Meanwhile, Back in L.A….

While everyone in the free world was at Coachella this weekend, I stayed in L.A. and enjoyed the fabulous weather (HOT! It was really hot here, people). Some friends and I decided to cool down on Saturday by stopping by one of the Fluids: A Happening by Allan Kaprow gigantic ice igloo art installations at the Rios Clementi Hale Studios on Larchmont. Given the fact that it was 122 degrees, hanging out with some gigantic ice blocks sounded pretty great.
»continue reading Fluids: A Happening by Allan Kaprow

In which Kermie becomes an unwitting shill for a skateboard-and-tennis-shoe shop. Green guy was spotted on Fairfax at Oakwood. But wait, it’s been modified. What’s this “slay” business…commentary on the store? The poster tactic? Iraq? Overall Weltanshauung? A nudge from the creator to modify any further posters we may encounter? Who cares at the end of the day; long live Kermit. Note to Supreme: Consider wheatpasting locations that are more than a half-block from your own store. Go a few more blocks east and head up La Brea towards the Henson lot; should go over well.

In unrelated weekend poster activity, Robbie Conal’s newest double-sided missive “Emission Accomplished” went up February 29 and can now be seen all over town. Gruesome, but it makes its point. I’ve already seen a few that were not cleaned so much as they were town down in disgust. Maybe you’ve seen one? Was it whole?

We would like to extend a heartfelt “thank you” to our readers, contributors, advertisers and - especially - our publicity spammers with a lovely dual-colored bouquet of beets on this day of days. We just can’t beet you. INSTRUCTIONS: (1) Right-click image. Save to desktop. Print on color printer. (2) Affix to cardstock. (3) Write personalized note on back. (4) Stuff into tiny envelope. (5) Make the dog lick the envelope. (6) Give to classmate. (7) Be mine?

ITEM

Millions travel annually to fabled Hollywood Boulevard between Vine and Highland, the site of the (Freewaves Hollywould…) festival. Instead of a street filled with glamorous boutiques and celebrities, tourists find a gritty neighborhood in transition populated by entertainment seekers, the homeless, runaways, media industry workers, art lovers, and ethnically diverse residents. Notions of Hollywood as Xanadu, perpetuated by our media culture, don’t match reality.

»continue reading How Creative Are You? (An Open Call For Freewaves Submissions)

Everybody’s favorite singing, blinking, Jetsons-era downtown public art installation deserves a tribute today. Yes? Yes! Please feel free to add your personal ode to Los Angeles’ very own Triforium in the comment section.

Triforium! - A Senryū

I play silly tunes
A homeless man defecates
Temple at Main Street.

FURTHER READING
(wikipedia) (blogdowntown) (eecue) (ruth wallach) (curbed)

PAINTS TESTED

• Liquitex High Viscosity ACRA® Crimson Transparent
• Grumbacher® Cadmium Red Medium Opaque
• NovaColor® Cadmium Red Deep Opaque (Liquid Ready)

In all fairness Liquitex wasn’t a true opaque, but I wasn’t about to buy more paint. This was just what I had lying around the chateau.

RESULTS

Extensive splattering and smearing found Nova Color’s Cadmium Red Deep the darkest and most durable bullshit blood of the three. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Culver City’s very own Nova Color: Bullshit blood of choice this Halloween season. Stop by the factory store today and pick up a gross. Numerous 4-oz test jars can be found in the $3-4 range; aforementioned Cadmium will set you back $7.50. Add water, Winsor&Newton® Burnt Sienna Opaque, Black Opaque and garden variety corn meal for texturing. Dive headfirst into the rapid prototyping phase of fauxspattering. Discover the Nova Color difference. Go thee forth and bloody things.

Reader Monica sends in a fine capture of the exquisitely-tiled Poppins @ sunset and vine…

i’m ready to accept a cowboy mosaic a la catholic church, but there’s something very weird about julie andrews/mary poppins in mosaic. this thing is part of two wall pieces outside the washington mutual on sunset and vine. i can’t even start on the majesty that is the stained glass art that composes the whole entrance/door/middle wall, which looks like it’s depicting some sort of oppression/escape era, and i think i spotted an angry whale and a monster in the scrambling glass pieces, all very Not in the Biblical Sense but Very in the Biblical Sense. So here you go - Mary Poppins in the Biblical Sense.

Kudos Monica for not only isolating Mary, but also reminding us where Hollywood was born: WaMu at the corner of Sunset and Vine. Snippet from USC’s ever-reliable Ruth Wallach after the jump.
»continue reading In Praise of Mosaic Mary Poppins

Brief heads up: Gary Baseman solo opening @ Billy Shire this Saturday from 7 to 10pm. This will be his first solo show in Los Angeles in at least two years. If you like the artwork found on the Cranium board game (which is CHIFF, lest we forget)…if you have a penchant for creepy cherubs in blazing pink technicolor…if you have a thing for cartoony naked devil ladies, small intestines or any of the other subjects he regularly tackles with aplomb…plan accordingly.

From the press release:

July 14 - August 11, 2007
“Hide and Seek in the Forest of ChouChou”
New Paintings
By Gary Baseman

A new breed of creature has been born into the increasingly surreal mindscape of much-renowned and oft-imitated Pervasive artist Gary Baseman: ChouChou. The latest addition to the Baseman mythos, a cuddly cushion of unconditional love, who, according to the artist himself, “takes all one’s negative energy and hate away by secreting ‘creamy gooey love’ out of his belly button.” Although the ChouChous give love without demand, they do indeed benefit from reciprocation. There has to be some reward for taking on all of the bad karma. As Baseman explains, “After the ChouChous secrete their creamy goodness, their bodies melt; only the head is left. If they are kissed by one of the girls, their bodies regenerate and they can perform again. If they don’t get kissed, their heads dry out and all that remains is a skull.”

More info @ the Billy Shire website.

As a non-subtle reminder Losanjealous constantly mines, sorts and processes the cruddiest cell phone photos ever taken, weekly, for your cheap enjoyment. Friday, the week’s most egregious is bestowed the honor CRAPTASTIC CELL PHONE PHOTO OF THE WEEK.

And Now Our Featured Non-Photo-Of-The-Week Midweek Gallery: The city’s most depressing mural as captured five working days in a row while traversing the 10 east on a soporific commute at a velocity fluctuating between zero and eighty miles per hour . . .

8:58 p.m. – Dane Cook makes Paris-goes-to-jail joke.

8:59 p.m.– Flip over to HBO to wait for The Sopranos.
 
 
 

I have a thing for pigs. And donkeys, lest we forget (one, two).

Hey man I admit it. Call me a fetishist. I don’t mind. The above bicycle rack is one of ten racks created for the the 1996 joint SCI-Arc and LADOT project titled “The Bike Stops Here.” This particular rack is located outside the Grand Central Market at 3rd and Broadway. It features dual hogsheads which have apparently been cast from a swine purchased at the aforementioned market.

Don’t take my word for it: Ruth Wallach has been documenting public art in Los Angeles for years. From her site, which I have found to be invaluable time and again:
»continue reading Public Art Revisited: The Pig-Headed Bicycle Rack

The Last Tito’s Supper
Artist Unknown, ca. 1987
Oil on Canvas
Tito’s Permanent Collection

The Last Tito’s Supper is a modern portrayal of the da Vinci masterpiece. It depicts the reaction of the twelve apostles at Tito’s Tacos as Jesus drops the bombshell that one of them will betray him. Each disciple reacts differently to the news with varying degrees of horror. From left to right:

Matthew, James, and Bartholomew form a group of three. All are surprised.

Judas is wearing a white t-shirt and jeans in the shadow, laughing his fool ass off. He is clutching a small bag, signifying the silver given to him as payment to betray Jesus or perhaps a takeout order.
»continue reading The Last Tito’s Supper

Parris Patton never learned to play the piano. But it wouldn’t befit the artist to just take lessons and be done with it. No sir. To work through his aggression, Parris found it necessary to freeze an antique piano inside of a 13-ton block of ice, spend an entire day and evening hacking away at it with a number of sharp metal implements, and aimed to send it off to piano heaven by setting the traumatized instrument ablaze, appropriately dubbing the project “Because I Can’t Be Beethoven.”

Naturally, witnessing such a ridiculous and completely unnecessary endeavor seemed a good way to spend my Saturday night.
»continue reading “Because I Can’t Be Beethoven” @ Dangerous Curve

Leave it to Brian Eno to concoct something so massive and yet so fluid that it can be displayed and experienced in multiple galleries at the same time. Such is the case with his latest visual entry, 77 Million Paintings, on display at the Austin Museum of Art during SXSW 2007. I can think of no better way to wind down five days of craziness than to sink into a chair at this museum, surrounded by flatscreens, immersed in an Eno soundscape while watching what is basically the world’s smoothest iTunes Viewer do funky things in front of me. The specially-designed software completes transitions so smoothly and organically that you can’t even tell the picture is shifting until after the fact.

77 Million Paintings is currently on display in multiple locations within the UK, and is also available for purchase as a DVD for experiencing within your own home. It has not yet been shown in other US cities (to my knowledge), but some sites indicate that it will be.

Official site here.

All Saints Records has a nice recap of the exhibit when it was in Tokyo.