So chic-Palm Springs Modernism Week

Modernism Week is an 11-day mélange of mid-century modern design, architecture and culture.  What better place to have such a week but in Mid-Century Modern refuge, Palm Springs, where you find clean simple lines from the 40’s, 50s and 60’s defining Desert Modernism. Events include architectural tours, films, lectures, symposiums, educational events and parties in Mid-Century Modern homes and boutique hotels. In case you’ve been living in a cave, Palm Springs has hosted homes to Liberace, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Dean Martin, Cary Grant and so many more who epitomize the definition of cool. OK, so Liberace may not be “cool” but you cannot deny his legend. For your eye’s, here is a collection of imagery by legendary architectural photographer, Julius Schulman, along with a couple other goodies including an image of the Frey House by Shel Mosk. All the info on Modernism Week can be found here.

Above by: Shel Mosk

Affordable Art Fair LA - You should go, really.

I checked out the Affordable Art Fair this week, and was really surprised at how good it was.  Lets be honest, the term “Affordable Art” doesn’t necessarily have visions of sugarplums dancing in my head, but more the idea of living room “art” at close-out prices. At the AAF Nothing could be further from the truth.  

Look, art is subjective, of course, and what we think is great, you might think is crap, and with any large art fair, your gonna run across a good amount of “bad art”, but the amount of great art at this event was really surprising.  And I may have even walked away with a piece of my very own by Japanese born, NY based artist Yuri Shimojo.  A beautiful print hand-pulled by Karen Fiorito at Buddha Cat Press in downtown LA.

The Affordable Art Fair LA touts “Galleries exhibiting contemporary art priced under $10,000 with most under $1,000, and a good handful at much more affordable prices down to $90.

Below, you’ll find my highlights from the show.  

Feral Fine Art showed water colors by Wolfe Knight.

C.A.V.E. gallery  had a great mix of work including a beautiful piece by Jason Hernandez, a kinetic piece by Paul Chatem, and a few graphite/water colors by Zach Johnsen.

Clic Bookstore and Gallery had some really cool boombox photos by Lyle Owerk.  

Toy Art Gallery was on hand with a bunch of different limited-edition “toys.”

Thinkspace Gallery also presented a really nice vairety of pieces, includiing having the honor of representing the artist who created the large scale mural outside the entrance to the tent, Dabs Myla. 

A Big weekend for Art

ART LOS ANGELS CONTEMPORARY

Get yourself to the third annual Art LA Contemporary at the Baker Hanger in Santa Monica.  You’ll get to troll 70 international art galleries with a focus on LA Galleries. While the everyday person might not be able to walk in, see a piece, and make a purchase, its a great place to spend the day and hit more galleries than you could do in a week.

They’re also hosting a series of programs including artist talks, curator led panels and film screening and performances.  

Tickets are $13 online and $18 at the door for a 1 day pass, or $25 online and $30 at the door for a 3 day pass.  

Check the site for more details. ART LA CONTEMPORARY

AFFORDABLE ART FAIR LOS ANGELES

For those of you who are interested in art, but can’t afford to drop a half mil on a painting, check out the Affordable Art Fair at the Event Deck at L.A. Live, where you can browse art from galleries including Thinkspace, C.A.V.E. Gallery, Belicher Gallery and too many others to list, offering pieces ranged from $100-$10,000.

One of the reasons we love this event so much is because they have partnered with Free Art For Abused Children, hosting an opening event which will benefit the charity.

There are a ton of great programs at AAFLA including printmaking workshops, LittleCollector Lounge where you can get the kids excited about art, Advice on how to grow your collection, and a variety of artist talks.  Much more info on their site: AAFLA

HUF x Haroshi x DLX release party

By now, you’ve probably seen Haroshi’s middle-finger sculpture all over the interweb. Over the weekend, Haroshi opened his joint project and show with HUF and DLX in Downtown Los Angeles.  

Well, we think you should dig a bit deeper and check out some of Haroshi’s other work. Haroshi is a self-taught Japanese artist, currently based in Tokyo. He creates full-scale, three-dimensional, wooden sculptures with used skateboard decks. As a passionate skater from his early teens to present, Haroshi possesses a thorough knowledge of the anatomy of a skateboard and all of its parts including the deck, trucks and wheels. With no formal art training, Haroshi has adapted the determined perseverance and DIY ethos of skate culture, into creating works of art. Haroshi’s relationship with his artwork is the same with his skateboards—they are his life, his vehicle for communication and expression. You can read an interview posted today at Revolution-Daily, and you can see a bunch more of his work on his site. Lurk, he’s cool. You like him.

In the meantime, here are some pix from the party last weekend. It was all sorts of epic.  We missed you!

Photo by Brian Kelley

Photo by TIffany Bowhay

Photo by Brian Kelley

Photo by Tiffany Bowhay

Photo by Tiffany Bowhay

Photo by Tiffany Bowhay

Culver City Gallery Opening Round-up

It was a big night for Culver City last Saturday.  Every gallery opened with their first show’s of the year, and there were more than a few that are worth checking out. 

Brian Bress:Under Performing at Cherry and Martin - bit.ly/yDBMmt

Loved this show.  I’m not usually big on video, but I’ve been finding recently, that people are just making better and better motion pieces.  There is a full length video, which I didn’t stay for (too many people to say hi to, too much art to see), though I was really drawn to the eight video portraits presented.  ”In these pieces the viewer is asked to think about the structure of language and the picture plane’s inherent assumptions about space as constructed in painting as well as theater.”  He plays with the 2-dimensional plane in a few pieces, as well as obstruction and abstraction in others.  The way he presented the subjects in the portraits seemed to be done with a bit of a cheeky bent lending a bit of playfulness to these videos, by constructing clothes and faceless heads out of what I imagined to be foam.

Glen Kaino:Bring Me The Hands of Piri Reis at Honor Fraser - bit.ly/Aj1nxR

Photo by Christopher Dibble

This is a great show because you can walk into the gallery and see a whole bunch of different pieces constructed in different mediums, and appreciate the show without knowing a thing.  It’s able to exist as pure eye candy, but if you take a moment and read about the show, like a map, you’ll see just where Kaino is taking you.  Quite fitting as he’s taken on the role of cartographer, architect and boat builder all inspired by Turkish pirate Piri Reis.  I was most drawn to the cityscapes using pins and golden model kit pieces.  Perhaps it was because they were shiny, gold, and organized?  ”Conceptual kitbashing” is how LA Based artist Glen Kaino conceives this work, essentially bashing model kits and creating large scale  ”pin drawings.”

Robb Putman:Castoffs at Walter Maciel Gallery - bit.ly/ykTCdu

Photo by Christopher Dibble

At first, this seems like a fun and fantastical show.  Large-scale dog sculptures made from castoffs like blankets, clothes, fake fur, rags, plastic bags and leather scraps. But there is something about these big jolly pups that seem a little sad, and dark.  Rob says about his own work, “they are physically and psychologically vulnerable and seem like monstrously overgrown stuffed toys, wounded stray dogs or imaginary friends - misfits whose demeanors both invite and repel.” 

Other notable shows are Banks Viollette and Shio Kusaka, two different shows, both at Blum and Poe.

Banks Viollette

Photo by Christopher Dibble

Shio Kusaka

Photo by Christopher Dibble