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I’m on the road in Missouri, eating as much BBQ as is humanely possible, and a little bit stuffed and sick from it. I also just spent two days marveling at the joys of the Nelson-Atkins Museum, the Kemper Museum, the National WWI Museum and the Toy and Miniature Museum in glorious, smoky scented and fountain kissed Kansas City. What to do if you’re back in LA? Probably go to Comicon in San Diego, actually, if you can bear the crowds, and you’ve managed to get the stains out of your Pokemon fursuit, yet. Or hit Jay Bee’s House of Fine Bar-B-Que and get the best LA has to offer on the BBQ front. Join me in my smoke ringed paradise…

Back to art. I’d like to recommend one exhibition for my friends in LA, Looky See (.pdf press release here), at the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis. A group show featuring lots of excellent folks, featuring Emily de Araújo, Eric Beltz, Barbara Berk, Joe Biel, Sandow Birk, Ann Diener, Roy Dowell, Erin Dunn, Erica Eyres, Iva Gueorguieva, Penelope Gottlieb, Richard Keely and Anna O’Cain, Takehito Koganezawa, Tucker Neel, Claudia Nieto, Aaron Noble, Chris Oatey, Ruby Osorio, Ebony G. Patterson, Ron Santos, Mindy Shapero, Fran Siegel, Coleen Sterritt, Fred Stonehouse, Randal Thurston, Elizabeth Turk and Xawery Wolski. It opens tomorrow, Saturday July 26, and the reception is from 6-8 PM.

At Top: Sneak preview image of Fran Siegel’s installation for Looky See.

Technorati Tags: Emily de Araújo, Eric Beltz, Barbara Berk, Joe Biel, Sandow Birk, Ann Diener, Roy Dowell, Erin Dunn, Erica Eyres, Iva Gueorguieva, Penelope Gottlieb, Richard Keely and Anna O’Cain, Takehito Koganezawa, Tucker Neel, Claudia Nieto, Aaron Noble, Chris Oatey, Ruby Osorio, Ebony G. Patterson, Ron Santos, Mindy Shapero, Fran Siegel, Coleen Sterritt, Fred Stonehouse, Randal Thurston, Elizabeth Turk, Xawery Wolski, Otis, Ben Maltz Gallery, Looky See, LA Art, art, contemporary art

I grew up playing Famicom. Living in a community chock full of shipped over salarymen and their families exposed me to 8-bit joy at an earlier age than most Americans. Although I had lots of non-Japanese friends, a lot of my friends were the “I don’t speak English, but we can play Famicom together” variety. And over endless, foil packed snacks, I was more than happy to oblige. So I don’t know if anyone gets as excited about Famicom related stuff as I do, but I have a serious nostalgia for it. I almost bought a pile of used Famicom equipment at a Thai night market about two weeks ago, even though I could easily Ebay better gear in the states.

My Famicase Exhibition is a a pile of made up Famicom cartridges (Like the one above, which is an awesome image with no explanation). Fantasy games that never were, and never will be, with case designs by artists. I normally don’t go into this kind of thing, but for Famicom, I’ll make an exception. Click the exhibition link to see all the carts.

Above - Burisu-kun - Some things are universal. The game of blowing on game carts to restore their connectivity.

Above - Agriculture! The Game! Get ready for backbreaking, dawn-to-dusk, virtual labor!

Above - AC Adaptor - Where you fight your enemies with a swinging AC adaptor.

Above - and Finally, the “Poland” FC-303 drum machine. Funny, because Korg just announced a synth for the DS.

Thanks to Kotaku for showing me the light.

Technorati Tags: Famicom, Kotaku, My Famicase Exhibition, Cartridge Art, Carts

While I was in Thailand, I was asked to donate a piece to Burapha University. Being that the University was such a generous host, there was no way I could refuse, even though I don’t really paint on canvas, ever. I can’t even remember buying a canvas before.

So, a suitable canvas acquired from the local art store, I….

…set up my projector in the condo of the 14th floor University condominium where I was staying, using the condo’s microwave as an impromptu projector stand. Where I…

… crammed myself into the corner of the hallway to trace the image so that I could…

…get my painterly action on…

…in the the Condo’s kitchen, my new studio.

Technorati Tags: Thailand, Chonburi International Art Exhibition, Marshall Astor, painting, projection, Avian Flu Awareness Project, Study

I find this work menacing/playful because of the way the disjunctive perturbation of the negative space contextualize the eloquence of these pieces.

Just follow this link to get your instantaneous Master’s Degree in Art Crapwriting!

Thanks Tyler & C-Monster for showing me the light.

Technorati Tags: artwriting, Tyler Green, C-Monster, bad writing, phrase generator

About a month ago I shot Jocelyn Foye’s first Roller Derby Project, the results of which are currently on display at Angels Gate in the show New In Town. You can read all about that shoot here. Joceyln wanted to try another take on the project, a version that was more focused on motion than on impact, and using a deeper clay surface than the first piece. So the surface that Joceyln is smoothing above is smaller, but covered with 150 pounds of clay - much thicker than the first version. It was way, way heavier than the first version. Jocelyn also wanted this version to have fewer hits, but that those hits be along the surface, capturing more lateral motion than the first piece. Again, LA Derby Dolls Kelly MacIntosh (Smacdown) and Diana Brooks (Thunder Kiss) were the performers/models for the shoot and they did another bang up job.

The first order of business was moving the clay panel into position. Unlike the first panel, this one couldn’t rest on the floor, so it had to be lifted into position. 150 pounds of clay on top of 1/2″ MDF board is nothing to sneeze at. It took Jocelyn, Kelly, Diana and me to lift it into position, and then it had to be screwed into studs so as not to dislodge under impact. Nothing would ruin the performance more than having hundreds of pounds of clay and wood come slamming down on someone.

Also unlike the first panel, Jocelyn intends to realize this version in plastic, rather than urethane rubber. So the final version of this will have a “hard” factor that’s not present in any of the other pieces in the series. On a certain level each piece in this series is totally experimental in its own way, each requires a different process and has its own challenges. Both the potential for unanticipated beauty and dramatic failure hangs in the air, and it makes these exciting to see realized.

Here are some of the images from the day’s performance. All of the rest of them are visible in the Flickr set for this project.

Above - Diana buckles a kneepad. If you notice the girls are less dressed up than in the previous version. Jocelyn wanted less “noise” from their various bits of bling. They’re still both wearing fishnet, which really transfers well to clay, but nothing really extraneous, beyond protective gear.

Above - Kelly gets her airborne slam on. Really excellent air here, IMHO.

Above - Diana slams into the wall. Notice the really distinct impressions on this version. There’s a real coherent “language of motions and actions” taking place here.

Above - Kelly knees the wall while Diana watches.

Above - Jocelyn wanted more motion, which means, more speed. So Kelly and Diana did many of their impacts while pushing one another or whipping one another into the panel. The small space of Jocelyn’s studio also makes it hard to build up speed, especially given the more acute angle of impact on this version, so this kind of assist really seemed to get great results.

This project is interesting in that it has multiple performers, but that they’re not in competition with one another, that they’re teammates. That’s very different from the pieces that involve fighting arts, where two individuals are in opposition. The whole feeling of the process is totally different.

Above - The whip!

Above - Thunder Kiss impression. Diana’s helmet has these sort of puffy letters on it. Impressions of her nom de derby are also in the first piece. Note the long, streak above. That’s the kind of lateral motion that this piece will carry, that differentiates it from the first one.

Above - Glove impression. There are a few of these on the piece, and I think they’re going to translate nicely to the final, plastic version. Notice how deep the impression here is - something not really possible with the first version.

Above - Posing with the finished piece. Since the girls only got to hit the surface so many times, I think they were still pretty amped up by the time we finished.

Above - Diana cleans clay from her hair. I had a bit of a photographer’s black hole moment here, when everyone was like “Why are you shooting rapid fire at Diana cleaning her hair?” I was into this shot for some reason.

Above - One of the neatest parts of the shoot was afterwards we took Diana and Kelly up to Angels Gate to see the first piece, which they had not seen yet. They seemed into it. Again, I love projects where non-artists become actively involved in the creative process.

Technorati Tags: Jocelyn Foye, art, performance art, Roller Derby, LA Derby Dolls, Diana Brooks, Kelly MacInotsh, Thunder Kiss, Smacdown, contemporary art, LA art, process, documentation is everything, clay

I spent 90% of my time in Thailand in Bang Saen, mostly in the neighborhoods along Long Hard Bang Saen Road, between the main coastal highway and Burapha University. Being a college town I expected to see some street art, and I did find it, but not much. On my last trip to Thailand, I was on the lookout for street art of any type, and I hardly saw any, even in Bangkok proper. I’ve heard rumors about multi-story ghost buildings in Bangkok filled with graffiti, but I haven’t seen if those are true, yet…

I don’t think there’s a lot of street art in Thailand because what can compete with the visual chaos and action of any urban Thai street. 90% of what I saw was amateurish and I only saw big pieces, like the ones here, on ruined buildings. I didn’t see anything bigger than a sloppy tag on anything that wasn’t already a ruin. Either penalties are too high to make the risk worthwhile, or there’s a general respect for private property that is lacking in the States. It’s also worth noting that spray paint is on sale everywhere. If you’re in Thailand and are looking to spray paint on something I recommend the ATM brand, particularly the automotive colours. Oh, and buy a lot, as Thai cans contain a really lackluster supply of paint. They also have really unreliable flow rates, and sputter a lot, no matter what you do. Sometimes even fresh cans barely want to spray.

On to the pics.

Above - An adorable throw up. This was spotted at a ruined two story building along the highway. I walked a few miles along the highway one morning and this piece, and the one below were the only graffiti I saw the whole time.

Above - Some pretty loose stuff going on here, and hat looks like an aborted white version of the piece above. This area of the building faced the street. There was a ton of great wall space in this ruin and an adjacent ruin, and they were both pretty much untouched. Note the Western bombs, with Thai script signatures. Thai script sometimes looks a bit like Bizarro English - you think you can read it, and see strange words in it, but you can’t, and I found the Thai signatures to be way, way more interesting than the bombs.

Above - This may or may not be actual street art. It was on the wall of someone’s home in an alley. Not sure what’s going on here, but it’s not good work by any means.

Above - This image, the tag at the top of this post, and all those that follow were all seen at the same ruined restaurant/nightclub near the University. I’m fond of this piece, both for its cyclopean nature and it’s rectangularity.

Above - Squared face.

Above - Another bomb.

Above - This image and the two that follow were the only really proficient pieces I saw in Thailand. Not sure if they’re the product of a local or of a traveler.

Above - Someone came along and went over the faces, but I kind of like the effect here.

Above - This had an unfinished quality, but was very well painted. This seemed very LA to me for some reason.

Technorati Tags: street art, graffiti, Thailand, Bang Saen

Just found out that Jones has a new album, Hurricane, coming out, her first in far, far too long. If she tours the states, I’m going to follow her around from city to city like a couture Deadhead. Above is the very “retro early 90’s” maybe “retro cyberpunk” video for Corporate Criminal, a track from the upcoming album..

Technorati Tags: Grace Jones, Hurricane, Corporate Cannibal, video, youtube

The Church has sold the building out from under Self Help, and they have to be out by December. This is a real shame, a holy shame. I can’t begin to state the importance of the work of Sister Karen and her legacy in Los Angeles. So many artists trained with her, were inspired by her, and that pebble in the water has impacted so many over the years. LA Eastside and the LA Times have the story.

There’s a press conference July 11 at 10 AM.

Technorati Tags: art, printmaking, LA art, Catholic Church, Self Help Graphics

The Chonburi International Art Exhibition opens, at the Eastern Center for Art and Culture at Burapha University. Featuring work by a slew of Chonburi-based artists, and nine American artists, including myself, Edith Abeyta, Betsy Lohrer Hall, H. Mathis, Merry-Beth Noble, Sal Randolph, S. Ian Song, Matthew Thomas and Hague Williams. I’ve spent much of the past week either flying here or working on making it happen. Installing art here has been an experience, and a real blast at times, especially when the hurdles are behind you.

Reception is from 4-6, there will be dancers, and possibly this piano player that we saw last night at a beachfront bar, who does amazing covers of English language songs. It’s also the beginning of the school year here (more on that later), and there are various performances and even fireworks going on, or so I’ve heard. Two days ago I heard an amazingly disorganized marching band practicing outside the gallery, and I have this desperate hope that they will show up, crowd into my installation, and at my request, play their awesome, de(con)structionist version of Europe’s The Final Countdown. I can already hear it in my head, or maybe I’m still just loopy from all the paint fumes.

At Top - A taste of my (now completed) installation, Year of the Comet.Technorati Tags: Edith Abeyta, H. Mathis, Merry-Beth Noble, Sal Randolph, S. Ian Song, Matthew Thomas, Hague Williams, Year of the Comet, Buapha University, Eastern Center for Art and Culture, art opening, opening reception, Chonburi International Art Exhibition

Eric Johnson’s Maize project, which I have been working on for some time now, just got written up as the cover story for the July issue of San Pedro Magazine, and they used a few of my photos. I’m also quoted in the article, towards the end.

I read it a on paper when it arrived at my house, but I discovered that the magazine is testing out their on-line version, and they uploaded the article, which you can read here.

Technorati Tags: Maize, kernels, Eric Johnson, art, contemporary art, San Pedro Magazine, sculpture