Matt Lucero’s concrete boom box on OCMA’s front lawn. It works, using solar power. Even better: it was tuned to a Mexican radio station. My bad: the audio isn’t live radio. It’s a six-minute soundtrack. (Photos by C-M.)
California’s medical marijuana laws are clearly having an impact on the art that is being produced in the state, because the 2008 California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art in super-ritzy Newport Beach, is a veritable bonanza of art for stoners: things that spin, optical illusions and 14 minutes worth of atomic explosions. It’s enough to make a girl say, duuude. Not that there wasn’t a good dose of Whitney Biennial-style fare as well. Namely, piles of detritus that blur the line between avant garde art and garage-cleaning day at your parents’ house.
Unfortunately, the buzzkills at OCMA don’t allow photography in the galleries, so I have scant photo documentation. However, as part of the expanding line of services here at C-Monster.net, I would like to provide a rundown of the most stonerrific pieces in the show:
- Untitled, 2008 by Elad Lassry: a video that places live figures on a geometric optical illusion painting in ways that seem to defy gravity. Neat-o.
- Looking for Mushrooms, 1959-65/1996 by Bruce Conner: A near-quarter hour of mushroom clouds, one after another. Like, totally gnarly.
- Mata Crush, 2006 by Tony Labat: A 10-minute video of the artist’s Lincoln Continental getting smashed in slow motion. Better than any Monster Truck rally. For reals.
- Blur, 2007 by Tony Labat: More slo-mo, this time of a moving train loaded with crazy cargo. Pairs well with Hindu Kush and Fritos.
- Untitled, 2008 by Mark Hagen: A canvas with volcanic glass arrows arranged to look as if they are exploding. Or are they imploding? Look again. And then again and…
- Crushed by the Hammer of the Sun, 2008 by Kara Tanaka: A mesmerizing mechanical sculpture of a spinning silk skirt. Watching this could easily absorb an entire afternoon.
- Vanishing Intent, 2008 by Marco Rios: The press release describes this installation as a “minimalist room with a drop-ceiling at the artist’s height that creates an awkward space of discomfort and paranoia.” I describe it as trippy in a Being John Malkovich kind of way.
Click on images to supersize. Find a key to the ratings after the jump.
Continue reading ‘Photos: The 2008 California Biennial at OCMA.’
Skewville in L.A. (Photo by C-M.)
- The remains of the day.
- Me, me, me!…on the subject of street art in museums in ArtNews!
- McGuggenpalooza: A profile of the museum’s new director Richard Armstrong, in which board president Jennifer Stockman says that the Guggenheim Foundation is not currently planning on investing in a GuggenVilnius, nor are they looking to subsidize an expansion of the Bilbao branch into a nature preserve outside the city. Plus: Armstrong’s predecessor, the Krens-Master, allegedly overpaid for works in the museum’s Bilbao collection.
- “Pinocchio, Mendacious Boy Puppet, Plunges to Death at Museum.” More here.
- Financial trouble: bad for the art industry, good for art. Even Murakami says so.
- Earth works in the Western United States under threat.
- 1,000 artworks to see before you die, according to the Guardian.
- The sublime point where art and politics intersect: Donald Rumsfeld’s official portrait for the Pentagon is costing the public purse $46,000. And it wasn’t even painted by Julian Schnabel. (Thank you, dentist_tx.)
- L.A. artists are starting to get their due.
- The pop surrealism set to get its own fair during Basel in Miami.
- Andy Goldsworthy’s Presidio Spire in San Francisco. Kinda reminds me of the Texas A&M bonfire stack.
- The Seattle Art Museum is renting out its halls to purveyors of booze. (MAN.)
- Biology knitting.
- The Idea Conference: bursting with sausage.
- Speaking of sausage…American concept cars of the ‘50s and ‘60s. (NotCot.)
- Today’s Graff, On Fire Edition: Elfo in Italy.
- World’s Best Ever has a round-up on how “urban” art is faring at the auction houses.
- London city council votes to remove Banksy mural.
- The Vietnam Graffiti Project.
- Princess Zaha is designing shoes for Lacoste (Unbeige). Related: the architectural parallels between Hadid and Mike Brady. With lots of photos from inside Princess Zaha’s giant clam (Hrag).
- Sedimentary architecture: the Lavezzorio Community Center by Studio Gang in Chicago.
- Microterritoriality: Our islands of familiarity. On a related note: the parallel maps of Jorge Luis Borges and Lewis Carroll.
- Swinging Some Pipe: The Estonian pavilion at the Venice architecture biennale.
- Your moment of Obama/McCain dance-off. (Courtesy of San Suzie.)
A tantalizing combination of white and dark…chocolate. Found at Downey’s in Laguna Niguel, Calif.
October 2nd, 2008.
On Monday, my dad died. He had endured a bout with an incurable cancer that made his fate inevitable. Even so, I can’t say that I was prepared for the moment in which he took his last breath, a moment that came much sooner than any of us ever anticipated. During the last few weeks, after arriving in California, I made a habit (not sure why) of snapping pix of the sunrises with my cell phone whenever I could. Here’s the series, until the day of his death.
In case y’all were wondering: Felipe Miranda lived a pretty kick-ass life. He drank, he ate, he travelled the world and he had a good time wherever he went. He will be sorely missed.
Here is how I like to remember him.
Continue reading ‘Sunrise. Sunset.’
San Pedro, Self-Built, 2008, c-print by Lia Halloran. (Courtesy of Mark Moore Gallery.)
A couple of years back, when I was a not-so-young scrub at Time, I had the opportunity to work on an article about skatepark design with Richard Lacayo. In reporting the story, the designers we spoke with talked a lot about “lines.” Not just the lines of their designs, but the lines that skaters take as they carve their way through a half pipe or bowl. Being a non-skater, I was left to imagine these possible trajectories. Not anymore.
Last week, I stumbled into the photographs of Lia Halloran at Mark Moore in Santa Monica. Halloran takes long exposure pictures of herself working her way through a variety of parks at night, with a flashlight or some other light source strapped on. No need to imagine lines here. They’re etched in light, right into the photo. It was an incredible way to see these concrete monuments come to life. Above is a shot from the skater-built park under the 110 Freeway in San Pedro, south of L.A.
The photos at Mark Moore are on display as part of the group show Ultrasonic International, through October 25th. If you’re in Miami, some of her photos just went on display at Fredric Snitzer, and they’ll be up through November 10th. You can see many more pix on her website, here. (Though it’s no replacement for seeing them live.)
Shaun Leonardo’s Bull in the Ring. There’s nothing like the sound of crunching bones at a museum opening. (Photos by C-M.)
Sometimes sport is art. And other times, art is sport. In the case of LACMA’s newest exhibit — Hard Targets: Masculinity & Sports — it’s a bit of both. The show’s opening last week got off to a rousing start with a performance by Shaun Leonardo, in which the artist, dressed in black football gear, was rammed repeatedly by a bunch of real-deal players. Indoors, a video piece by Joe Sola broadcast a similar exercise: Saint Henry Composition showed the artist, wearing a button-down shirt and slacks, getting repeatedly tackled by members of a high school football team. (Both pieces led me to wonder if both Leonardo and Sola weren’t beaten up quite enough in their youth.)
The show, curated by LACMA’s Christopher Bedford (who has played rugby and American football and still has all of his original teeth) takes a look at how contemporary art addresses the subject of organized men’s sports. The sneaker sculptures of Brian Jungen examine athletic regalia. Photographs of high school wrestlers by Collier Schorr look at issues of team dynamics and male adolescent sexuality. And a giant soccer ball sculpture by Mark Bradford, hangs like a nutsack in the corner. It’s a small, but potent show, that looks at a subject that is omnipresent in our culture, yet almost absent from contemporary art. The only bummer was that not a single work was devoted to curling. So, get on it all you Yale MFAs. It’s time you stopped gazing at your navels. And started watching ESPN.
The show is up until Jan. 18th, 2009.
Click on images to supersize. More after the jump.
Continue reading ‘Photos: Hard Targets: Masculinity & Sport at LACMA.’
