Monday, October 22, 2007

BLK/MRKT opening

Last night I decided to go up to Culver City to check out some galleries. The BLK/MRKT gallery opening was ok, I got there kind of early so I didn't really know what to expect. I bumbled around for a little bit, but not knowing anyone at the opening I felt awkward so I left pretty quickly. The artwork was pretty good, semi-abstract backgrounds that become figures and shapes to create strange comic book like scenes. There was one with an angry dog attacking that I would have to say was my favorite. The artist was Dave Kinsey, here's some images I ripped off the web...





The weird thing about this show, other than a maniquin with a bag on it's head in the entrance, was that I got to the show about an hour into it and all but two of the paintings had red stickers. Unless there was a feeding frenzy of buyers as soon as they opened the doors, why have a gallery show with only two paintings for sale? It's like when bands re-release old albums with a couple of new tracks on them. Why not come out with a new album and bump the new tracks on to that? Or just leave them on the cutting room floor? Anyway, it was a cool space, I just wish I brought more people to talk to...I was getting weird looks. Maybe I was weird looking...



I went home and popped in two space horror classics: Alien and Event Horizon.
I had never seen Alien all the way through, and I was surprised that it was pretty consistant with the others in the series, despite the variety of directors at the helm. It's a plot everyone knows, ship comes across an abandoned planet, the spaceship gets busted, the crew runs into a alien species, and from then on the rest of the movie is a race against time to repair the ship and blow up the alien. It was still pretty good, even for being slightly dated. Although I do have to say this was on the one movie in the series that made the Alien pretty rubber-suit looking.


have to say though, those face-huggers still freak me out...





Good movie, although it does make me question why Ripley decided to save her cat instead of her friends, and why the alien at the end didn't just rip her head off instead of sleeping in the corner for a bit... Oh well, the alien flying out of the airlock and getting roasted on the jet engine was all worth it. Hilarious!

Event Horizon was eerily similar. Same busted ship, same abandoned setting, only this one is a ship that's gone to hell and back. Literally. It also makes you halucinate, or brings your nightmares to life. Something like that. The whole thing reminded me of a Hellraiser in Space, except it was better than the Hellraiser that was in space, aka Hellraiser:Bloodlines. This movie had that guy from Jurrasic Park tearing his eyballs out and kicking the crap out of Morpheus from the Matrix. Some of the effects were kind of cheesy like the scene that shows the previous crew eating each other, and speaking in Latin(?). I think I was just surprised by the unexpected gore of the movie. I just thought it was gonna be spooky, like Scooby Doo spooky, instead it was flesh tearing spooky, like Scooby Doo...in hell!





before , during and after taking a good look at hell... Oh, and he's not dead either, just super crazy...



new slides


"Promise You Won’t Laugh", Mixed Media, ninety-six by ninety-six inches.

new slides


"...Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?", Charcoal and Acrylic Paint, ninety-six by ninety-six inches.

new slides



"You Ain’t Kidding...", Watercolor Pencil, forty-two inches by forty-seven inches. (with detail)

new slides



"Yuh-Huh", Watercolor Pencil and Charcoal, thirty-one inches by twenty-four inches.

new slides


"Nuh-Uh", Watercolor Pencil, thirty-one inches by twenty-four inches.

new slides


"If All Your Friends Jumped Off a Bridge", Mixed Media, one-hundred-seventeen inches
by sixty inches.

new slides


"How Cool is That?", Charcoal, thirty-one inches by forty-one inches.

new slides


"Great...Just Great...", Charcoal, thirty-one inches by forty-one inches.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

new slides


"So I Says To Mable, I Says...", Charcoal, sixty inches by forty-five inches.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

BLK/MRKT

So I thought I'd rant about art and movies in this blog.I'm going to the BLK/MRKT opening this weekend so maybe Saturday or Sunday I'll write about it. It should be a good show, well at least I heard the space is pretty good.
As for movies, I just watched this documentary called The Staircase Briefly, it's a compilation of eight 45 minute episodes from a Sundance channel series focusing on a man accused of killing his wife.
The film makers initially decided to focus on both sides of the case, the procecution and the defense, but unfortunately the procecution started to dodge meetings with the film crew and as a result they decided to focus more on the defense. To me this didn't seem fair, I felt bad for the guy accused at times, but all the way through I was convinced that the guy killed his wife. Watching the film though, I could tell the director really wanted the audience to believe he was innocent. Also, I was sort of tricked into thinking that this damn thing was only 1 dvd disc, so I got through with the last episode (roughly 3.5 hours of viewing time) on the first disc only to realize that there was another whole disc full of episodes.
It was pretty engaging and I was surprised at the ending, but some of me felt, If the film crew was not there would they be as confident as they are in winning this case? and sometimes I felt like there was some false encouragement coming from the defense. Kinda like playing a game with overly competitive people bitching about being the underdog the whole time and wondering why everyone isn't thinking the same way they are. For example, when it comes up that a friend of the defendant died the same way his wife did (falling down the stairs) the defense lawyer is appalled that someone might use that as evidence against his client. Is that really that shocking?
Anyway, it was interesting and I would recommend it, but don't expect it to be unbiased or a short movie, maybe just take it a couple episodes at a time. It will be addicting though.

Scion

I went to a Scion gallery event in Culver City, a show called UMASS. Very well put together event, I must say. DJ spinnin stuff that went from Rage Against the Machine to DJ Shadow, some free fashion magazines (I think they were fashion mags?), and free booze (now I know this is fairly regular, but did you ever have the bartender come out to you in the gallery and take your order? Free of charge??). Of course this kind of hospitality brings out weirdos and homeless people, but still, nice digs. The art was alright, as it goes with most group shows I suppose. I a lot of found object stuff collaged together, along side some interesting photography of blue-collar environments in LA. Some of the photo's I liked, but the collaged stuff tended to read like nostagia, but like bad nostalgia, like VH-1 nostalgia. "Hey, remember cassette tapes? Weren't they awesome?!" Yes, they WERE. Whoopy-doo. Unless you are going to say something new, or relate this crap to the current times in some Orwellian-history's-repeating kind of revelation, let the 80's and early 90's stay where it is, in the garbage heap. I lived through the 80's and 90's...it wasn't that great. Oh, and the bulliten board of letters to the artist while in jail were interesting. I didn't read them all (or even all of one of them), mainly because I felt kinda creepy reading someone else's jail mail. Hey, that ryhmes!
Here's some sweet Scion stuff from my "shwag bag." A hat and tee plastered with Scion icons. It also contained a cd (from Ninja Tune, but surprisingly boring tracks), and a Scion magazine filled to the brim with car ads

Monday, October 15, 2007

Slides...wheeeee!

I know I don't update this much, however, I promise from now one to update this blog once a week.

I'm taking new slides tomorrow morning...hopefully they come out alright.