Photos from Geoff McFetridge’s Bury Me in the Sand
May 16, 2008 | Categories: Art / Design / Illustration

Yong-Ki over at Solitary Arts was cool enough to send me some photos from Geoff McFetridge’s newest show at Mollusk Surf Shop, Bury Me in the Sand. The show looks pretty sharp, and includes a ton of new work. Mollusk has a cool feature on their site that shows you all of the artwork in the gallery based upon which wall it’s on. You can also by a lot of the art as well, though be prepared to shell out the big bucks! There are a bunch of photos under the cut, so check them out for a behind the scene view of the show.

Keep reading Photos from Geoff McFetridge’s Bury Me in the Sand…

Piece of Me, Piece of You
May 16, 2008 | Categories: Art / Design / Films / Music / Technology

Poor Zune, you try so hard but never really get anywhere in your battle against Apple. Hell, one of my co-workers hadn’t ever heard of a Zune before! But like I said, you do try, and this new video by Three Legged Legs is proof positive that you really do care. The video is called Pieces of Me, Pieces of You, and features zombie puppets! The puppets were created the awesome Adam Parker Smith, who is a damn pro on creating creepy, zombie puppets. Imagine Thriller with puppets and a Chromeo soundtrack and that’s what you’ve got.

Be sure to stop by Three Legged Legs behind the scenes post which shows you pretty much the entire process from concept to finished product. They even have sketches, photos of the puppets, storyboards, and test zombie movement footage. I want one of those zombies so bad, him and Wall-E could hang out!

Found through Shape + Colour

Bobby

ESPO Beautifies Dublin
May 15, 2008 | Categories: Art

Talk about subversion… ESPO last year was rewarded a Fulbright Scholarship to go to Dublin to work on a public art project. Well, the public is involved, and art is certainly involved, but I’m not sure that the Fulbright folks had the above kind of work in mind when handing over the grant. ANP has the project description which sums things up nicely:

Mr. Powers will combine his painting, writing, and publishing skills to collaborate with young adults aged 15 - 17 in Belfast’s Shankill Road and Dublin’s Fatima Mansion to create art work that will depict their lives and times and publish a magazine to share it with the public. According to Mr. Powers, “the Shankill Road and Fatima Mansions have the most incredible resources of rich histories, enduring legacies and resolute personalities that I have ever seen. I look forward to teaching the youth how to convert those resources into work for a lifetime.”

Be sure to check out more photos over on Supertouch.

Bobby

Time’s Design 100
May 15, 2008 | Categories: Architecture / Art / Clothing / Design / Furniture / Magazine

Time Magazine today released their list of the top 100 “most influential design,” a list that covers all aspects of design, or so they say. Reading through this list I wasn’t impressed at all. The list covers 16 different categories from all reaches of design, but I feel like overall they just wanted to make a giant list to seem “cool”, a word I’m learning to hate. It’s also a list heavy on “green” items which seems like a bunch of greenwashing to me, just trying to get some “cool” points on how in-the-know they are.

In their technology section the feature an electric lawnmower that helps save the environment… except that it’s electric, which means it has to be plugged into your home which still creates pollution. Plus the lawnmower isn’t even well designed, unless you get a boner over standard fare Sears merchandise. To offset this green trend, they feature a 6 foot by 11 foot wide television that is not only completely unnecessary, but I’m sure costs at least $100 a month to power, not to mention pollution factors. Not every category is like this though, some are better than others, but overall it seems like they pulled a bunch of things out of their asses.

The website section definitely caught my eye though, especially because Kitsune Noir was somehow not included! (C’mon, that was a joke, I had to…) But seriously, congrats to Grace over at Design*Sponge and Marcus over at Dezeen, they both totally deserved to be mentioned… but who the hell are these other blogs?! If there’s one thing I know it’s blogs and by god I’ve only heard of or read regularly Better Living Through Design. Looking at the list it seems to me like all they did was look at Design*Sponge’s link section and cut and paste them! And what’s with all the green blogs in this list? Green Home Guide is described as “A room-by-room guide for efficient, easy and stylish ways to live a green lifestyle and have a positive impact on the environment”… I’m sure it’s a very nice site and the people who run it are great, but that’s not what design is about, that is an aspect of design as a whole.

I guess if you care at all you can visit the complete list of “influential design” and see for yourself, but personally I think Time needs to stick to reporting on the news.

Bobby

New ‘This American Life’ Animation by Chris Ware
May 14, 2008 | Categories: Art / Television

The new season of This American Life started on May 4th so they had the fabulous Chris Ware create another animated short for an upcoming episode called Every Marriage Is a Courthouse. The episode is mostly about marriages that fall apart, but the story he animates is about a couple who were walking through New York one day when suddenly they see Jackie Onassis waving at the wife. The husband tells the story, then the wife tells the story, but the thing is, in the wife’s version the husband was never there!

Chris’ drawings have never looked better, and seeing them animated again are real treat. Hopefully he creates more of these, like one every episode. They’re so damn enjoyable and pleasing in every way.

Found through Drawn!

Bobby

Dan Funderburgh’s Work at Fellow Traveller
May 13, 2008 | Categories: Art / Design

I wrote in my art show round-up last week that Dan Funderburgh was having a show in Brooklyn, so he was rad enough to send me some photos of the work he had up. He had mentioned to me that he was making “40 tools” for the exhibit, but I wasn’t really sure what he meant until I got to see these photos. As you can see, the ‘gunbrella’ from The DWP was turned into a real, giant sculpture! How cool is that?!

As you can see from the photos he went crazy, making grenades, files, saws, wrenches, a staple gun, a chainsaw, a gas can, and even a boomerang! The details are also totally amazing, like I can’t believe he had the patience to make all of those. I have a bunch more photos under the cut, so be sure to check all of them out. If you’re in the Brooklyn area as well, be sure to check out the show in person, I’m sure it’s even better!

Keep reading Dan Funderburgh’s Work at Fellow Traveller…

Photos From Kevin Lyons’ Show, Your Mom’s In My Business
May 12, 2008 | Categories: Art / Design / Illustration

Last Friday I popped over to the Kevin Lyons show over at HVW8 on Melrose and it was a good time. The show is called Your Mom’s In My Business and was made up of drawings and doodles that Kevin made while he was riding the train 4 hours a day back and forth to work. The work isn’t deep and full of meaning, but it has a good sense of humor and is sharp as a tack. It’s not even all his own work, some things are pulled from magazines and who knows where, but it’s rad nonetheless. The show’s gonna be up until June 15th, so be sure to stop by if you’re in the area.

To see a bunch more photos of the show check out my Flickr Set!

Bobby

Art Shows This Weekend
May 8, 2008 | Categories: Art / Design / Illustration

There are a ton of good art shows this weekend, too many for me to post about individually, so I thought I’d do more of a round-up and sum things up better. Most of the shows take place around L.A., but one is in San Francisco and one is in Brooklyn, but all of them are awesome.

Thursday, May 8th 2008

Fellow Traveler - 8 pm
Featuring Justin Fines, Dan Funderburgh, and Kevin Devine

Fellow Traveler is new work by three Brooklyn artists originally from the American midwest. Like many immigrants, they celebrate their shared origins, but are also interested in where their individual paths diverge. Fellow Traveler are not adherents to a school or aesthetic, they are sympathetic allies with a shared perspective that refuse to be limited or defined by geography.

Click here for more info.

Friday, May 9th 2008

Your Mom’s In My Business - 6 to 10 pm
Featuring Kevin Lyons

Kevin Lyons was one of my favorite designers back in the day, seeing how he was the brains behind Urban Outfitters back then, and his hand drawn fonts were like a dream. Since then he’s been working I’m sure, but I haven’t heard of anything from him a while. So it’s exciting to see that he’s having a new show with all sorts of new work. Some guy named Dj Susreshot is gonna be there as well, so it should be a good time.

Click here for more info.

ARTribe - 7 to 10 pm
Featuring a bunch of young artists

The ARTribe organization is made up of Los Angeles high school students dedicated to raising money for a worthy cause by promoting artwork created by fellow high school students at the Santa Monica Art Studios. Our event will showcase the work of talented local teenagers determined to make a difference in the world through their creativity. Photography, sculpture, film, drawings, and paintings selected by a panel of artists and jurors will be on exhibition. The art will be on display in the generous space afforded by Studio 1. Artwork will be made available for sale at the event and 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the S.P.I.R.A.L Foundation.

Click here for more info.

Forever and Never - 6 to 9 pm
Featuring Michael Sieben and Nat Swope

An ongoing collaborative print project between Michael Sieben and Nat Swope exhibiting 20 - 12″ x 12″ prints.
Framed and unframed prints will be for sale. $30 - $100

How could you pass up a show like that?

Click here for more info.

Saturday, May 10th 2008

Scion Art Tour 4 - 8 to 10 pm
Featuring Andrew Pommier, Andy Mueller, Angela Boatwright, Blaine Fontana, Blek LeRat, Books llll, Caia Koopman, Chris Yormick, Cody Hudson, Dalek, David Choe, Eye One, Francesco LoCastro, Freddi C, J. Shea, James Jean, Jeff Soto, Joshua Krause, Kelsey Brookes, Kenton Parker, Kofie, Mel Kadel, Michael Sieben, Mike Giant, Rammellzee, RETNA, R. Grimes, Ron English, Sam Flores, Sage Vaughn, Skwerm, Tim McCormick, Travis Millard, and The London Police

Scion’s Installation 4, “It’s A Beautiful World,” will open in
Los Angeles, the last of nine cities on the national tour, on May 10. The innovative Scion
Installation Art Tour launched its fourth installment last July and features a diverse array of
artists from around the world. The theme, “It’s a Beautiful World,” was interpreted by each
artist, in one of four mediums— painting, photography, sculpture, and collage. The culmination of the tour is accompanied by a live auction where all of the artwork will be auctioned off to the public, and 100 percent of the proceeds will go toward art related charities.

Click here for more info.

Bobby

Photos from Banksy’s Show at The Cans Festival
May 8, 2008 | Categories: Art / Design / Photography

Photos have popped up from The Cans Festival, an old grunge-y tunnel filled with amazing art and graffiti including none other than the king of witty street art, Banksy. It looks like it was quite a show, with art covering nearly every inch of the tunnel. It even looks like anyone could come in and stencil certain parts of the show, making it interactive as well.

Banksy’s section is pretty epic, with giant stencils, overturned cars (even though Barry McGee did it first) and even his statue of David with a bullet proof vest. Definitely check out Romanywg’s Flickr Set to see a ton of good looking photos from the event.

Bobby

Oliver Munday
May 6, 2008 | Categories: Art / Design / Illustration

An important part of being a superstar designer is having a name that sounds famous. Think of Zaha Hadid, Yves Behar, Marc Newson, Karim Rashid… all great names. So when I came across the work of Oliver Munday, I thought he had to be good, and it turns out I was right.

Oliver lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland and has an amazing portfolio of work. His choices of color and shape are totally spot on, and his projects are really fun. The photos above are a self promotional book he created that I thought was rather fun and creative. It has all sorts of fun icons and images inside, but the cover is my favorite part. Check out the rest of his work, you’ll certainly find something you like.

Found through FormFiftyFive

Bobby