted to organize something for December 2008, I shot my proposal over there, and although I think all of the artists in the building are going to spend the next 2 months laughing their asses off as Edith and I build a house inside of their space, they’ve been really supportive of our desire to experiment.  So the project has a home, and we start installing tomorrow.  I’ll be starting off with some projector-based wall painting, and then Edith and I will be spending much of the week trying to arrange our little wasteland stage set for the 1st performance.

So what is this project?  Edith and I are going to act out the three phases of apocalypse, Ruins, Survival and Civilization.  Ruins is a one-night event taking place December 4, in which Edith and I will be symbolically be exiting the city, fleeing some nameless apocalyptic event.  It’s going to involve a lot of walking and cycling in place in a low-key wasteland.

The main focus of the project will be us building a house inside of The Loft’s gallery, and using that as a focus for other activities, including actions by guest artists.  If you want to hop on board and propose anything, let me know, and we’ll probably say yes, especially if you show up on a kerosene-powered motorcycle, wearing football pads and brandishing a baseball bat full of nails.  After the apocalypse, anything goes.

Here’s the full “PR awesome” spiel for the project, including a list of scheduled events and activities.  Expect a vomit-like deluge of posting and material related to this project for the next two months.  I’ll probably post about little else.

Rat de-furring photo at top is from my 2007 trip to Thailand.  No images for this show yet (as the work does not exist yet), but it should put you in the mood for some serious “new reality adjustment”.

Technorati Tags: post-post-apocalypse, Marshall Astor, Edith Abeyta, art exhibition, The Loft, The Brewery Project, apocalypse culture, art, contemporary art, performance art, experimental art

Again, Nicholas delivers.  I just received an E-mail with a link to a clip of Andrzej Żuławski’s The Silver Globe.  A little Internet research later, and I have to see more of this film.  There is a complete film of this project, but it was cribbed together in the 1980’s using footage shot in the 1970’s, and is considered to be largely incomprehensible.  Yet another unrealized vision. From what I’ve read, The Silver Globe is the story of the descendants of three astronauts who found a society and create their own gods.  It’s based on a series of novels by Żuławski’s’s uncle, which are described as “Dune-like”. Can’t beat that.

The clip at top is of the three astronauts, and the one below shows some inter-tribal warfare between their descendants.  You can find more on YouTube if you like the taste of those.

Technorati Tags: The Silver Globe, Andrzej Żuławski, film, Polish film, science fiction

For those who’ve got the hunger for Moebius after that little L’Incal clip, here’s a section of the Moebius inspired and character-designed full length feature, Les Maîtres du temps (Time Masters).  It was directed by Rene Laloux who also did the amazing Light Years and Fantastic Planet, two VHS tapes that you’d have to pry out of my cold, dead hands to get.  Supposedly there’s a BBC English dubbed version out there, somewhere, but there are subtitled versions of the full film floating about the Internet and on DVD (the current lowest price on Amazon is $127 for the DVD and $67 for the VHS, but it’s available on Amazon UK for only £12.98).  The original French language version features the voice Monique Thierry, who us Euro-amination geeks might recognize as the voice of Massmédia from Les Mondes Engloutis (Better known to 1980’s Nickolodeon watchers as Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea).

Much of what comes to the public sphere in terms of narrative is radically, spectacularly boring. As someone who’s currently reading Michael Moorecock’s Cornelius Quartet and whom regularly returns to the Illuminatus Trilogy for a dose of uncurtained reality, I’m perpetually hungry for blow-your-mind narratives.  I’m of the mind that narrative can be transformative, or maybe that’s just my faith in the Burrough’s idea that information is viral.  The two trailers below are infectious.

Whether the above video trailer for L’Incal is really descended from Moebius and Jodorowsky’s not-yet-and-maybe-never-realized interpretation and re-envisioning of Dune is highly debatable, but that’s really irrelevant to our viewing pleasure. Jodorowsky possesses the kind of mind that doesn’t simply diverge one degree from the subject, he’s willing to completely abandon all points of reference in the pursuit of his vision.  Both the video and the Dune reference link are via BoingBoing.

A few years back, in the wake of 9/11, I picked up the re-launched G.I. Joe comic. While it was kind of exciting to see one of the mainstays of my childhood mythos again, the four issue series was really little more than some kind of right wing government fantasy, like the erotic dream of a couch potato Soldier of Fortune subscriber. But the video above, pointed out by YouTube ninja Nicholas Klemek is part of Canzo Empyrean, a “post-reality” narrative that is centered around everyone’s favourite steel masked arms dealer, Destro. They’re making a “straight” G.I. Joe movie that’s coming out next year, and I think we all know that it’s going to suck - why can’t someone throw $50-100 million at the folks at Formal Films who are responsible for the above?

Technorati Tags: Moebius, Jodorowsky, Dune, L’Incal, Canzo Empyrean, G.I. Joe, trailer, Destro, animation

So I was walking by the television and I saw the tube-bound version of the commercial that follows the talking about God’s Love from Interstate Batteries and I notice that in the “gritty street scene”, prior to the expanding hearstream of God’s Love, there’s this sort of out of place OBEY sticker to the right of the fellow. It’s best visible at about 0:47 into the video above.

Evidence that the Holy Father himself and his agents upon Earth endorse Shepard Fairey’s message of… “buying Shepard Fairey stuff”, or evidence of a sneaky props from the guys who threw together the animation. Only the invisible superhero of your choice truly knows.

Technorati Tags: Shepard Fairey, OBEY, Obey Giant, Interstate Batteries, street art, animation, God’s Love, religion

Get to MOCA (the Geffen) for George Baker’s talk on Sunday. He’s turning his Q&A into an open forum on MOCA’s crisis. Talk starts at 3, and is free with admission. Lots of folks are likely to turn out, so arrive early.

Technorati Tags: MOCA, George Baker

No “Do The Weekend” this week, because I’m just pimping our show at Angels Gate, Forming. Forming is an exhibition of seven sculptors who I think are doing really solid work right now. The show features Michael Dee, McLean Fahnestock, Eric Johnson, Kiel Johnson, Nancy Kyes, Margaret Pezalla and Macha Suzuki.

Show opens this Sunday, November 16. Reception is 2-4 PM.

Forming has a Flickr set going that you can check out, too. That’s Macha hanging Halfway Home (Blue) in the downstairs part of the gallery.

Technorati Tags: Forming, Michael Dee, McLean Fahnestock, Eric Johnson, Kiel Johnson, Nancy Kyes, Margaret Pezalla, Macha Suzuki, Angels Gate Cultural Center, sculpture, contemporary art, art opening, art exhibition

Cross-Posted from the AGCC blog, Up at the Gate.

Seen yesterday in Eric Johnson’s studio, a trio of My Little Pony resin casts.

Also seen, the artist hard at work on the elements for his contribution to Forming.

Technorati Tags: Forming, Angels Gate Cultural Center, art, artist, sculpture, polyester resin, contemporary art, process

Remember back in the pre-Obama era, when a McCain aide discovered the previously unknown part of America now referred to as “Real Virginia”?

Well, I was eating a disturbingly good sandwich today when my roommate Phill discovered what is apparently “Fake Virginia”, a.k.a. “Professor Cline’s Dinosaur Kingdom“.  In “Fake Virginia” dinosaurs fought in the civil war (much to the joy of New Earthers!). Props to artist Mark Cline for his Jurassic/Civil War mashup.

Technorati Tags: dinosaurs, civil war, Mark Cline, Real Virginia, Fake Virginia, Professor Cline’s Dinosaur Kingdom

How can the aesthetics of the sentence below be denied?

At the Memorial Shooting Center in Houston, a popular gun store and firing range that shares a building with a church, managers said they sold out their stock of assault weapons a day after the election and are now adding orders, at more than $1,000 each, to a monthlong waiting list.

Technorati Tags: your moment of apocalypse, gun sales, church, red state aesthetics, assault weapons, guns, sign of the end times