Hey, Krylon huffers, you’ve got until Monday to catch the wildly popular Art in the Streets graffiti show down at the Geffen/MOCA. I had heard mostly good things from my compatriots, seen their Instagrams of the show (man, I love an art show that actually lets you take photos), and read all the buzz about it. Little did I know that it was going to piss me off like crazy.

The exhibit covers any kind of scrawling on walls willy-nilly, in a pretty unrelated fashion. The Crips have little to do with Keith Haring and Keith Haring probably never knew a graffiti-lovin’ East LA cholo who wouldn’t know a Z-boy if he tried to jack his ride, but here they all are, sharing the same exhibit space. It’s a tenuous thread running through the whole show that seems to be melted down to super cool people do graffiti, didya know? MOCA was full of families, khaki-pants-wearin’ grandpas and their opinionated wives, baby hipsters (seen below), and a fair share of aging hipsters. It’s nice to see any museum have this much traffic…

But then I saw the “fake inner city” that takes up a decent portion of the show. A fake alleyway, littered with trash, but smelling as clean as a contemporary art musuem. A bodega with the calling-card signs in the dirty windows. A few spaces that were meant to look like kids had been squatting in them – everything trying as hard as possible to be poverty-stricken and “interesting” as possible. Take another turn through this false urban jungle and you come across an animatronic display of three graffiti artists, stacked on each other shoulders so the top fellow can spray the tag, his arm moving back and forth forever, like one of the creatures inside Splash Mountain. At that moment, the exhibit took on a very Disneyland feel to me. I looked around and saw well-to-do art patrons exclaiming to each other how amazing everything was. But you know what? There are stores in my neighborhood that look just like this. There are piss-strewn alleys not that far from the museum, covered in wheatpastes and tags – would these people ever drive even farther east to see the REAL Los Angeles where some of these movements were born? Do they even leave their neighborhoods to begin with? Is Little Tokyo the roughest hood they’ve ever seen in L.A.?

Fake bullet holes. Definitely not “inspirational” to me. It felt like slumming. Safe, happy, slumming. “Oh, darling, the inner city is SO interesting, did you know? Ah! My goodness, a dirty urinal! Let me pose next to it!” I feel like New Yorkers and anyone else from a rotty U.S. city who actually traverses these corners of their worlds would roll their eyes at all of this.

I can’t even go into the fact that there were no politically controversial images at all on display. Very little to maybe NO nudity. The artists represented had moved on to successful gallery careers OR their artwork and styles have been absorbed into mainstream advertising. No mention of SMEAR and REVOK fighting charges and being plagued by hefty lawsuits from the city of Los Angeles. Bansky’s subversion utterly subverted by an actually crowded gift shop. Buying ‘Exit to the Gift Shop’ on DVD, IN the bloody gift shop? Irony lost. Game over.

HEY, I’m not discouraging you to go in the very last days of this exhibit. Go and see for yourself. And become a patron of MOCA and skip the lines.

Bonus link: Someone else’s much more articulate opinion – LATimes.com

I clearly ran out of time when visiting Rome recently.
I might need to go back just to take graffiti pictures.
Oh, and eat way more pizza.
Click for larger size at Flickr.

 

Is this MBW, Mr. Brain Wash? Or it just looks like him?
In the San Lorenzo “hipster/University-ish” neighborhood of San Lorenzo

 

 

Cannot translate this properly?
It’s something like “Anywhere food is served, I am taken advantage of…”

 

 

Saw this sentiment more than once.

 

Lots of ROMES.

 

Rome makes you Rome?

 

 

 

Not a Banksy.

 

Hellraiser- spotted near St. Thomas In Urbe University

 

Woody Allen?

 

 

 

And now, the romantic stuff, just in time for Valentine’s Day

 

There is no amount of distance that can separate us.

 

I think of you -

 

I love you -

 

You the most dear thing that I have -

 

I beg you – forgive me! I love you.

Exactly one week ago I found myself standing in a long line in Hollywood in the parking lot of the old CBS news building at Gower and Sunset. I had consumed in its entirety, one two-week old copy of the New Yorker, financial articles included. My cell phone was dead, and so was the Blackberry. I waited. I waited, with no one, with nothing to distract me from the slow belly crawl of time, for almost 3 hours to get into the MBW art show. Ironically enough, I returned four days later this past Sunday to revisit the show and I didn’t have to wait AT ALL.

So what is it about MBW’s art that caused that opening day turnout? I bumped into my old college roommate while we were in line and we had a quick, quiet little chat about MBW. Natalie sits at a light every morning on La Brea and sees MBW’s silk screened image of Muhammad Ali. “We’ve all seen that photo a thousand times – what’s he really contributing?” she said with a squint and at a whisper, so not as to upset the nearby couples who had taken to mindlessly canoodling to pass the time. I leaned in, using my rumpled well-read magazine up to shade my eyes, and added “He’s not like Bansky really, with his pointed political remarks.” Then I added less seriously, “Plus, he had an pink elephant at his last show. A real elephant!” Just then MBW appeared, in sunglasses, a cast on one ankle. He was pushing himself along on a scooter. He is a nice little French guy with long hair. After seeing him motoring about, signing autographs graciously, we no longer felt so critical. We ceased the griping and continued waiting.

Around 9:30, long after the sun had set, I finally get in and it’s a more of a hopping party than dignified art opening. At the entrance is a giant can of spray paint, but covered in the iconic Campbell Soup artwork and colors. To my left I see a large cut out of a sepia-toned family photo. Carefully inserted into the tableau in matching tones is Darth Vader and Mark Hamill. People are posing with this thing. I stand there amazed for a second, amazed that everyone wants to be a Skywalker, even at an art show in Hollywood, and also that I am holding two free drink tickets in my hand. In this same outside patio area there is a giant sculpture of a brown paper bag with a take out receipt neatly stapled in one corner. Echoes of Claus Oldenburg…or a tribute to delicious, delivered to your door Chinese food. Whatever! It’s excellent.

Inside, there is a corridor of silkscreened prints, everyone made up to look like Warhol’s Marilyn, with pink faces and vivid blue eyeshadow. Larry King is the most disturbing, Michael Jackson looks oddly BETTER. After this corridor you are in the main part of the art show, an old TV soundstage. There are two stories to the show, and one whole wing of the soundstage looks like Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks cafe, with its long curved window. Throughout the various little nooks and rooms, you are greeted with faces you know instantly – Leonard Nimoy as Spock, Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, Run DMC (who also appear in old sepia toned family photos) – icon after icon, David Bowie, Tupac, Stevie Wonder, the Dalai Lama, Louis Armstrong. There are cheap oil painting reproductions with graffiti additions (Banksy also does this kind of playful work), a giant robots made up of old TVs, a room covered in books. I take a photo of everything in site, nearly 120 photos altogether and go back out into the patio area. I look for someone really nice to give my drink tickets to – at this point, I just want to go home and eat dinner. I find a young couple hugging near the jazz band. “Here, take my tickets.” “Oh, we don’t drink!” A dorkier kid in Jason Schwartzman-esque glasses leans in, right between them, his hand out, palm up, a happy smarmy smile smeared across his face. “I’ll take them!!!” (I sigh to myself over the fact that sometimes life is like a Wes Anderson movie. Only I’m not so rich. )

ANYHOW: it’s one of the most lively, fun art shows I’ve ever been to, but on a certain level, caaahman, what’s going on here? The art isn’t all that challenging, but there is still something intensely pleasing about the iconography, the repetition, the hero worship. MBW’s heroes are heroes to so many of us – and then to see them filtered through so many other art influences (primarily Warhol though), you get level upon level of pleasing RECOGNITION. Ahhh, so Robert De Niro in Raging Bull through black and white rococo French patterns. My eyeball detects all these things! Little pings of happiness in the brain. You are at an art show where you GET the art instantaneously – you don’t need an audio tour, a scholarly curator, or a copy of Art in America to understand what’s going on. I make this observation out loud to the BF after we finish our second, less dramatic visit to the show. He responds to me with his usual cut-to-the-chase perception. “Ahhh, why do you have to take things so seriously? Some art is just enjoyable!” MBW’s primary talent lies in finding the happy crossroads between then and now so that some of these icons can live again, in little triumphant visual puns – Jimi Hendrix holds a Guitar Hero guitar, Ben Franklin in Kiss makeup. It makes sense – and it makes you smile.

 

MBW Life is Beautiful Show – now extended! 

As many of you out in cube land must know, you’ve got your work computer (always clean out those cookies) and probably one at home (why hello illegally downloaded music and strangely suspect websites in history folder probably due to a BF). I just happened to notice today that my one of my Firefoxes has way too many bookmarks but HEY, some of them are kind of neat. And mostly involve shopping. Because I am a girl. I must adhere to the gender roles assigned to me.


Anyhow – what’s in this horribly unorganized bookmarks folder?



Super 8 Movie Spool Clock by IMOTIME
I was probably among the last kids in a particular generation of film school students to actually use a Super-8 camera to learn how to edit and shoot my very first short films. Clearly I want this out of pure nostalgia. Kids today! They don’t know shit! With their Canon DV this and thats and their YourToobs and such. Pfft.



“No One Wants to Play Sega with Harrison Ford” by Brandon Bird
I have no idea where I may have stumbled upon Brandon Bird’s art but you must visit his site to see more of his work. His paintings have this strange affect on you: first you are comforted by a recognizable pop culture reference, and then you are disoriented when it’s turned on its head, usually in a joyous and surreal twist. You might see Christopher Walken working on a robot or Noam Chomsky walking in a parking lot towards his sweet, sweet ride. Buy something too, contribute to the arts, you person that is probably super excited watching American Gladiators. (Insta-Disclaimer: I have been watching American Gladiators.)



Bertman’s Ball Park Mustard
Recommended to me by my boss after I had described to him how I wanted to steal the mustard from Phillipe’s by simply pouring it into my pockets.

Guys With Guns – a Flickr photoset by peter-noster
Yeah, I was probably looking for pictures of Simon Pegg in Hot Fuzz to set as my desktop background and I came across all kinds of actors brandishing firearms in this excellent little collection. Click further. You’ve got to see Sean Connery in Zardoz.



Polish Movie Poster for Mulholland Drive by Swava Harasymowicz
This is just plain old sweet.

I Got Wood – Ed’s t-shirt from Shaun of the Dead
Well, come on. Every slacker male on the planet should have this to go along with his unique odor of video game sweat, oily foods, and the musky touch of bong smoke.

Banksy rules. There’s so much to-doodle about how he’s a sell out now that people like Angelina Jolie show up to his art openings to buy $150,000 statues. Since when is it a bad thing when an artiste manages to make a living from his or her work? In 1857 Paris, Banksy would have been king of the world! Drinking Krug out of the bosoms of young whorish models and such. Something Delacroix-ish like that.

Anyhow, here’s Shep Fairey (another “sell out” because he can feed his family) (or is he a sell out because they simply sell out of his t shirts at Urban Outfitters) interviewing Banksy in the newest Swindle. Which I rarely buy because it’s like $15 or something. Sheesh. Sell outs! Anyhow, Bansky comes off as a cocky badass, which is badass.

I never go to the openings of my shows, and I don’t read chat rooms or go on MySpace. All I know about what people think of my gear is what a couple of my friends tell me, and one of them always wants to borrow money, so I’m not sure how reliable he is.

Fairey & Banksy @ Swindle

…here is Dali using a woman as a desk.

Last Saturday, we decided to hit up the Frogtown Artwalk, a small rambling stroll separated by only a few blocks and completely actually walkable! It clearly seems like the kind of event that will grow and grow in size and reputation as more dreaded-not-dreaded neighborhood gentrification occurs. If you don’t know, a burgeoning artist community has taken up residence in little pockets back behind Chavez Ravine. Right now it seems like this area’s general strength is photography (which I wasn’t really allowed to photograph in certain galleries).

One gallery had a huge swing-a-ma-gig set up in its courtyard that would catapult a rider up into the sky, flipping them upside down as well.

There she goes.

This giant boat was taking people around from gallery area to gallery area. I think. You can never tell with giant street boats.

A set of galleries was in this complex. It almost felt like some kind of school building, or even a small airplane hangar. The BF and I agreed there was something even more charming about these studios over the large spacious ones in the Brewery. This space was one of the few to be exhibiting oil paintings. Also they had free beer. I remember these things.

Here’s the set-up…

And the punchline!

This same gallery exhibiting the horse also had an area where you could leave your own graffiti.

A band was playing at some point but clearly we missed it.

It’s a pretty small art walk for now but it was well attended. Lots of hipsters and art fiends wandering the dark and narrow streets of Frogtown, puzzling the natives and upsetting all the neighborhood guard dogs.

See What Else You Missed – Frogtown Art Walk 2007

Scavenged this photo at the Montrose Farmer’s Market this weekend and it immediately caught my eye. Look how CLEAN the streets of Hollywood look. No bums, no Spiderman crouched on top of a trashcan terrorizing tourists…just this starlet and her dreams.

Us robotters, ApolloSputnik and I, bumped into one Albert Brooks at his wife’s gallery opening on Friday night. I forgot to demand he quote Mr. Hank Scorpio from The Simpsons. Instead we weirded him out by bringing up his first feature, Real Life, which is an excellent little flick about an American family whose every day lives are over-documented by a a narcisstic filmmaker. Anyhow, if you’re not impressed by the guy who wrote and directed Modern Romance (Jesus, what is WRONG with you), then go check out Kimberly Brooks’ beautiful and nostalgic paintings that bring to life a woman’s milieu in the 60s/70s.

See Kimberly Brooks @ Taylor De Cordoba
Do the next Culver City Art Walk, Saturday June 2nd (all their materials have misprints on them, it’s NOT on June 3rd)

Starting tomorrow, on International Buy Your Loved One a Piece of Crap Day, The American Cinematheque will start running both Drawing Restraint 9 AND the documentary on the making of DR9, Matthew Barney: No Restraint until February the 18th. For those of you not snooty enough, Matthew Barney is considered one of America’s premier video artists. And he is shacked up with Bjork, who co-stars with him in DR9 and penned the soundtrack for this untraditional film set on a Japanese whaling boat. His films are beautiful, violent, intensely strange and not for the light-hearted. They are non-narrative works dripping with heavy symbolism, and his concerns with contemporary sculpture often raise their head, as big gooey vats of wax and vaseline figure prominently in his work.

Barney has said repeatedly that DR9 will not be on DVD, so this is might be your only chance to see it without following him around in some sort of circus-like way, which is behavior you should reserve for your favorite jam band, not your favorite video artist.

And if you have never heard the word CREMASTER before, I urge you to back away from this post and go watch a Disney movie.

See DR9 / Matthew Barney: No Restraint at the American Cinematheque