C-MONSTER.net.

Series 3, No. 15, 1993 by Fang Lijun at S.F. MoMA. (Photo by C-M.)

• In S.F.: Half-Life of a Dream: Chinese Art From the Logan Collection at S.F. MoMA, through Oct. 5^th.
• In L.A.: Edwin Ushiro at project: gallery in Culver City.
• In Boston: Joan Linder at Judi Rotenberg, through August 3^rd.
• In NYC: Summer Salon at Sloan Fine Art on the Lower East Side, opens tomorrow.
• In NYC: Steve Niles, Dr. Revolt, Gary Panter, Morning Breath and Kime Buzzelli sign copies of The Lost Ones at Midtown Comics, this Thursday from 4-6 p.m.
• In Arles, France: Les Rencontres D’Arles Photography 2008.
• In Barcelona: El Tono and Bermellón, at Rojo Art Space, through August 8^th. (Via Ekosystem.)
• In Sydney: The Sydney Biennale 2008, at various locations, through September 7^th.

Art with a hard-on: A figure by Beau Velasco waves a big stick at Brooklyn’s Factory Fresh. (Photos by Autumn Marie & Lindsey Elsaesser.)

Factory Fresh in Brooklyn recently opened up a group show called Un Named Rottens featuring new paintings by NYC artistes Beau Velasco, Daniel St. George and Jeremiah Maddock. The opening night was smooth sailing until Maddock realized that a briefcase containing some of his works-in-progress had been quietly disappeared. The staff at Factory Fresh tore the place apart looking for the briefcase to no avail. A few nights later, however, Maddock got a text message from an unknown number telling him that he could pick up his stuff at a Brooklyn tavern. Maddock did as he was instructed, and arrived to find the suitcase waiting for him behind the bar. The contents of the briefcase hadn’t been touched. The only addition was a crudely-written note that read: “I’ve been dying to meet with you Jeremiah.” Sounds like Maddock has a serious fan, or some prankster friends with a wicked sense of humor.

See the suitcase and more after the jump. Click on images to supersize.

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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.

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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.)

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.

Art spill on aisle three: Pastoral landscape at CostCo.

This weekend I had the honor of hanging out at a CostCo in Orange County, which is serious Andreas Gursky-Land. Not only can you buy a palette of toilet paper and a crate of tequila, you can also pick up a coffin—and, more importantly, art! (They have every stage of your life covered.) These are no giclees, by the way, they’re real “hand-painted” paintings. And I have no doubt that they were produced somewhere in the vicinity of Da Fen. But who cares, when you can pick up a hand-painted painting (in “premium wood frame”) starting at $117.99. All I know is that one of these babies is gonna look sensational over my new couch.

See more pix on my Flickr.

Posted by C-Monster.