April 16th, 2012

This coming Wednesday and Saturday night, the thesis work from the GradMediaDesign department at Art Center will be on display at the South Campus Wind Tunnel, a former supersonic jet testing facility at 4 HOURS SOLID. On a personal note… I’m in this! Other graduate departments on campus (broadcast, fine art, environmental design, transportation design) will also be on display. The show will feature a very diverse group of work. The early versions of some of the thesis work has even been featured on BD in the past!

4 HOURS SOLID: Work and Ideas from the Graduate School at Art Center College of Design.

First Showing: Wednesday, April 18, 6-10 PM.
Second Shoring: Saturday, April 21, 8-10PM

Wind Tunnel Gallery, South Campus.
Art Center College of Design
950 South Raymond Ave., Pasadena, CA 91105

GradMediaDesign thesis project descriptions after the jump! Read more »

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April 12th, 2012
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B/D pal  Lyndsey Lesh recently created a series of illustrations for The Rattling Wall, a literary journal published by the PEN Center USA & Narrow Books. To kick off the books release Lyndsey has teamed up with our favorite alternative art venues Synchronicity Space for a one night show of artworks from the book. Come see a selection of works by Ms. Lesh, get a signed copy of the book, and eat some free Strawberry Chardonnay Ice cream from LA’s best ice cream shop Scoops! If doing all the artwork for the book wasn’t enough Lyndsey decided to add more work to her plate by creating a writing and drawing process blog of her very own called Off Thee Wall. Read more about Off The Wall and see more of Lyndsey’s illustrations after the jump.

LYNDSEY LESH: THE ART OF THE RATTLING WALL
featuring the art pieces from the journal’s second issue.
Synchronicity Space | 7-10 PM
713 N. Heliotrope,
Los Angeles, CA 90029

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April 6th, 2012
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Chicago based artist Montgomery Perry Smith finds beauty in the unexpected.  His process often includes taking discarded elements of once functional objects (i.e. the base of a papasan chair or a broken lamp) and coupling them with meticulously handcrafted details.  The end result of which is a strikingly sophisticated body of work.  Smith’s sculptures are as sexual as they are formal, but he is never hitting you over the head with it.  Drawn forms are delicately paired with altered materials to create elegant compositions that reveal subtle references to sexuality.  Since graduating with a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the spring of 2008, Smith’s artistic career has been steadily gaining momentum.  A recent solo show at Sabina Lee Gallery marks Smith’s first foray into the Los Angeles art scene, but if the prediction of Smith’s future success by Chicago publication Newcity as one of nine “Breakout Artists” to watch in 2010 is as prophetic as I think it might be – we will be seeing much more of his work in the years to come. Read more »

April 4th, 2012
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Amanda Nedham’s new body of work Half of Less Than Ten begins at the end. Inspired by Napoleon’s love letters to his wife Josephine, this show imagines monuments which explore the impassioned and often dubious ambition driving the conquest of the body. Only in death, in trying to put a body back together, can we arrive at these irreducible artifacts which aim to hold onto and unravel these narratives. Borrowing from the histories of colonialism, hagiography, anthropology, and phrenology new types of reliquaries are constructed. These stand as monumental love letters that seek to construct a pathology of desire. See Amanda’s show at Le Gallery in Toronto April 5th-29th.

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April 2nd, 2012
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I feel like most people dream of falling in love one day, but what if that day turns into a year – and then another?  What if the act of falling in love becomes an all-consuming force that necessitates the creation of your own color-coded language?  What if your name is Michelle Jane Lee, and this series of ‘what ifs’ has actually been your life for the last three years?   The end result of that experience might resemble a thirty-foot love letter and a mountain of other drawings representing your unmentionable thoughts and desires for a woman that would ultimately come to reject you.  A hard pill to swallow for most, but Lee seems undeterred in her pursuit of the unattainable.  After all, true obsession is captivating – for both artist and audience in this case.  Her work is incredibly personal, absolutely honest, and exceptionally beautiful.  If you are in or around Los Angeles on April 7th - I recommend that you attend the opening reception of her most recent solo exhibition at Gallery 3209.

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March 23rd, 2012
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This Saturday Beautiful/Decay will be leading an exciting zine workshop at USC for Shelf-Life 2: A Big Day for Small Press, a one-of-a-kind event featuring an influential group of independent publishers, artists, writers, and designers whose voices and images have questioned and pushed the boundaries of popular culture. Celebrating the DIY spirit that Beautiful/Decay champions yours truly will be working with attendants to create a communal zine celebrating the art of the Exquisite Corpse. Attendants will create their own exquisite corpse along with short fictional texts that will be bound into a spectacular zine of awesome proportions!

If that’s not enough Gary Panter, Chip Kidd, and Byron Coley will also be giving various workshops along the way with lots of other talented DIY creatives from around the world.

Did I also mention that this awesome event is completely FREE? Yes good people it’s totally free so you have no excuses for not showing up, giving me a high-five, and having a great ol’ time. See you all at USC from 11am-5pm this saturday! Click Here for more info.

 

March 14th, 2012

Alexander Binder

 

Black Thorns in the White Cube is a group show that presents work by eight contemporary artists influenced by the “mystic obscurity” of Black Metal music. The exhibitors “explore haunted Germanic forests, descents into the void, visual translations of sonic experiences, ontologies of Black Metal band logos, and barren western landscapes.” Curator Amelia Ishmael is a Black Metal scholar – a mix of curator, art historian, and artist who specializes in the thorny intersections between Black Metal music and contemporary art. She is also the co-editor of Helvete, a journal of Black Metal Theory. The exhibition lands at the Chicago gallery space Western Exhibitions from Kansas City this Friday. Read more »

March 12th, 2012
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Through Cleon Peterson’s paintings, we encounter a world riddled with anxiety, corruption and savage ferocity, where deviance and violence equal the usual state of affairs. Peterson describes his bedlam as “a gray world where law breakers and law enforcers are one in the same; a world where ethics have been abandoned in favor of personal entitlement.”

Peterson depicts life as war between displaced individuals in a dystopian world. Acts of brutality, abuse and perversion serve as rituals of power, revealing narcissistic indulgences in violence, sex, religion and drugs. In exploring the tension between the individual consciousness and unconscious psyche, Peterson’s paintings bring to light the resulting possibilities when varying moral schemes are personified. When faced with the dilemma of fight or flight, it’s fight. We observe an ongoing struggle in the thick of a contemporary world, where the instinctual desire to survive through primitive actions takes reign.

See the above works and more currently on view in San Francisco at Guerrero Gallery. On view until April 7th, 2012

 

 

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