The Eastside Culture Crawl is taking place this weekend & I was lucky enough to nab a sneak preview at my friend Liane Varnam’s studio space in 1000 Parker Street. Vancouver has a pretty vibrant art scene & I really love events like the Crawl where artists open up their studio spaces to the public for a few days. Since I don’t have particularly visitor-friendly studio space, I’ve been happy to participate in The Drift, which pairs artists with shop spaces all along Main Street. At one of the Drift events last year I entered a raffle to win $500 worth of art from any fellow Drift artist. And I won!!! As someone who very rarely can afford to buy anything more than prints, I was beyond thrilled. So thrilled, in fact, that it took me this long to decide what to buy! I narrowed it down to Liane’s work very quickly, but which piece? Or maybe TWO pieces? My indecisiveness took over in one of the loveliest versions of a “problem” I’ve ever had.

Once I walked into the studio, however, there was no choosing. As soon as I laid eyes on this one, I knew she was coming home with me:

Some of my favorite works by Liane are pastel and charcoal drawings on old window panes. They serve as perfect frames & are terribly under priced, in my opinion. If you want to snag one for yourself, her studio is #350 in the Parker Street Studios.

One of my favorite parts of visiting L.A. was getting to tour the fab art galleries I regularly drool over in the pages of Juxtapoz and High Fructose magazines. La Luz de Jesus gallery was in walking distance from my girlfriend’s apartment & the featured exhibition is definitely worth a visit if you’re in the L.A. area. Here’s a preview:

Cover to “The Pusher” ~ Charles Binger

When I first saw the paintings, I immediately smiled. They so clearly play homage to the pulp novel style of the 1950s  & would look smashing in a hipster hideaway furnished with mid-century modern flair. When I stepped closer & started really looking at each work & reading the title card, I began to think, “Wait…so these are reproductions of actual book covers? Hm. That must have been a copyright nightmare.”

Cover to “Blue Camellia” ~ Charles Binger

There was a display in the middle with a few of the old books that inspired each painting & that’s when I realized I really should have started there. These paintings aren’t an homage to pulp – these are the real deal!

The artist, Charles Binger, was a successful commercial artist who specialized in creating work for film posters, novels and painting celebrity portraits. This is the first exhibit of his work in 45 years and the very first time the paintings have ever been offered for sale.

I love the muted colors & palette that is undeniably kitsch. Binger has a soft, painterly style & I particularly like some of the studies, like Sophia Loren above, that appear unfinished. I think it’s perfect exactly as it is. Oh how I wish I had more money to spend on art!

You can see the rest of the paintings on the gallery website.

Also worth checking out, especially if you have a good sense of humor – “Is This Thing On?”, the group show currently rocking Gallery 1988 on Melrose. Over 100 artists took part in the show (on until January 29th, 2011) taking aim at funny people. A few of my favorites:

“Wisdom of the Lama” ~ NC Winters

You can’t tell from this image, but the painting was completely covered with a thick glossy coating of resin, just my wood block panels & the tacky wood slice clocks of yore. Awesomeness.

“Posehn” ~ Travis Louie

My imaginary boyfriend/monster portrait artist extraordinaire, Travis Louie, created one of his fantastic daguerreotype paintings honoring (monsterizing?) Brian Posehn, hilarious comedian & co-star of The Sarah Silverman Program. I am so smitten by Travis Louie’s work & have had one of his old timey monster portraits on my “Art I Will Buy When I’m Rich” wishlist for years. Love.

While I’m waiting for my bank account to grow, I am, however, enjoying poring over the pages of his book, Curiousities.

Also awesome & at the show: plush versions of Jemaine & Bret from Flight of the Conchords (as robots, of course), an amazing oil painting of Norm MacDonald on SNL playing Burt Reynolds on Jeopardy (confused yet?), and a storybook version of one of my comedy heroes, Larry David. I bought one of Josh Cooley’s limited edition prints, but it is being mailed out & unfortunately hasn’t arrived yet. Hopefully soon!

The big standout at the show had to be PeeWee, a soulful portrait in traditional oils & framed in the most flamboyant sparkly red vinyl fit for the Playhouse:

“Mr. Paul Reubens, A Loner and a Rebel” ~ Allison Reimold

Again, the photo really doesn’t do the work justice, so if you can get down to see it in person, you really should. I can’t help wondering who bought this one. I wish art collectors would send in photos of where the work ends up. I really hope there’s lots of white shag involved.

It’s December 29th already & the hive has yet to fully recover from Christmas & return to normal operating speed. Do you sometimes feel like you need an extra couple of days holiday to recover from your holiday with family? That’s where I’m at right now. I didn’t have a particularly stressful Christmas or even have to travel very far. Me & my mister drove down to Seattle to spend the holidays my side of the family – no airplane cancellations or crazy snow storms in sight! Still, catching up with laundry, emails & general life stuff seems more sluggish than usual.

One of the highlights of my holiday? Ducking out to catch the Picasso exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. It was amazing to see such a diverse collection of Picasso’s work all in one spot – paintings spanning every period of his career, sketches & drawings, plus a wide variety of sculptural work. I went on what was probably one of the busier days & though I would heartily recommend getting out to see the show before it closes (January 17th, 2011), it honestly wasn’t the best art-viewing experience. People are admitted every 20 minutes & you have to purchase a ticket for a specific time. There’s a line up to get in & you remain shoulder to shoulder with other visitors throughout the exhibit.

The SAM had an interesting audio program to go along with the show that included a bit of history as to what was going on in the world at the time of a particular piece, what was going on in Picasso’s personal life, commentary by other artists like Chuck Close etc. There were 23 different audio tracks & you could either download them beforehand to listen to on your iPod or listen via a cellphone-like device that was handed out upon entering. While this certainly made the exhibit more educational & I enjoyed the added info, it also meant there were giant bottlenecks in the flow of visitors. As soon as you walked in there were 2 paintings hung side by side that each had a designated audio track. So everybody stops. And listens. And you can’t see ANYTHING.

What you can do (yes, you!) is listen to all of the audio tracks at home via iTunes or download the MP3s from this page while looking at photos of the art. It’s not the same as seeing the work in person, but at least you don’t have to crane your neck or stand on tiptoes inhaling terrible cologne while angling to get a better viewing position.

terrible camera phone photo of the Rothko

Throngs of people aside, the SAM was well worth the price of admission before we even got to Picasso. The curators have amassed a wonderful collection of modern art. At one point I had to marvel that I was standing in a room with a Pollock, a Rothko & a Rauschenberg. I was surrounded by literally millions of dollars of artwork & the atmosphere was so causal & visitor-friendly that photography was allowed! Amazing.

Photography isn’t allowed *everywhere* in the museum, but I thought it was quite remarkable that only certain sections & pieces had “no camera” signs versus the usual solemn museum atmosphere. By the time I visited the Jasper Johns’, the Warhol double Elvis, the large European art section & a fantastic contemporary sculpture section, I was practically giddy with excitement. I think the Vancouver Art Gallery could learn a thing or two from SAM.

One last highlight – Do-Ho Suh’s robe sculpture made from 40,000 military dog tags:

I had seen this piece previously on Art 21, but seeing it in person took my breath away. It was great to see newer contemporary artists exhibited right alongside American masters. Definitely worth a visit next time you’re in Seattle.

The current art installation at the Tate Modern in London, UK is making me swoon with awe, inspiration & a whole lot of “Damn I need to make more $$$ so that I can afford trips to see amazing art!”

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has created an entire hall filled with tiny, perfect replicas of sunflower seeds, each handcrafted out of porcelain. There are over 100 million sunflower seeds. 100 MILLION. Wow.

From the Tate Modern website:

Sunflower Seeds is the latest of a number of works that Ai has made using porcelain, one of China’s most prized exports. [...]the sunflower seeds have all been produced in the city of Jingdezhen, which is famed for its production of Imperial porcelain. Each ceramic seed was individually hand-sculpted and hand-painted by specialists working in small-scale workshops. This combination of mass production and traditional craftsmanship invites us to look more closely at the ‘Made in China’ phenomenon and the geopolitics of cultural and economic exchange today.

Photo: David Levene for the Guardian

I love the idea of taking something precious, painstakingly created & then letting it loose in the world. So much of art is roped off, whisked off the market by private collectors or stored away for archival purposes. A part of me feels like installation work and performance art are “truer” art forms just because you can’t readily put a price tag on them. The sound of Ai WeiWei walking through the seeds is amazing in this video (where he also describes his process):

The original concept for the piece was to allow visitors to stroll among the seeds, encouraging them to let the seeds fall through their hands & walk upon the inches-thick carpet of porcelain. Apparently the popularity of the exhibit is proving problematic, as the Tate is now only allowing viewing from certain points to prevent visitors & staff from inhaling the porcelain dust that rubs off from repeated movement. Of course my first thought was – how are people going to resist not popping a seed or two in their pockets? It would be mighty tempting, for certain.

One of the most interesting parts of the installation is Ai Weiwei’s level of interaction with visitors. He encourages visitors to leave a video with their comments or questions. I’m sure he won’t be able to respond to each & every one, but he is recording personal responses. I love this.

I imagine the average art observer looks at a piece of art or a gallery show for a few seconds & then moves on. If his interest is piqued, he might read the artist statement (which can be so filled with artspeak that it’s barely intelligible). If the viewer is really interested, maybe he’ll ask the curator a question or take the museum guided tour, but already we’re getting to interpretations by others, quotes from critics & away from the original artist’s intent.

I have so many questions I’d love to ask historical art figures & several of them are in the camp of: “Critics say your work is amazing because of_____. Was that intentional? Or just a happy accident?”

I suppose a lot of famous artists wouldn’t answer that one honestly anyway, at least in public. Who wants to admit that the “genius” the art world sees in their work was not at all on purpose?

Question: if you could ask any artist, living or dead, one question, what would it be?

One of the highlights of my trip to Seattle was getting to visit Roq la Rue gallery in Belltown. They had a fantastic group show up featuring a couple of my favorite artists plus some new ones I hadn’t seen before – all right up my lowbrow alley. The show, Tiger Tiger Burning Bright, runs until the end of the month, so pop down quickly if you’re in the area.

Travis Louie
Sir Walter Bengalfoot

Audrey Kawasaki
Negaigoto

Nouar
Raw