Writing is a lonely calling, so it is especially gratifying when one learns that not one but two of one's blog readers have taken the plunge and rented STARCRASH solely on the basis of one's blog entry recommendation. One such was Steve Roden who may have been stunned into permanent silence, though reliable intelligence says he may be reworking the haunting theme music for his October 23rd gig at the Hammer. The other is Daniel Mendel-Black, who immediately folded the complex STARCRASH cosmology into his own ongoing sci-fi political allegory at his Kulturedrome blog. Let's try and keep this going, people!
We did not allow our automotive woes to interfere with our attendance of Bill Callahan's appearance in the Echoplex grotto last night. Accompanied by fiddle, bass, and percussion, he drew heavily from his most recent album "Woke on a Whale Heart"- the first issued under his real name instead of as "Smog"
The album is awesome and has a great cover by one of the best artists from the Providence scene, Joe Grillo (of the dearraindrop consortium)
I've seen Smog a few times, and while he always had a mesmerizing stage presence, he usually just sat there - but this Bill guy seems to have brought some slinky body consciousness along with him, as he kept busting mutant Elvis moves and breaking out the old softshoe.
The opening act was virtuosic Sun City Girls alum Sir Richard Bishop. I didn't get any good shots of him, though, so here's one more of Mr. Bill.
Some one caused some deep wrinklage to our "new" car (the '91 Accord) at 2 AM this morning. According to a coupon left by the police, it was the work of one "Neva Grout." Now, assuming this was not the principal of a Catholic school in British Columbia, my google search turned up this improbable gem. Neva is signator #116. Stay tuned for insurance horror stories.
I was uploading this anyway, so in case anyone's interested, here's a 8 1/2 minute sound piece I made about 10 years ago for a show at the refusalon. 'Spitting Out Our Medication' includes a soliloquy from a tape recorded by Wilhelm Reich in Orgonon just before he was put in prison, an homage to Spike Jones, samples from a 70's radio program on the anti-psychiatry movement, and so much more.
The original audio tape is still available from the Wilhelm Reich Museum at Orgonon, where you can also purchase reproductions of Reich's paintings (below, 'Swirl' 1951) or rent a cottage, in addition to a wealth of resources detailing Reich's theories and research - much of it unavailable elsewhere.
Sunday September 30th is the last chance to view "Heart & Torch: Rick Griffin's Transcendence" at Laguna Art Museum in Laguna Beach. The show (shamefully) won't travel, and many of the pieces included will probably disappear forever back into private collections after it closes. The awesome catalog is almost sold out, as are the vintage limited edition silk-screen reproductions of classic Griffin psychedelic posters and 4 different tee-shirts produced by Hurley specifically for the show. Be there or be everywhere.
Above: Griffin paints the bus 'Motorskill' in John Severson's classic "Pacific Vibrations"
"While Spence deploys his signature post-photorealist airbrush technique to its full fuzzy luminosity in the new works, they have grown significantly in scale. And the recombinant mash-ups of “Afterlife” have been distilled into their discrete constituent ingredients. Almost every one of the large canvases consists of a single misty photographic re-reproduction, some found, some altered, some staged with models. A couple of these depict the kind of totemic handcrafted figurative sculptures commonly arising out of a clinical art-therapy session — the wonky cardboard toilet-paper-tube family of 'Gaggle' and the (deliberately) awkwardly installed, strangely Magritte-like 'Figure', which the artist copied as a sculpture from an art-therapy book before rephotographing it for its eventual transubstantiation into Real Art."
The 4th annual Soundwalk was held in downtown Long Beach last weekend, organized by the artist collective FLOOD. It was great to see such a complex event being pulled together with almost no money, and so many different people checking out experimental music and sound art. There were something like 50 artists providing performances, installations, sound sculptures, etc. spread over 4 blocks. I did a few recording tours and edited together a 13-minute virtual experience. To the best of my ability I've figured out who made what sounds on here - anyone with further info or corrections please share it in a comment. Sorry for the crappy sound. But I dig crappy sound.
1. Midnight Gardeners' lovely drones in the Dome Room of the Lafayette (pictured above) 2. Unidentified (and unseen) blues guitarist on corner of Linden & Broadway 3. Doug Pearsall's funk on the opposite corner 4. Lewis Keller's robot drumming orchestra in a vacant storefront 5. Daniel Corral's amazing meta-musicboxes in the Lafayette kitchen 6. Robert Strong's mutant kettle drum in another room of the Lafayette kitchen 7. Miha Ciglar's video feedback sound in the Dome Room 8. Adam Overton's touch-activated human ensemble on Koo's stage 9. Christiaan Cruz's shrubbery shrouded installation - I didn't get a chance to inspect it closely but I liked the racket. 10. Mike Chang & Allie Bogle's open access FOR SALE piano in a flowershop entrance and unidentified roving horn ensemble 11. MLuM's fig leaf & veil extravaganza in the Cooper Arms 12. Gary Raymond's very popular feedback delay shipping crate on the corner of Linden & First 13. Markle & Strauss's ouija board electronics in the back of an art gallery 14. Fluorescent Grey's dense loopy collage in the Dome Room 15. Mannlicher Carcano's dense loopy collage in the Dome Room (with live cell-phone air couple from Canada) 16. Tom Skelly's random recombinant sampledelic jukebox on the street in front of the Best Western.
Tom Skelly (pictured below) creates an awesome live sound collage radio program every Sunday from 7 - 10 at www.kspc.org when not bringing art to the prisons.
Mannlicher Carcano are participating in this year's SOUNDWALK festival in Long Beach CA. Porter Hall and Gogo Godot will be participating from Canada via telephone. Really Happening, Herr Schurdt, and whoever else shows up will hold down the fort at this end.
Mannlicher's set (entitled 'Bong Leach Wound Sock') will run from 9 - 10 PM in The Dome Room of The Lafayette at 528 E. Broadway
On September 22, 2007, the Long Beach artist group, FLOOD, will present SoundWalk2007, featuring artists from the Southland and the international scene. This event operates under the concept of a one-night aural/visual experience as provided by a walking-tour of sound installations and soundmarks located in various indoor and outdoor spaces situated throughout the East Village Arts District in Downtown Long Beach. The artworks will combine in multiple ways a wide range of visual, performative and audio components. There will be sculptures, environments, installations and performances. More details can be found at www.soundwalk.org
Also, those in search of great deals on all kinds of fabulous film and video equipment, supplies, resources, VHS rarities and inexplicable knicknacks should be sure to check out the Echo Park Film Center's ANNUAL RUMMAGE SALE! – Saturday, Sept 22 – 11AM – 5PM. Here is a picture of Nigel and EPFC svengali Paolo D contemplating one of the last category of objects. What the hell is that thing?!
Truer words were never spoken. The Coalition for Cinematic Conservation and Preservation - Southern California Chapter (CCCP-SCC) is the umbrella organization under whose aegis the Thrift Store Movie screenings at the the Hammer and numerous programs at The Echo Park Film Center (including Mormon Media and Wienergeist 1: The Cinema of the Hot Dog) are organized. On occasion our organization will endorse a film of not particularly ephemeral or educational nature. One such film is 'Starcrash' (original title: 'Scontri Stellari Oltre la Terza Dimensione'), a 1979 Roger Corman-produced Italian Star Wars ripoff that was found on VHS in a thrift store in Oroville.
Starring Marjoe Gortner, Hammer beauty Caroline Munro, permanently beleagured Christopher Plummer, and featuring the screen debut of David Hasselhoff, 'Starcrash' has been reissued on DVD and developed a considerable cult following, as evidenced by this dissertation on salon.com, this page featuring downloadable sound samples and stills as well as a tart but glowing review, and this over-the-top fansite. All questions of condescending "so bad its good" critiques aside, some of the visuals in this film are transcendent in their beautiousness. And I'm an art critic. (And I think I'm getting an idea for my next curatorial project... Omaggio a Armando Valcauda!)
Gortner's B-movie career was kicked off by the Oscar-winning documentary 'Marjoe' which followed the former Pentecostal child evangelist in his ambivalent attempt to reconcile his youthful experiences with his adult counterculture worldview through an awkward return to the revival tent circuit. His last role to date was as a preacher in Walter Hill's 'Wild Bill' (1995). He was briefly married to Candy Clark, on whom David Bowie vomited in 'The Man Who Fell to Earth'. Most recently Gortner has been sponsoring charity golf tournaments.
The Great John Barry - who was tricked into scoring 'Starcrash' - later reused the haunting theme music for 'Out of Africa', which earned him an Oscar. All roads lead to the Academy.
"On August 25, 1975, former Sunset Strip restaurateur Jim Baker launched himself off a 1,300-foot-high cliff on the easternmost shore of Oahu. Although he had never hang-glided before — or even trained for it — he was confident his instincts would kick in and allow him to negotiate the notoriously tempestuous thermal trade winds off the mountainous coastline. And they may well have, except for a sudden calm that caused him to immediately plummet downward hundreds of feet. He recovered control and managed to glide out over the Pacific for 10 minutes before navigating back to crash-land on the beachfront Waimalano campground. Although he appeared to have no serious injuries, Baker was unable to move and was taken home, where he died some nine hours later. He was survived by his 13 wives and 140 or so sons and daughters."
Spiritual Sons and Daughters that is. Read the rest of my LA WEEKLY piece on 70's LA cult The Source Family here. Then buy the book from which I cribbed it all: The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13 and the Source Family. Above is author Isis Aquarian in silhouette during the slideshow portion of the book launch salon at the Process/Feral House Hobbit Compound.
"As Spacehawk was losing altitude, Wolverton took a freelance assignment that required him to create a humor feature. The first result was a sci-fi parody called Splash Morgan. Within a year, the artist had developed three comical features – including his most popular and influential series, Powerhouse Pepper – and by the time Spacehawk folded, he was getting so much humor work that he abandoned his “serious” style for almost a decade.
Powerhouse Pepper – published in various Timely Comics (which later became Marvel) and edited by Stan Lee – lasted in various forms from 1942 through 1948 and took the kind of ridiculous wordplay and corny sight gags common to prewar humor strips to a level of meta-absurdity, clogging panels with joke signage and props and speech balloons and captions with baroque tongue-twisting verbiage riddled with rhyme, permeated with puns, and characterized by rampant alliteration. It is not so far-fetched to consider the linguistic innovations in Wolverton’s comedic scripts in the light of modernist literature by authors James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Hugo Ball, Alfred Jarry, and perhaps most consonantly, Raymond Roussel.
Roussel, a next-door neighbor to Marcel Proust, had a similar passion for the improbable and a love of wordplay. He took special delight in exposing the hypocrisy of authority by affecting a mock highfalutin tone and exaggerating it into absurdity. Roussel played a pivotal role in the foundation of modern art when the 1911 theatrical version of his proto-surrealist novel, Impressions of Africa, inspired epiphanies in Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, and Apollinaire. The dadaists and surrealists were notoriously fond of American comics -- Duchamp and Man Ray even reprinted a Rube Goldberg contraption in their 1921 New York Dada journal.
(See hi-res scans of the rest of this Pepper story & more here)
While Goldberg, Wolverton, and other purveyors of pop-cultural absurdities were skeptical – if not outright hostile – toward their adoption by the avant-garde, their attitude probably had more to do with the fact that America’s elite class fetishized European culture even when it was fundamentally at odds with Yankee Nouveau Riche postures of privilege and authority. Regardless of the conceptual discomfort, the overlap between Wolverton and the “moderns” is considerable. Probably the most striking consistency lies in the realm of Grotesque caricature -- a recurring motif in fine art from the Renaissance on and made central to Modernism by the Expressionist, Dada, and Surrealist artists. Wolverton began to explore this territory extensively during the 1940s and eventually laid indisputable claim to it."
from my essay 'The Closer You Look, the Prettier It Ain’t: Basil Wolverton’s Microscopic Grotesque' The Original Art of Basil Wolverton published by Grand Central Press and Last Gasp Publishing in conjunction with the exhibit.
The Original Art of Basil Wolverton from the Collection of Glenn Bray September 1 - November 11, 2007
Excuse my intermittent diaristic impulses - I guess I'm not a real journalist after all. At least when I have nothing to say I shut the fuck up. But now I have to play catch up again. So here's the most recently published LA WEEKLY article - about the Getty Research Institute's hosting the audio archives of Paul McCarthy and John Duncan's experimental "Close Radio" broadcasts from the 70's. Above is a photo of McCarthy and Mike Kelley performing on Bastille Day as part of Extended Organ in a downtown warehouse studio space. Out of the shot: Tom Recchion, Joe Potts, and Joseph Hammer (channeling Fredrik Nilsen). You can hear and download most of the Close Radio programs here at the GRI site.
Albert had been bummed out since Reyna died last week, and last night he had a respiratory attack. He'd been getting these when he overheated but this time it didn't pass. We took him to the Emergency Animal Clinic in Studio City where he died around 2 AM. Later, Aligator.
I've uploaded the entire 2 CD preview version of the Mannlicher Carcano anthology "Trouble Comes in Threes" including liner notes and covers to megaupload. Share it with some one you love.
Ghanian/Nigerian sculptor El Anatsui garnered much praise at this year's Venice Biennale. Here's my take on his travelling survey show, currently at the UCLA Fowler Museum. This is a detail from "Skin of Earth," one of the artist's signature pieces assembled from thousands of flattened aluminum liquor bottle caps.
I realize I've been remiss in my postings here - I haven't even linked my last three LA Weekly columns. So I'll start with that. First, the always amazing Jeffrey Vallance's exhibit of autohagiographical reliquaries at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana... a good trip to combine with a visit to Laguna for the Griffin retrospective! This is a picture I took of jeffrey in Umea Sweden on Walpurgisnacht 2000!
Our oldest greyhound Reyna passed on at home this Wednesday afternoon with the help of Dr. Liz Friedman. She had had a rough couple of days, but it was a very comfortable transition. Reyna was 15 1/2 and had outlived the rest of her abandoned litter, even though the folks at Hemopet thought she might be too far gone to rescue. She showed them.
When we first got Reyna, she was terrified of flags, automatic gates, stairs, etc. but she got more and more confident, eventually becoming adept at many competition obedience exercises. Although she never competed, she attended Mary Fry's legendary classes for 5 years, and supported Albert in his successful pursuit of his CD obedience title. She continued her obedience work right up into the last week of her life.
Among Reyna's other accomplishments were: donating blood to Hemopet for her year of post-rescue socialization; catching (and, with some encouragement, releasing) two wild rats while walking on lead when we lived on 7th Street in downtown LA; and appearing in a number of artworks, including posing (with Albert) for a 3D photographic tableaux vivant superimposed on the Vision of St. Eustace diorama in the Athanaseus Kircher exhibit at the museum of Jurassic Technology.
She was ethereally beautiful with frequently disgusting table manners, and kept her smarts and wicked sense of humor until her body gave out. She'll be missed very much.
Original art for Rick Griffin's ultra-rare poster for Cass Elliott's disastrous appearance at Caesar's Palace in Vegas in October 1968. Holly Myer's review of the Griffin show in the LA Times. More soon.
Opening reception Awesome live DJ. (Rendering my mix redundant) An In-N-Out truck will serve up burgers outside.
Saturday, June 23 2007, 7:00pm to 10:00pm
Price: $15 non-members (or see me for a coupon)
Laguna Art Museum 307 Cliff Drive Laguna Beach, CA 92651
(949) 494-8971
Heart and Torch: Rick Griffin’s Transcendence, the artist’s first major retrospective and solo museum exhibition, opens on June 24, 2007. A cult figure that set the iconographic terrain for the 1960s and 1970s counterculture, in his art Griffin expressed idealism and hope along with a darker side that perfectly embodied the contradictions of the era with its mixture of hedonism, politics, and avant-garde expression.
The exhibition, which includes some 140 paintings, drawings, posters, album covers, and artifacts, surveys thirty years of Griffin’s work from the 1960s until his death in 1991. The accompanying 156-page catalogue, published in association with Gingko Press, is the first publication to address Griffin’s impact on the surf, psychedelic rock, and born-again Christian movements.
Heart and Torch is organized for Laguna Art Museum by Susan M. Anderson, and co-curated by guest curators Greg Escalante and Doug Harvey with curatorial consultant Gordon McClelland.
Laguna Art Museum is located in Laguna Beach, Orange County, California, situated approximately 60 minutes south of Los Angeles and 90 minutes north of San Diego. To get to the Museum, take Pacific Coast Highway (PCH, California Highway 1) toward Laguna Beach. The Museum is located on the south-east corner of the crossing of Pacific Coast Highway and Cliff Drive.
Opening Hours and Admission
Laguna Art Museum is open daily from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The Museum is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's days.
$10.00 General $8.00 Seniors, Students, and active duty Military and their dependents. Free for Children 12 and under Visa, MasterCard, and American Express are accepted
"As if his accomplishments as a psychedelic poster designer weren't enough, Rick Griffin immediately went on to help redefine the most underrated medium in 20th century art when he was Robert Crumb’s first draft choice to contribute to the second issue of Zap Comix. Zap #1 had unleashed Crumb upon the world, and although it took a little while for the world at large to catch on (like until the multiple obscenity busts of issue #4), the graphic narrative medium would never be the same. Griffin and Moscoso had already been toying with the idea of producing a comic book, and Griffin’s famous mutant Morning Paper funny pages poster (FD89) is said to have inspired Crumb’s Ultra Super Modernistic Comics in Zap #1 – his somewhat less successful attempt at non-linear comic art.
Morning Paper -- along with several related posters done for John Van Hamersveld’s LA-based Pinnacle Productions -- had insinuated the concept of non-linear structuralist comic art into the graphic mainstream. Although there were precedents – Bay area Beat artist Jess’ Tricky Cad collages of fragmented Dick Tracy episodes spring to mind – these seem to be the first truly abstract non-linear “narratives” presented in comic-strip panel sequences (a union that had happened early in Cinema) in something resembling a commercial mass medium."
If you can't make the opening, there's an awesome panel discussion Sunday:
Sunday, June 24, 2007 1:00 p.m.
Psychedelic Moment: The Big Five and Zap Comix in the 1960s
This panel on Griffin and San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury features the artist’s widow and internationally respected artists who initiated the psychedelic art and underground comix movements. With Ida Griffin, Alton Kelley, Stanley Mouse, Spain Rodriguez, and Robert Williams. Moderated by Jacaeber Kastor, founder of Psychedelic Solution Gallery, New York.
Our homies The Yes Men (or Les Hommes de Oui-Oui as the 1988 Official Languages Act mandates) have been crossing borders with their zany brand of eco-terrorism, shaking things up in my family's adopted hometown of Calgary with their radical approach to rendering:
June 14, 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
EXXON PROPOSES BURNING HUMANITY FOR FUEL IF CLIMATE CALAMITY HITS Conference organizer fails to have Yes Men arrested
Imposters posing as ExxonMobil and National Petroleum Council (NPC) representatives delivered an outrageous keynote speech to 300 oilmen at GO-EXPO, Canada’s largest oil conference, held at Stampede Park in Calgary, Alberta, today.
The speech was billed beforehand by the GO-EXPO organizers as the major highlight of this year’s conference, which had 20,000 attendees. In it, the “NPC rep” was expected to deliver the long-awaited conclusions of a study commissioned by US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. The NPC is headed by former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond, who is also the chair of the study. (See link at end.)
In the actual speech, the “NPC rep” announced that current U.S. and Canadian energy policies (notably the massive, carbon-intensive exploitation of Alberta’s oil sands, and the development of liquid coal) are increasing the chances of huge global calamities. But he reassured the audience that in the worst case scenario, the oil industry could “keep fuel flowing” by transforming the billions of people who die into oil.
“We need something like whales, but infinitely more abundant,” said “NPC rep” “Shepard Wolff” (actually Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men), before describing the technology used to render human flesh into a new Exxon oil product called Vivoleum. 3-D animations of the process brought it to life.
“Vivoleum works in perfect synergy with the continued expansion of fossil fuel production,” noted “Exxon rep” “Florian Osenberg” (Yes Man Mike Bonanno). “With more fossil fuels comes a greater chance of disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel will continue to flow for those of us left.”
The oilmen listened to the lecture with attention, and then lit “commemorative candles” supposedly made of Vivoleum obtained from the flesh of an “Exxon janitor” who died as a result of cleaning up a toxic spill. The audience only reacted when the janitor, in a video tribute, announced that he wished to be transformed into candles after his death, and all became crystal-clear.
At that point, Simon Mellor, Commercial & Business Development Director for the company putting on the event, strode up and physically forced the Yes Men from the stage. As Mellor escorted Bonanno out the door, a dozen journalists surrounded Bichlbaum, who, still in character as “Shepard Wolff,” explained to them the rationale for Vivoleum.
“We’ve got to get ready. After all, fossil fuel development like that of my company is increasing the chances of catastrophic climate change, which could lead to massive calamities, causing migration and conflicts that would likely disable the pipelines and oil wells. Without oil we could no longer produce or transport food, and most of humanity would starve. That would be a tragedy, but at least all those bodies could be turned into fuel for the rest of us.”
“We’re not talking about killing anyone,” added the “NPC rep.” “We’re talking about using them after nature has done the hard work. After all, 150,000 people already die from climate-change related effects every year. That’s only going to go up - maybe way, way up. Will it all go to waste? That would be cruel.”
Security guards then dragged Bichlbaum away from the reporters, and he and Bonanno were detained until Calgary Police Service officers could arrive. The policemen, determining that no major infractions had been committed, permitted the Yes Men to leave.
Canada’s oil sands, along with “liquid coal,” are keystones of Bush’s Energy Security plan. Mining the oil sands is one of the dirtiest forms of oil production and has turned Canada into one of the world’s worst carbon emitters. The production of “liquid coal” has twice the carbon footprint as that of ordinary gasoline. Such technologies increase the likelihood of massive climate catastrophes that will condemn to death untold millions of people, mainly poor.
“If our idea of energy security is to increase the chances of climate calamity, we have a very funny sense of what security really is,” Bonanno said. “While ExxonMobil continues to post record profits, they use their money to persuade governments to do nothing about climate change. This is a crime against humanity.”
“Putting the former Exxon CEO in charge of the NPC, and soliciting his advice on our energy future, is like putting the wolf in charge of the flock,” said “Shepard Wolff” (Bichlbaum). “Exxon has done more damage to the environment and to our chances of survival than any other company on earth. Why should we let them determine our future?”
I've been getting behind in my posts -- I haven't been able to report on the amazing Angela Davis/Dengue Fever double bill or the live Guy Maddin extravaganza, because I've been down in Laguna working on the installation of the first-ever museum retrospective of Rick Griffin - the surf cartoonist, psychedelic poster artist, underground comix innovator, and born-again Christian painter who died in a motorcycle accident in 1991. The show is looking amazing - it opens next weekend. Above we see a remarkable image capturing the exact moment when a time/space portal opened in Griffin's San Clemente living room, allowing Rick to send his Flying Eyeball emissary back in time to prevent the Nazis from winning WWII. Just another thing you didn't know about this remarkable artist. More to come, but I have to put together a powerpoint presentation at my failed attempt to convince a group of Swedish art students to create a sequel to Joseph Sarno's 1978 porn classic FÄBODJÄNTAN, to be presented tonight as part of
“Renegade Artists: The Swedish Los Angeles Connection” An evening of slides, films, music, meatballs and drinks Organized by Marnie Weber, featuring:
Jeffrey Vallance, who will present a jet-lagged slide lecture about the shows he has curated in Sweden. A slide presentation by Liz Young, titled “New Reality Mix: Hotel California.” Marnie Weber screens “Poor Them” a short film of unfortunate circus animals filmed in Sweden. Ghost Drawings brought forth through the Ouija Board by Christian Cummings and Michael Decker. A presentation by Doug Harvey titled, “Fabodjantan II.” And special guests direct from Sweden, Ride 1 presenting 3 film excerpts: “Remakes of the Deer Hunter, Alien, and Jaws.”
8pm $5 suggested donation HIGH ENERGY CONSTRUCTS 990 N. Hill Street, Suite 180 Los Angeles
Here's the scuptural component of my recent Great Expectorations exhibit -- the "Precious Nuggets." Most of the Nuggets started out as expandable shipping foam from negative space between a cardboard box and mail-order veterinary supplies. Above is "The Green Man" and below is "The Participant" photographed by Josh White. (The Participant is actually an exception to the veterinary supply negative space formula -- it's one of three cheap latex pinhead masks I bought in El Cajon thrift store about 15 years ago, filled with spray foam.) The complete show can be viewed at flickr.
"Camille Rose Garcia’s place in the rapidly deteriorating interzone between The Art World and the Lowbrow world is pretty unique. Beloved in the underground for her nostalgia-dripping, darkly curdled fairytale imagery and exquisite design sense, Garcia has arrived at her place in the upper echelons of the Lowbrow cosmos from an unthinkable mainstream pedigree including a childhood grounded in the LA Chicano Arts movement, degrees from Otis and UC Davis, and a stint at the career-making Skowhegan summer residency program. Her first published review -- in 1995 in Art issues. magazine – describes a consummate academic slackerism: a black duct-tape shell of a car, emitting a soundtrack from the cult film Suburbia. Only the title – Vehicle for My Escape Plan – seems recognizably Garciaesque, with its bleak frisson of impending apocalyptic doom and still-hopeful-in-spite-of-it-all suggestion of personal narrative.
Rather than pursuing what could easily have become a lucrative and respectable life on the Kunsthall and Biennial circuit, Garcia deliberately chose to embrace the craft-conscious, cartoon-friendly, unabashedly decorative vocabulary of Lowbrow. Although bearing considerable relation to aforementioned mainstream artists like Pittman and (most particularly) Deen, Garcia moved into the pictorial realm long after the heyday of “New Image” painting had withered with the art market crash of 1989. This boundary-rupturing shift in allegiance marks a turning point in the history of Lowbrow. In spite of the underground’s defensive dismissal of them as “pretentious”, university-trained artists often feel a real and tremendous pressure to live up to the cumulative legacies of art history -- and particularly the 20th century’s insistence on art’s social relevance."
Another of the remarkable personages that assembled to celebrate the legacy of Ishi in Oroville last month was Alberta Tracy, a multi-talented local whose arresting first-person retelling of the Thankful Lewis Carson saga (Thankful and her older brother Jimmie attended school about three miles from their home. On the day of their capture, their younger brother, a child of five, wished to accompany them, the parents permitting him to do so. As they were returning from school the little boy was thirsty and they left the road, going about one hundred yards to Little Dry Creek where they quenched their thirst. The older boy was still drinking at the creek when a rifle shot was heard and he fell forward into the water, shot through the back. Mill Creek Indians appeared from ambush and took the other children prisoners. As they left the scene of their capture, climbing the mountain-side, they looked down and could see their home. The children were barefooted and suffered much from the rough stones and brambles through which they were forced to travel the remainder of the day and far into the night, their captors forcing them onward by prodding them with their guns. They stopped for the remainder of the night in a canyon not far from the home of one of the settlers and left long before daybreak the next morning. Little Johnnie was so footsore and weary that he could not walk and began to cry. This angered the Indians and, after conversing in their own tongue, four of the Indians took the child back into the woods. He seemed to realize they were going to kill him and bade his sister good-bye. His body was afterwards found in a clump of bushes where he had been thrown and stoned to death. They told the little girl they were going to burn her alive when they reached their camp. They continued their journey across the hills and canyons, keeping near the foothills, crossing Butte Creek about five miles from Chico. The little girl saw a faint wagon track and heard a rooster crow and realized that they were not far from some one's house. She begged her captors to let her go but they refused. She displayed much wisdom in the way she sought to gain their favor. The day wore along until it was almost noon, and she was left behind with one Indian to guard her. The Indian was heavily laden with provisions and guns to the others, promising to travel better if allowed to rest for a time. Her entreaties prevailed and after he was out of sight and she thought the way was clear, she got up and ran toward Big Chico Creek. Hurrying along, she heard voices and knew the Indians were looking for her. She hid under the bank of the creek, concealed by bushes, until the Indias left the neighborhood, then crossed the creek and ran for some distance without seeing a habitation, finally reaching the home of Mrs. Thomasson, where she told her story and was cared for, and restored to her parents."History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 445-449, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918) in Clear creek Cemetery - where Thankful and her brothers are actually buried - was a highlight of the weekend. Thankful is just one of dozens of historical women from Butte County and around the world that Alberta has portrayed - other notable roles include Cornelia Lott, Freda Ehmann, Zilla Bills, Sin Chow, The Bride of Leonardo Tomaso, Amelia Earhart, Fanny Brice, Joan of Arc, Maria von Trapp, and - with the help of a pair of handmade prosthetic heads - all three Bronte sisters simultaneously!
Here is a shot of Lee Lynch capturing Alberta's performance on video, from which the above "artistic" still was extracted. For more "regular" shots of Alberta's performance, visit my flickr Ishi Gathering page.
"Great Expectorations: Return of the Green Man" 2006 Photo by Joshua White
Okay, it's only taken like what, three months? but I've uploaded to flickr some images from my "Great Expectorations" solo show at High Energy Constructs earlier this year. The first set is the actual "Great Expectorations" which are painting/collages on standard 50 X 38 sheets of paper involving some sort of eruption from one domain into another -- the bottom line to qualify as an "event." This series was started in 2004, but the bulk were completed in the couple of months before the show opened. The "Precious Nuggets" sculptures will follow shortly. I recommend clicking the 'Play as Slideshow' option, as the transitions add a certain awesomeness to the proceedings.
"Great Expectorations: He Them Both (Can’t Spell Mourning Without “U”)" 2006 Photo by Joshua White
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