art shows & news

Works That Disturb is an exhibition that continues through March 27th, 2010 at the Alphonse Berber in Berkeley, California. It certainly features some disturbing, wonderful things.

Annie McKnight’s Untitled features bracelets made of… taxidermied mice.

“Kim Ye’s living sculptures connect artist and model, work and world in a collaborative act of animation. Crafted of silk, nylon, latex, wire and wood, Ye’s costume-like constructions appear in two incarnations during the exhibition. At the opening reception, live models step into the sculptures and confront spectators as artifacts from a post-human game of Pygmalion and Galatea. Afterward, like so many snake-skins, the works are displayed without their human centers - a metamorphosis that leaves them “unpeopled” and alterior. Like Yves Klein’s anthropometries or the plaster ghosts of Pompeii’s last inhabitants, Ye’s constructions effect an anthropomorphic apophasis; they invoke the human body only to affirm its impermanence.” - Alphonse Berber Press Release

Other works include Angie Crabtree’s Crucified Comfort, which shows Jesus with um, his penis out, and photographs on death and dying.

With his most recent body of work, Adam Friedman combines traditional landforms with some truly interplanetary shit. His mixed media pieces initially come off a little like illustrations in a scientific textbook, but closer inspection reveals worlds where land is replaced by oceans and mountains by lava-like flows. It seems that physics as we know it doesn’t really apply to Friedman’s created worlds.

But let’s sum it all up with a quote Friedman himself uses on the front page of his website; the abstract concepts in this quote absolutely explain what is going on in these works.

“Grateful for our departure? One more expression of human vanity. The finest quality of this stone, these plants and animals, the (landscape) is the indifference manifest to our presence, our absence, our coming, our staying or our going. Whether we live or die is a matter of absolutely no concern whatsoever to the (land). Let men in their madness blast every city on earth into black rubble and envelop the entire planet in a cloud of lethal gas - the canyons and hills, the springs and rocks will still be here, sunlight will filter through, water will form and warmth shall be upon the land and after sufficient time… things (will) take a different and better course.”

Edward Abbey - Desert Solitaire, 1968

Friedman currently has a solo show up at the Eleanor Harwood Gallery in San Francisco. Check it out!

TONIGHT, Andy Haynes has his first show of 2010. He will be showing his works at the The Hive Gallery in Culver City, California. It will be a multimedia event featuring live bands and performances, and will run from 8:00pm to 1:00am. Make it out if you can. The show will feature an installation of 45 new pieces by Haynes right near the entrance of the gallery. If that flyer isn’t enticing enough, you’re just crazy.

 
 
Street art pioneer Dan Witz now has a show on display at Carmichael Gallery that might just get you respecting street art if you’re a skeptic.
 
 
Inspired by Amsterdam’s Red Light District, the works feature human and animal faces and figures trapped behind dirty, shoddily painted glass panes and window frames, looking out as if trapped or curious about the world outside.
 
 
Dark Doings, which will feature recreations of pieces Witz has done on the streets of Brooklyn and elsewhere, shows just how cleverly overlooked doors and windows in alleyways can be used.
 
 
www.carmichaelgallery.com
www.danwitzstreetart.com

 
 
 
 
Now you can not only purchase a piece of vinyl collectible art from Frank Kozik, but you can purchase a framed photo print of Kozik’s work at Munky King.
 

The hilarious 44″ x 49″ photo taken by Frank Schaefer features a Chairman Mao figure wearing Mickey Mouse ears, set on a bed of white balls. A black and white piece, it is certainly an interesting one, but for $5,500, the print’s “value” is certainly debatable, even for rich Los Angeles residents who live in the Melrose District.
 

www.fkozik.com
www.munkyking.com

What happens when you mix the cutesy, yet often morbid, works of Luke Chueh with the literary texts of Dante Alighieri’s Dante’s Inferno? There seem to be no teaser samples of this upcoming show at Gallery 1988, but the premise certainly makes the show seem fascinating enough to check out when September 9th rolls around. And with some religious scholars thinking the mark of the beast is no longer 666, but 999, the date seems all too appropriate for such a show.

www.lukechueh.com
www.nineteeneightyeight.com

Artist and curator Jeremy Cross‘ fourth solo exhibit is now on display at the Hyaena Gallery in Los Angeles until the end of the month! With thirty plus works in the house, Cross examines the human condition and its relationship with faith, by placing religious symbols and iconography alongside human body parts. The above piece, It Swallows You, features mixed media and pyrography, the art of decorating wood with the controlled application of a heated object.

www.myspace.com/botchedcross
www.hyaenagallery.com

A documentary started by artist and art promoter Mark Murphy of Murphy Design, Scribble.08 follows the Los Angeles art scene by honing in on the works of artists like the Clayton Brothers, Camille Rose Garcia, Jeff Soto, Kevin Christy, Martha Rich, Tim Biskup, and Joe Sorren (pictured above). Newly edited and reworked, the film features interviews and takes a look into the creative process of these individuals. You can read more about the documentary on Murphy Design’s Blog.

www.murphydesign.com
www.claytonbrothers.com
www.camillerosegarcia.com
www.jeffsoto.com
www.kevinsayshi.com
www.martharich.com
www.timbiskup.com
www.joesorren.com
murphydesign1.blogspot.com

From now until September 5th, the Distinction Gallery in Escondido, California has an extremely exciting group show that shows off what our world might look like if the mystical was paired with the scientific. Floating objects defying gravity, bodies contorting into miscellaneous shapes, and human limbs that look more like jello are all present in full force.

The lineup includes Sean Chappell (with Renewal 1, above), whose time and space-traversing works are modern surrealism at its best. Also on display are pieces by the whimsical Gene Guynn (with Revolution, left), the charmingly unpolished Joseph Borzotta (with Bittersweet Fruit of Knowledge, bottom left), the conceptually-amazing Andy Haynes (with Overhead the Albatross Hangs Motionless Upon the Air, bottom right), and the pop-surreal Joka (with Do Humans Dream of Organic Peace, below).

But seriously, as if these pieces aren’t exciting enough, there are more amazing pieces by similarly-themed individuals such as the amazing work of Christian Rex Van Minnen (see previous blog post here and twisted story book art of Mark Bryan.

This lineup is definitely ridiculous and shouldn’t be missed if you like the surreal at all. So go check out the Distinction Gallery, NOW!

www.distinctionart.com
www.seanchappell.com
www.geneguynn.com
www.josephborzotta.com
www.andyhaynesart.com
www.myspace.com/joka444
www.seevanminnen.com
www.artofmarkbryan.com

Bubblegum colors like baby pink and baby blue?
Check.

Images of torture, death, and sadism?
Check.

Leave it to Los Angeles artist Kill Pixie, or Mark Whalen (formerly of Sydney, Australia) to put hooded madmen in settings rife with geometric shapes and patterns. Pieces like Group Sessions (left) and Ill Do Anything (right) might seem nearly like vector art created for posters, but in actuality, are the result of a technique that blends acrylic, ink, and gouache on paper that’s then pasted onto wood panels and coated with resin. The resulting pieces seem to have a sense of smoothness and vividness that make them nearly print-like. His 2009 pieces are a step towards simplicity from his dizzying 2008 pieces, but they remain just as interesting.

www.killpixie.net