David Choe pieces at PYO Gallery
Saw these hanging on the walls in their office, and requested to take a closer look. Awesome, awesome, awesome.
Saw these hanging on the walls in their office, and requested to take a closer look. Awesome, awesome, awesome.
Stopped by at the tail end of PYO’s opening reception for Estrada Fine Arts…
Here are some of the pieces that caught my eye:
Painted in 1903 in Barcelona, at the peak of Picasso’s Blue Period, the portrait depicts his friend as an absinthe drinker.
Philippe Halsman: “When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping, and the mask falls, so that the real person appears.”
Dalí Atomicus, shows the madcap Dalí aloft, brush and palette in hand. He is flanked by a chair and two easels (holding Dalí canvases) — all elevated, and seemingly floating, above the floor, which heightens the sense of suspension. But the main event is the great curve of water arcing across the image, along with three flying (or flung) cats in damp, disconcerted disarray. For once Dalí’s characteristic look of exaggerated surprise makes sense.
Link: Joys of Jumpology by Roberta Smith, New York Times, 5/23/10.
A funny talk by one of my favorite artists. Insightful.
Contemporary artist and graffiti legend Steve Powers talks about his creative journey and the process and thinking behind Love Letter – arguably the longest love story ever written: a 20 block long grafitti ballad painted across West Philadelphia’s rooftops and walls.
LA Opera is set to open their much-hyped interpretation of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). Das Rheingold (The Rhein Gold) is the first of this four part series.
Here, I attempt to tell the story, quick and dirty, at the same time, highlighting the main characters in their new LA Opera costumes.
In the area, Sooj and I stopped by Lazarides’ pop-up gallery in Beverly Hills to take in David Choe’s Nothing to Declare exhibit. It was one of the most talked about shows this year. Myself, I thought the works on display were pretty spectacular.
Choe is one of my favorite artists. I don’t know him personally, but I get that he’s a pretty straight up, no bullshit kind of guy, living life on his terms.
The center piece of the American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915 exhibit, currently being shown at LACMA, on loan from the National Gallery of Art.
Originally painted in 1778 by John Singleton Copley. This painting depicts people coming to the rescue of a young Brook Watson. He was saved, but at the cost of his right leg (if you look closely, you can see blood). Even back then, there were lots of sharks around Cuba.
Many years ago, I came across this amazing bronze sculpture in a Los Angeles shop. Unfortunately, it was already sold and the owner was on his way to pick it up. Ever since, I’ve been looking for another opportunity to come face to face with Mephistopheles.
From Sotheby’s:
Gautier modelled this extraordinary figure of Mephistopheles in the early 1850′s and sent it for display at the Exposition Universelle of 1855. Its idiosyncratic design proved a success and soon after the firm of Duplan et Salles began to cast the model in bronze. Busquet, a critic for the journal L’Artiste was moved to write ‘They have edited this strange Mephistopheles with a long and grimacing profile which one can see, not without some surprise, in the showrooms of the principal stores in Paris’. One customer was the Duchess of Alba, who acquired a cast for the cabinet of Napoleon III.
