After the Chillibeans opening on Tuesday, we had to hustle Downtown to make it to a little event MOCA was having titled Friends Of, a collaboration of all sorts of people and brands all in the name of education. It was a fairly intimate event considering the scale the DTLA museum goes to but, as always, there were a few big tricks up their sleeves–and a line out of the event that stretched almost to 1st Street.
It’s always great to get messages from local artists who are just like, “I’d like to be considered for a post: here is my website.” It’s usually those simple e-mails without any notice of what the work is that yield these huge results and reactions. This is what happened with a note we got from local artist Adam Ferriss. We didn’t know what to expect but, if you click his name, you’ll see what we mean: he makes these crazy tri-colored, RGB .gifs and artworks that are absolutely hypnotizing (once they load, of course). We wanted to wait for a “special time to share” his work however we had to get it onto the site ASAP. You guys need to check his work out. Right now.
If you’ve been watching retail activity in Los Angeles and sponsorship for large events, you’ve noticed that Brazil’s Chillibeans has begun their American invasion in Los Angeles. First, they started building stores around town including one on Melrose, in Century City, in Santa Monica, in Glendale, and more. Second, they were the main sponsor of Los Angeles new festival legend Fuck Yeah Fest for 2012. Now their take over is nearly complete as they’ve opened their flagship store in the always busy Hollywood and Highland. As expected, they went all out for their Tuesday opening. If you didn’t go, you missed Ariel Pink and Dam-Funk playing in front of lots of awkward tourists.
Ben Jones is one of those contemporary artists who makes viewers feel great. With immersive video installations and color popping, technologically skewed art pieces, he draws you in with these oddly relatable pieces that fall somewhere between cartoon acid trip and Macintosh assisted abstract expressionism. He’s a very “now” LA artist and the type who is working in various platforms, from Cartoon Network to MOCA. If you’ve seen his work (most notably at Transmission LA), you’ve been curious to see more. Thankfully, we have good news: Saturday he has a solo show at MOCA Pacific Design Center opening.
The show is titled Ben Jones: The Video and is going to transform the PDC space into a day-glo dripping, art tripping Jonesian world. In anticipation of the opening (and tomorrow’s Member’s Opening), we had a chat with the artist and previewed some of the work that will be in the show. Find out about his inspirations, how his work relates to LA, and how he’ll be changing PDC after the jump!
Cookies are my favorite desert. Whenever I see someone taking an interesting take on it or challenging what a cookie is and how it is made, I’m totally intrigued. We’ve touched on this briefly when discussing Uncle Eddie’s Vegan Cookies and we’re going to speak about it again in relationship to EatMe Cookies, a feel good LA cookie company that is somehow making cookies without oil, eggs, gluten, etc., etc., etc. I literally have no idea how they are cookies…but they are!
Punch-Out!! is coming to Los Angeles June 10 through June 13. What’s that? The world premiere of street and pop artist Mikey’s latest collection. Sounds like pretty interesting, boxing, and video game driven work. If anything, looks fun.
Dawn Patrol is hoping to raise money to bring their surf concept on the road via a mobile surf shop and food truck. Seems like a rad idea! You have until May 30 to help them out.
This is interesting: currently fundraising on Kickstarter is an event called the Steam Carnival, a “carnival reimagined with robots, fire, and lasers to inspire young inventors in science, technology, engineering, art, and math.” Sweet! They’re over halfway to their goal and you have until June 3 to help out.
June 16 at Cinefamily will be a showing of queer cult documentary Let Me Die A Woman which details a few transgender stories. It sounds like a wild film and it is being presented by Zackary Drucker. We’d love to make this!
May 23 at Poketo will be a little book release party for James Gulliver Hancock’s All The Buildings In New York. It’s a little East coast coming West event and we totally need one of you guys to do something like this for LA.
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