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Thursday, October 2

Eric Johnson: Maize Artist Talk @ Torrance Art Museum.  Mentioned yesterday, join curator Kristina Newhouse and Eric as they discuss his epic project.  Starts at 3 PM.

Executive Order Karaoke @ MOCA (Sculpture Plaza).  It’s what it sounds like, and presented by the Finishing School.  Hosted by Tammy Tomahawk. Win Prizes!  Part of MOCA’s Engagement Party project.  7-10 PM.

Friday, October 3

Michael Lewis Miller:Psychophysical Prosthetic #1, 1989-Present @ Municipal Art Gallery.  Michael will be playing music while wearing the furniture-like portions of the Psychophysical Prosthetic Wardrobe. Starts at 8 PM.

Ugetsu, Night of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead @ The Silent Movie Theatre.  The mighty Cinefamily is bombarding October with horror films, and in their usual range of taste, from utterly classic to some of the worst things ever projected on screen.  Friday nights this month are devoted to Japanese ghost stories, and they’re kicking off the series with Kenzi Mizoguchi’s classic, Ugetsu.  If you want to make it a long evening for one ticket, their late Friday series is devoted to George Romero, and this friday they’re doubling up on zombie action with Night of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead.  Can’t beat that.  Ugetsu starts at 7:30 and the two Deads start at 10.

The Rising Tide @ Pacific Asia Museum.  Documentary that “investigates China’s meteoric march toward the future through the work of some of its most talented emerging artists.”  Bone up on your “Chinese artists are our new Blue Chip masters” material.  Director Robert Adanto will be introducing the film.  Starts at 8 PM.

Saturday, October 4

THE GOOD BAD: One nite of Photography, Paintings, Tacos @ Above an Ace Hardware in Hermosa Beach (743 4th Street).  Feturing works by Sean Cassidy, Joel Ahrens & Robert Abeyta, Jr.  This may be the first time in a long time that anything curious or interesting has occured in Hermosa Beach.  Reception is 7-10.

Tokyo Nonsense @ Scion Space.  Found out about this through the awesome folks at PoNJA-GenKon.  11 YJA’s including Ichiro Endo, Taro Izumi, Ai Kato (aka ai*madonna), Sachiko Kazama, Iichiro Tanaka, and the six-member artist group, Chim↑Pom.  Curated by Gabriel Ritter. Reception is 7-10.

Lindsay Foster: Show #4 @ Open Gallery.  I met Lindsay during Salty Dog Bites the Hand, an exhibition of Cal Arts MFA candidates in Alan Sekula’s program that we hosted at Angels Gate last year.  She made this amazing, beautiful video diary for Sixtus Petraeus a former ship captain, the father of now well known General David Petraeus, about the Port of Los Angeles.  This is an exhibition of her photographs.  Curated by Claudia Bohn-Spector.  Reception is 7-10.

The Intergalactic Discorse @ MOCA.  Presented by the surely awesome and before now, unknown to me Women’s Science Fiction Book Reading Club of Greater Los Angeles.  Benefit program to promote children’s literacy.  7-10 PM.

20 Years Ago Today @ Japanese American National Museum.  It’s the 20th anniversay of the California Community Foundation’s Fellowships for Visual Artists and this show features works created during their grants by a mountain of recipients.  Opening starts at 7:30.

Cat People (trailer at top) @ The Silent Movie Theatre.  More Cinefamily action.  Early Saturdays in October are devoted to the films of Val Lewton, and this is the classic that you can’t miss.  Watch artist Irene (played by Simone Simon) explore the mysteries of her possible Satanic past and literally catlike sexually murderous side.  Film starts at 7:30. 

LA Derby Dolls: Fight Crew vs Varsity Brawlers @ The Dollhouse.  Banked tracked action is on as the Varsity Brawlers, the newest team of bad gals on spinning urethane, make their debut against the Fight Crew.  Buy your tickets before they sell out!  Bout starts at 8 PM.

Sunday, October 5

MOMENTUM @ various locations in the East Village Art District in Long Beach.  Not too sure about the exact location, but Betsy Lohrer-Hall is installing a lemonade shop in the back of a rental van and has asked artists to do work based with and on paper cups for it.  I’m cooking up a “Gluttony Cup” for it.  More details to come. 10 AM - 8 PM.

Mr. Peanut Haim Steinbach on Mike Kelley @ Overduin and Kite.  Works made by Steinbach based on items from Mike Kelley’s home, offices and studio.  Reception is 5-7 PM.

Technorati Tags: art, contemporary art, film, la art, roller derby

In Black and White goes kaput at 2pm this Friday.  That’s all folks.

The artist talk last week went really well.  I’m always a little (or very) nervous before that kind of thing, since you have no idea if anyone is going to be interested in the work, if they’re going to take offense and throw a fit.  I thought it went well.  I started the talk and then Angie Bray talked about her work and we finished with Pierre Picot.  During my talk, I got the brief chance to play fanboy to Harlan Ellison in response to a too good question from a visitor involving Ellison’s story The Deathbird.  I’m always amazed to hear Angie talk about her work.  Her work is so damn simple, and so involving on the part of the viewer, and she can really explain her process and the means by which her work developed.  I hadn’t met Pierre Picot before, and I like the cut of his jib - he’s got a sharp mind and an explorer’s fascination with the unknown.

I recorded audio of the whole talk, and you can download it right here.  Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Artist Talk, Marshall Astor, Angie Bray, Pierre Picot, In Black and White, El Camino College, El Camino College Art Gallery, art, art exhibition

Tomorrow at 1 PM at the El Camino Art Gallery, I, along with several of my fellow artists from In Black and White, including Pierre Picot and Angie Bray, will be speaking about our work, participating in a group discussion and taking questions from visitors and guests. Come pepper me with questions or throw monochromatic fruit at me in protest. Your choice. See you there.

Technorati Tags: In Black and White, artist talk, El Camino Art Gallery

Today Michele and I installed the first part of my installation for the upcoming show, In Black and White, at the El Camino College Art Gallery. This show entirely consists of works by ten artists who work in monochromatic black and white. I’m especially excited to be a part of this exhibition, because I get to show with Angie Bray, who is one of my favourite people in the whole world, and also with Patrick Merrill, who’s oversize woodcuts are staggeringly and artistically intimidating.

The piece is called Equally God and Equally Satan, and is “an opportunity to highlight the simple and interdependent relationship between the Western Culture’s best known invisible superheroes (or gardeners, depending on your philosophical school).” The two painted biblical characters are bookended by a pair of enameled aluminum posts that are machined with holes at two inch intervals, through which hundreds of strings (I’m bringing back string art, dammit!) will criss-cross over the image. Susanna Meiers, the ECC Gallery Director, asked me to use strings in this piece largely because she liked the overhead support grid that I designed for Edith Abeyta’s Cry Me a River installation that was part of her show, Salty: Three Tales of Sorrow at the gallery last fall. The strings get installed tomorrow. On to the rest of the pics.

Above - God. I like to work with banal found images, whenever possible. This version of everyone’s favourite bearded authority figure is based upon Charleton Heston as Moses, from The Ten Commandments. While re-watching this movie to find a good screencap to use as source material I almost lamented that I wasn’t able to do a whole piece based upon Yul Brynner’s Ramses II. But I grew up busily trying to imagine exactly what face lurked behind God’s mighty, bushy beard, and Charleton Heston’s self-certain grin is probably a pretty good guess.

Above - Satan. Satan here is being played by The Devil, as presented in the Adult Swim cartoon Lucy The Daughter of the Devil, where he is voiced by H. Jon Benjamin. I also carved a pumpkin last Halloween with a version of this particular Devil. Lucy is one of my favourite cartoons, largely because it presents Satan as such a totally sympathetic, Cosby sweater wearing shlub. It was actually hard to decide which horned beast to play this role, since there are just so many great images of Satan out there. He’s just more photogenic than his cloud-bound counterpart.

Above - God and Satan, together forever… Those black lines are the posts for the strings, which get strung tomorrow. More photos of today’s labours are in the Flickr set for the show.

Technorati Tags: art, contemporary art, installation art, God, Satan, Marshall Astor, painting, In Black and White, El Camino College, El Camino College Art Gallery,

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

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

Sometimes I think 80% of my profession boils down to painting white walls whiter. It’s the most regular and unchanging aspect of gallery work, the quietest time, and somehow always seems like a change of season to me, when everything is potential and new.

It hadn’t occurred to me that on some level, I’m basically building a gallery wall for my work. There’s a weird mix of my professional and personal practice going on here. It’s funny, too. I feel really egotistical with these big panels, like I’m pretending to be a serious painter, but all I’m doing is building a fake, cheap as Hollywood, wall to do a cheap, disposable painting on. I like to think of my wall pieces as transitory and somehow banal, but this giant panel makes me feel like I’m pretending to be a painter, when all I’m really trying to do is to be a Home Depot-school installation artist.

It’s worth noting here that acrylic bucket paint in Thailand is weirdly thick, almost a bit like pudding, but once it’s on the roller it behaves pretty much normally.

Technorati Tags: painting, painter, Year of the Comet, Eastern Center for Art and Culture, whitening, artist, Chonburi International Art Exhibition

I cannot explain how much fell into place when Pongsak said that Jessada had arrive with the panels for my work. I’m familiar with Thai construction, it’s precise, but I’ve seen buildings made out of little more than compacted sand here. I’ve seen wood that’s more like a “foamed wood pulp and glue solid.” Oh, and Pongsak always walks like that, he’s highly influenced by the silly walks work of John Cleese.

Above - So that’s my completed working area. 488 cm x 300 cm, and composed of six panels. I’m not quite sure how we’re going to mount these to the wall. I’d like to strap them all together with lumber in the back into one unit and suspend the whole object. Or bolt them together with strapping of some kind. I’m not sure.

I don’t have detail shots here, but I can’t explain how well made these panels are. They overlap, and the seams are near perfect. The framer put a lot of thought into how they would fit together precisely. They’re super-lightweight, probably weighing about 10% of what they would if I made them back in the states. This whole arrangement cost about $90 and was delivered in two days. In the US that would be impossible. I raise a fat shot glass of elephant whiskey to Thai working methods.

Now all I’ve got to do is actually paint the thing. Another object that apparently doesn’t exist here is plastic sheeting, like the kind you would buy at home depot. And I haven’t seen anything resembling a large tarp yet, either. So we’re using some kind of roll paper to protect the gallery from my paint splatter, but I’m still unclear as to what exactly is arriving.

Above - I’m using fluorescent tubes in my piece, and apparently you cannot buy anything resembling a fluoresent light fixture with an attached plug, so I’m wiring the lights by hand. I just did some similar wiring for a piece at Angels Gate, and the easy to wire male plugs in Thailand are way better designed than the ones we have in the states.

Getting into the imporance and aesthetics of fluorescent lighting in Thailand is a whole other post. I’m so excited to be working with fluorescent lighting on this piece. I’ve wanted to do work with fluoresent tubes since my first trip here.

Above - We went to this giant pottery/spirit house/painted plaster fantastic animal warehouse on the highway to get some big pots for my piece. It was literally a pottery barn, as in a giant, metal framed barn, about 2 acres in size containing pottery. Together, these were only 400 Baht, or just over $10. Those are Ian’s feet and my new camera+laptop bag keeping them from bumping.

Technorati Tags: Thailand, Chonburi International Art Exhibition, art, contemporary art, process, art supplies, pottery, panels

So we’re in our second day of installing the Chonburi International Exhibition here at the Eastern Center for Art and Culture at Burapha University in Bang Saen. Burapha is a big school in what’s basically a beach town. I don’t know how big it is, maybe a little smaller than LMU in Los Angeles, sans dorms. Yesterday I did some test projections with my equipment for my piece (seen above) and made arrangements for the construction and delivery of panels (view plans here), as I am not able to work directly on any walls here. Edith and I laid out and hung H. Mathis’ Super Secret Art Interaction yesterday, Edith started installing Betsy Lohrer Hall’s piece, The Nearness of You, and Ian cranked along on his Clusterbound installation. Today, Edith is finishing up Betsy’s piece, Ian is cranking and I am idling, waiting to go shopping for various supplies that I will need by Friday to make my piece happen. So I’ve got some time to ramble about the novelties and peculiarities of installing here.

The major challenge we’re having is not being able to mount anything to the walls. Everything in this gallery, and from what I’ve seen, in most other Thai galleries, uses a French hanging system, which I’ve long considered to be one of the Devil’s works on Earth. The system here is pretty jury-rigged, but it’s workable. We’re using a ton of double-stick foam tape here.

The gallery is huge, about 4-5,000 sq. feet, divided into three separate galleries. The space is about the size of the Santa Monica Museum of Art, for reference. Each gallery has one wall that’s wholly composed of windows. The light in here is amazing. There are three big rooms joined by stubby hallways, all of the Thai artists (I think there are about 20 of them) are in the first room, all of the American artists are in the middle room, except for me. Since my piece requires darkness for the installation, I’m the sole occupant of the third room, which they weren’t planning to use at all, as it’s about to be renovated. I’m using movable walls to make it a much smaller room, though, more like a project space.

In the states, a gallery of this size would probably have a whole shop devoted to tools and a woodshop. Here there is no back room at all. It looks like artists just show up and hang their own works, and there’s no preparatory staff to speak of. The office staff are friendly and seem curious about what is happening. One of them came by and took some pictures of us yesterday, he’s been helpful despite speaking no English.

Tools/Things That The Gallery Has Available

1) Rolling scaffold.
2) Metric/English tape measure.
3) Pedestals of varying design.
4) Some work tables.
5) A multitude of rolling portable walls about 3 meters in height and one meter thick.

Tools/Things I Haven’t Seen Yet

1) Hammer/Nails.
2) Screwgun of any type, manual screwdrivers.
3) Ladder (well I saw one, but it was not in the gallery and disappeared rapidly.
4) A level. I’m totally kicking myself in the ass for not bringing my 2′ level.
5) Any woodshop tools.
6) Preparatory staff.

One thing the space does have, which is awesome, is super-smooth, rubberized floors. It’s almost impossible not to slip and hurt oneself, they’re so smooth. I want to pour out a few gallons of oil or other lubricant out on the floor and do some kind of slip-and-slide action, but I have a feeling that’s a big no-no. I’ll have to resolve to simply sliding around, sans lubricant. Back to work.

Technorati Tags: Eastern Center for Art and Culture, Bang Saen, Burapha University, art, contemporary art, art in Thailand, art gallery, Chonburi International Exhibition

So New In Town? opened today at Angels Gate, my last show as a desk-bound employee (I’m moving to a more curatorial and freelance role as of now, so I can work on more personal projects). I’m more than satisfied, the show is both a showcase for my efforts to turn around the Studio Artist Program at the Center, and also to bring the quality of gallery shows way, way up. The feedback from artists and visitors was awesome, and I feel like the efforts I’ve made over the past three years have come to satisfactory fruition.

So now that that’s all done, I’m off to Thailand tomorrow, to install what most likely will be the final Avian Flu Awareness piece, at Bhurapa University in Bangsaen, outside Bangkok. I’m packing a ton of painting tools, my projector and a pile of source images, and I have no idea what’s going to happen. The show opens either on the 7th or the 10th of July, there either is or isn’t a catalog, there either are or aren’t Thai artists in the show and I’m 95% sure that I can’t work directly on the gallery’s walls. Edith Abeyta and S. Ian Song, the other two American artists who will be installing their work in person, are already there, working and hopefully I’ll be undertaking a day-long plane flight to arrive in the arms of a well oiled art installation machine. Regardless, I’ll be eating some amazing food, probably some amazing seafood, taking a lot of pictures and being both out of my water and in the depths of my creative practice. More on the show when I hit the ground.

So it may get slow around here, or I may be able to post a lot, who knows. No “To Do” lists till I get back, probably. I’ll be back in LA on the 12th, wish me luck and cool weather.

Technorati Tags: Thailand, Avian Flu Awareness Project, Bhurapa University, Bangsaen, travel