Monthly Archive for July, 2008

Page 3 of 4

Photos: In the Land of Retinal Delights at the Laguna Art Museum in O.C.

By c-monster on July 11, 2008 in Art, C-Monster, Los Angeles, Museums, Painting and Sculpture. 1 Comment

Land of Retinal Stimulation: Mark Ryden’s The Creatrix is the painting at center, with Carlee Fernandez’s Buffalo-7200 in the foreground. (Photos by C-M.)

If you took a little Hieronymus Bosch, added a dash of R. Crumb, a pinch of California car culture, and folded in a heaping stack of late-night sci-fi, you’d end up with the Laguna Art Museum’s latest show, In the Land of Retinal Delights: The Juxtapoz Factor. This all-encompassing two-story survey takes a look at the fast-rising genres of pop surrealism, lowbrow and street art/graffiti as covered by Juxtapoz mag since its founding by painter Robert Williams in 1994. Featuring the work of 150 artists (including some fake dookies by Paul McCarthy), it’s an apocalyptic vision of America’s pop culture sausage factory turned inside out, revealing lots of gory, nasty innards.

The show is up through October 5th.

Click on images to supersize. More after the jump.

Continue reading ‘Photos: In the Land of Retinal Delights at the Laguna Art Museum in O.C.’

Calendar. 07.10.08.

By c-monster on July 10, 2008 in Architecture, C-Monster and Calendar. Closed

The Arthur Elrod House in Palm Springs, designed by architect John Lautner in 1968. (Photo by theorem.)

In L.A.: John Lautner: Between Earth and Heaven, at the Hammer Museum, opens Sunday.
In L.A.: Slightly All the Time, the work of Mike Stilkey, at Kinsey/DesForges, opens Saturday.
In L.A.: The Hi-Fructose group art exhibit at CoproNason, opens Saturday.
In L.A.: Overviews by Warren Keating at M J Higgins, opens today.
In L.A.: Splash: Summer Gallery Selections at Cerasoli, opens Saturday.
In L.A.: Ali Smith at Mark Moore Gallery in Santa Monica, through August 13^th.
In Seattle: Deuce Seven in Pneumonia, Isolation and Disorder at BLVD, opens tomorrow.
In Portland, Or.: Robert Mars, Beauty in Hindsight, at Guestroom.
In S.F.: Hera at Fifty24SF, through July 24^th.
In S.F.: The Benefit Show at Fecal Face Gallery, opens today.
In Chicago: A Declaration of Immigration at the National Museum of Mexican Art, through Sept. 7^th
In Chicago: Martina Nehrling at Zg Gallery, through Saturday.
In National Harbor, Md.: John Collier at Art Whino, opens Saturday.
In NYC: The Sixth Annual Handball Court Film Screenings begin with a screening of Robert Redford’s The Candidate (in honor of Election ’08) this Saturday, at White Park, in Harlem, at sunset. This will be followed on subsequent Saturdays with screenings of Vote For Me, Head of State, Bob Roberts, A Distinguished Gentleman and An Unreasonable Man, as well as many others.
In NYC: Paper City at Mixed Greens, opens today.
In Miami Beach: Thoughts on Democracy at the Wolfsonian, through Dec. 7^th.
In Edinburgh: Foto: Modernity 1918-1945 in Central Europe at the National Gallery.

Posted by C-Monster.

The Digest. 07.10.08.

By c-monster on July 10, 2008 in C-Monster, Painting and The Digest. Closed

Population, 2008, a painting by Carl Hammoud. (Via Eclectic Cow.)

Tetris ice cube trays.
D’you have Mad Artspeak Skillz?? For those of you who took a guess on the Dia: Beacon artspeak quiz, the answer is…Donald Judd.
A real loss: The building that houses East L.A.’s Self Help Graphics has been sold. The organization, which has supported countless neighborhood artists and exhibited the work of figures such as Gronk and Frank Romero since its founding in 1978, will remain at the site through December. No word on what happens after that. (Via Marshall Astor.)
Frieze reports on “rude” art coverage. Which doesn’t sound all that rude. (Via AFC.)
Anish Kapoor and Herzog & de Meuron to collaborate on Tribeca tower.
Tracey Emin hearts Julian Schnabel.
Rare manuscript about early colonial life in Peru gets its day at the Getty Center in L.A.
Acropolis Museum to recreate missing portion of Parthenon marble frieze (which now reside at the British Museum) using plaster casts.
Hilarious: To sell a Banksy on the secondary market, you have to get his permission first.
Photos: Graffiti on Seattle’s Lander Street Wall.
Augor redoes another L.A. billboard.
Blu, of that famous graffiti animation, just released a book of his work.
A video profile of Martha Cooper on Current TV. (Via What You Write.)
The work of A1one, an Iranian street artist.
Everyday, I think that our President has sunk to a new low. But then he goes and impresses me by sinking ever lower.Yesterday, he signed off from his last G-8 meeting by telling his colleagues: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.” (Via Eyeteeth.)
Seattle mayor wants to do something about fugly buildings. Good luck with that.
Workers remove some of the ceramic rods at Renzo Piano’s NY Times tower to prevent stunt climbing. (Via Animal.)
A time lapse video of Work AC’s month-long installation of Public Farm 1 at P.S. 1 in Queens.
Your moment of the Great Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain covering Nirvana. (Via Art to Go.)

Posted by C-Monster.

Photos: Greg Lynn’s Blobwall at SCI-Arc in L.A.

By c-monster on July 9, 2008 in Architecture, C-Monster, Galleries and Los Angeles. Closed

The Blob as a wall. (Photos by C-M.)

Bricks: they’re those heavy, rectangular prisms that you stack, one on top of the other, to make offices and mini-malls and parking garages. Or are they? Architect Greg Lynn of FORM gives them a serious makeover in his supercool Blobwall Pavilion at SCI-Arc’s gallery in downtown L.A. His reinvented bricks are hollow and made of recyclable polymer, stacked together to produce what amounts to one kick-ass, blobby-looking structure. Get over to see the installation ASAP (the show is only up through this weekend), because this fall, the pavilion is gonna be shipped to Italy for the Venice Biennale.

Here are directions to SCI-Arc. Helpful tip: the “entrance” to the building is around the back. You’d think a structure filled with architects would think to note this somewhere out front, but this little detail seems to have eluded everyone’s attention. Or is making people walk up and down a very long block in search of an open door some new avant-garde architectural thing I don’t know about?

More after the jump. Click on images to supersize.

Continue reading ‘Photos: Greg Lynn’s Blobwall at SCI-Arc in L.A.’

The Digest. 07.09.08.

By c-monster on July 9, 2008 in C-Monster, Painting and The Digest. Closed

Detail of Superman and Superdog in Jail, 1963, by Peter Saul, at the Orange County Museum of Art, through September 21st. Read the review in the L.A. Times. (FYI: The show isn’t all that. But Saul’s pieces from the early ’60s are definitely worth checking out.) (Photo by C-M.)

Let Them Eat Foam: G-8 leaders suck down 18-courses as they discuss world food crisis.
Totally rad tech-web installation art of the day: Pulse, by Markus Kison. Don’t skip the video. It’s trippy as hell.
¡Art Industry Smackdown! The S.F. Chronicle’s Kenneth Baker vs. Dale Chihuly at the De Young.
The Tate Liverpool is terribly worried that under-18s might get irreversibly corrupted by the sight of Klimt’s nudes.
The Denver Post follows up on the Denver Art Museum’s eyebrow-raising acquisition dealings. Follow-ups to MAN’s original posts here and here.
This looks cool: LACMA acquires collection of rare Pacific Island art.
London’s National Gallery unveils 18 recently-bequeathed masterpieces by the likes of Monet, Degas and Gaugin.
Tracey Emin sculpture goes missing and is then mysteriously returned. (Via A.O.)
For those with $$$ in their eyes: A London auctions round-up.
Reason No. 1,787 not to attack Iran: Their art market is booming. (Via A.J.)
Marshall Astor is in Thailand working on a show and eating some spectacular-looking street food.
Graff of the Day: Sego in Mexico.
Augor and Revok redo a Dark Knight billboard in L.A. (Frackin’ awesome.) Sorta related: Augor’s doing T-shirts.
Mural as Audubon Guide: Elkpen in L.A. paints the birds of Hollywood.
A wonderful quote on Archidose about how to understand the land, which leads me to wonder how many architects actually spend any time in nature.
Photo Essay: Prefab houses going up at MoMA. Plus: Images of Frank Gehry’s pavilion at the Serpentine in London.
Sleuths’ claim that they’ve discovered 29 Frank Lloyd Wright houses in Illinois is heavily disputed.
This November, the focus of the Chicago Humanities Festival will be architecture.
Architecture that looks like papel picado: Technicolor Bloom by Brennan Buck.
Your moment of techno-kitties.

Posted by C-Monster.

Calendar. 07.08.08.

By c-monster on July 8, 2008 in C-Monster, Calendar and Performance art. Closed

Fancy Dance Good Luck Lion at the National Museum of the American Indian in NYC. (Photo courtesy of Jason Lujan.)

In NYC: Jason Lujan, Sky Medicine Bear, Donna Ahmadi, Louis Mofise, Tsyon Draper and White Crane Kung Fu in two 20 minute performances, Fancy Dance Good Luck Lion, in front of the Museum of the American Indian this Thursday, July 10^th at 5:30 p.m. and Friday, July 11^th at 12:30 p.m.
In NYC: Radiance from the Rain Forest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru, at the Met, through Sept. 1^st.
In NYC: New Views, Re-Views, a group show, at Cavin Morris, opens today.
In NYC: Inoperable in Nü York, at Alphabeta, in Brooklyn, this Thursday.
In Miami: Martin Oppel at Perrotin.
In L.A.: The L.A. Art Girls Biennale at Phantom Galleries, opens Thursday.
In L.A.: Maria Sybilla Meriam & Her Daughters: Women of Art and Science, at the Getty. (It’s an estrogen-fest in SoCal!)
In Oakland: Jim Campbell at the Berkeley Art Museum, through August 3^rd. (Here’s a video I shot of one of his LED pieces at Bryce Wolkowitz in NYC earlier this year.)
In Berlin: El Tono, Nomad, Dolk and others, in Urban Affairs, a street art show, at Landsberger Allee 54, through August 3^rd. (Via Art21.)
In Berlin: A retrospective of the photography of Hiroshi Sugimoto at the Neue Nationalgalerie, through October 5^th.

Posted by C-Monster.

The Digest. 07.08.08.

By c-monster on July 8, 2008 in C-Monster, Graffiti and Street Art. Closed

Deuce Seven in Seattle. See it large. Plus: the full set. (Photo by blvd_flicks.)

C-Monster Art Merch!! Buy the Brussels Griffon Kelala Head Journal, which features one of my photos on the cover and the description, “Kelala, a rescue from a backyard, enjoys long walk on the beach and is a real ladies man!” All proceeds go to the National Brussels Griffon Rescue. Because Everyone is Precious. (My original shot here.)
Seems like there’s some very fishy dealings afoot in that Denver Art Museum acquisition of Thomas Eakins’ Cowboy Singing, reports Modern Art Notes.
From the Department of They-Cannot-Be-Serious: The Guardian has a competition for teenage wannabe art critics. Because I’m sure the average teen wants nothing more than to sit around, thinking about inverting the paradigm and interpreting visual signposts.
Art by men sells for more than art by women.
Today’s Art-in-China installment: “The global art world’s burgeoning love affair with Mao and the Cultural Revolution makes a very neat fit with the current Chinese regime’s efforts to sell itself as the authoritarian power that everybody can learn to love.”
Frenchman in Florida indicted on charges of attempted sale of a stolen Monet, Sisley and Breugel.
Australian gummint types once again freaked out by the sight of nekkid children, this time, on the cover of a magazine. More here. (Via A.J.)
Galleries in tough economic times. Related: The super-wealthy are keeping the U.K. art market afloat.
Rising costs are making life in far-off suburbs prohibitive.
Photo Essay: Ed Kashi’s The Curse of the Black Gold. Listen to an NPR interview with the photographer here. (Via PDN Pulse.)
Art press release sentence of the day: “Winkleman Gallery is very pleased to present The Shallow Curator, a summer group exhibition with neither urgency nor depth.”
A story about how Holly Block, formerly of Art in General, led the turnaround at the Bronx Museum of Art. (Via A.J.)
Decorate your yard with the living dead.
Graff of the Day: Ren, Savao and Nadao in Santiago, Chile.
Skewville Hype crates get the fashion treatment.
Silvio Berlusconi, architecture critic. Italy’s dear leader on a proposed Libeskind design: “…it’s not manly and it emanates a sense of impotence.”
Brasilia: The buildings are gorgeous, even if the urban planning sucks.
Where propaganda meets architecture: Herzog & de Meuron’s Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing makes the new 10 yuan note. (Via Hrag.)
Ikea coffins.
Your moment of Eye of the Tiger. (Click on the video.)

Posted by C-Monster.

Roman Architecture Redux: The O.C. Edition.

By c-monster on July 7, 2008 in Architecture, C-Monster and Los Angeles. 9 Comments

The arches of Newport Coast: Big and bloated and serving no purpose whatsoever. Click here for scale.

Nothing heralds the end of a civilization better than some heavy-duty architectural pomposity. And in Orange County, Calif., where architecture marries the best traits of Vegas, with lots of Disney and a heavy dose of Caligula, there is no shortage of structures that say, The End is Near. Specifically, there are a whole lotta Roman-style arches, built in dimensions so mammoth, they can be appreciated from the cockpit of a Lincoln Navigator at speeds of 60 mph. In most cases, these monuments serve no function whatsoever, other than to let the citizenry know: “You are part of a civilization that is very important. At least for a few more minutes.”

After the jump, a tour of the biggest and the baddest.

* * *

On a side note of sublime ridiculosity:
In shooting this story, I was stopped by a security guard at an outdoor mall called the Irvine Spectrum (a place my friend Josh likes to refer to as the Irvine Rectum), who told me that I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of the buildings because the architecture was “copyrighted.” He even radioed his base to let his cohorts know that he had stopped “a single female” with a camera. For reals.

Roman Architecture Redux
Calling all units. There’s a C-Monster on the premises.

I tried to explain to him that taking pictures didn’t violate the buildings’ copyright. I told him that I covered architecture for a living. I even tried to explain to him that the buildings in question are actually a total rip-off of Roman and Moorish architectural styles and that there are probably a whole buncha Mediterranean master builders rolling around in their graves somewhere. But he wouldn’t have any of it. He just told me that his bosses (that would be the Irvine Company, purveyors of crap-ass urban planning) are very sensitive about having the architecture photographed and that I wouldn’t be allowed to take pictures of the buildings.

So, if you’re reading this post from somewhere in China, here’s a copy of the Irvine Rectum floor plan. Please get started on an exact replica as soon as you can.

Click on images to supersize. More after the jump.

Continue reading ‘Roman Architecture Redux: The O.C. Edition.’

The Digest. 07.07.08.

By c-monster on July 7, 2008 in C-Monster, Street Art and The Digest. Closed

Stikman, in NYC. (Photo by Elisha Cook Jr.)

“Design Won’t Save the World.” (Via Eyebeam.)
Creative Time playing Malcolm McLaren videos in Times Square through August 14^th. See the schedule here.
Funny and informative: The 580^th anniversary of the death of Masaccio. Question: If Massaccio lived today, would he have done a handbag for Louis Vuitton?
The Day in Hitler: Someone call the Chapman brothers, because a statue owned by Hitler is up for sale. Related: Hitler’s head gets lopped off at Madam Tussauds, but will go back on exhibit as soon as it is reattached.
Real dedication to the principles of organized labor: British Museum staff go on strike over crappy pay raises…for four hours. Sounds more like a long lunch break than a strike. (Via A.J.)
London, where Americans sell their art to rich Russians for Euros.
The Day in Seriously Rad Celebrity Art Stories: Kanye West says he does not have a winged portrait of himself in his home, as previously reported in Harper’s Bazaar.
The China Report, pre-Olympics edition: The NYT is seeing Red with a lengthy story about saving the caves at Dunhuang (see the photos) and an extensive report on the state of the country’s art exhibitions. Plus: Ai Weiwei gets a (fawning) profile in the Guardian.
Pompeii is declared a disaster zone. Again. Looks like the Italians are managing their treasures as well as the Greeks. Kinda hilarious to think that these are two countries that want all their shit back. (Via A.J.)
HBO doc on surly, un-famous painter Chuck Connelly to premiere tonight.
Photos: Buckminster Fuller at the Whitney.
A round-up of the best architecture blogs according to ArchDaily. (Via architecture.mnp.)
One bad-ass library: The Biblioteca Central at the Universidad Católica in Antofagasta, Chile.
Architecture sleuths claim to have found 29 previously undiscovered Frank Lloyd Wright homes in Illinois.
Toyota makes pre-fab houses. (Via Contemporist.)
Graff of the Day: Video MSK in Seattle.
A Sicilian town gets street arty.
The oldest graffiti writer. The video at the bottom of the post is in English. (Via Ekosystem.)
Video profile of the Date Farmers.
Your moment of Eddie Murphy’s head on a highway. (Thank you, AFC.)

Posted by C-Monster.

Artspeak pop quiz! Dia: Beacon edition.

By c-monster on July 6, 2008 in C-Monster, Museums and Sublime ridiculosity. 9 Comments

Dia you understand me? (Photo by ricksterbot.)

Roving correspondent Mlle. Connasse finds herself stateside this week, so she popped in for a day-long visit of the Dia: Beacon over the weekend, where she encountered some terrific artspeak while admiring the Beuys, the Smithsons and the Serras. She was so moved by the mind-boggling quality of the prose, that she couldn’t resist cabling in some of the more eye-crossing delights. The following bits refer to a single artist:

In each of his works, [the artist] relentlessly examined issues of similarity and difference, likeness and identity.

The recognition of the specificity of each element informs the viewer’s appreciation of the relation of the individual to the collective, of the singular entity to the larger series, and of repetition to order.

Anyone want to venture a guess on which artist the writer might be describing? Get the list of artists here. No cheating.

Posted by C-Monster.

Tags: artspeak, beacon, dia.

Monthly Archive for July, 2008

Page 3 of 4

Photos: In the Land of Retinal Delights at the Laguna Art Museum in O.C.

Calendar. 07.10.08.

The Digest. 07.10.08.

Photos: Greg Lynn’s Blobwall at SCI-Arc in L.A.

The Digest. 07.09.08.

Calendar. 07.08.08.

The Digest. 07.08.08.

Roman Architecture Redux: The O.C. Edition.

The Digest. 07.07.08.

Artspeak pop quiz! Dia: Beacon edition.

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