Silverlake/Los Feliz

What is a hipster sense of humor? Surely it has something to do with irony—the hipster’s original sin—or at least the thin version of irony that exists in wearing a D.A.R.E. t-shirt, while smoking a cigarette outside of the Silver Lake Lounge. But even irony has lost its all-consuming flavor amongst UCB and Largo crowds. Hipster humor also has something feminine about it, non-confrontational in its satire; it’s about a style and a matter of intention more than it is the content of a joke. Absurdity is actually its most potent ingredient, a commitment to the weird, a detached joy in the randomness of things.

In a name, it’s interviewer/performer/writer/comedian Dave Hill, who will be performing his one-man show, “Dave Hill: Big In Japan,” tonight, at 9:00 PM at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. Hill looks like the character of Dim from Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, and the pitch of his voice ranges from acid-trip-high to wallowing-drunk-low in a matter of seconds. He has become known for his fast-cut, Borat-style interviews—which have been featured on This American Life—in which he is always the main subject (Hill probably wouldn’t exist were it not for Sacha Baron Cohen, but the two differ vastly their approach). Many of his interviews are filmed on camera, and one gets the feeling he is constantly winking at the audience, but not in a mean way (a lot like Jim does when he looks toward the camera on The Office). He has an incredibly quick wit, but he doesn’t use it for harm. Carrying a misguided sense of uber-confidence, Hill seemingly wants to be friends with everybody he talks to, and thus, his undeniable charm.

He’ll walk into the red carpets of New York’s fashion week, holding a huge boom-mic with a windscreen on it, and proceed to ask an attendee what she thinks of the Kofi Annan collection. Though even this is harsh for him. More likely, he’ll take a private movement/acting class in New York City, and twirl around in tights with the male instructor, laughing with him rather than at him, creating a sense of camaraderie through shared acknowledgment of the absurd.

This is, in fact, Hill’s greatest strength: his ability to include the subject, and by extension, the audience in the creation of the joke. He is genuine, which is why it works. And why he may be one of the best examples of hipster humor out there.

For tickets more information about The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, please visit www.ucbtheatre.com, or call (323) 908-8702.

Growing up on a farm in South Carolina affords memories of a childhood of which few could dream—the apple orchard where barefoot we would run, yes. The chorus of cicadas droning in the sunset, yes. And the wood-paneled living-rooms adorned with the stuffed heads of dear, oh yes, sweet Carolina.

I know most of you probably think taxidermy is a little abnormal. Creepy.  Backwoods. It both fascinated and terrified me as a child. I’d look up at the buck head mounted above my grandfather’s fireplace and imagine how it got there—the old Quasimodo-type hunched over a pile of loose skin, a long needle and thread pinched in his thick fingers haunted my imagination.

Taxidermy is much more than a backwoods craft, though. It’s an art whose roots stem back to the 18^th Century, when hunters began to have the skins of prized hunts mounted to preserve them as trophies. It wasn’t long before taxidermists were getting creative—take the work of Walter Potter, who constructed whimsical dioramas with mounted animals mimicking human life.

A recent trend in the field is rogue taxidermy, the fabrication of mounted animals which do not have live counterparts. If ever you visit Wyoming, you may see a jackalope, the famous horned jackrabbit so fast that it can’t be seen by the human eye.  If this Friday you visit La Luz de Jesus in Los Feliz, you can see even more. Robert Marbury will curate the “Rogue Taxidermy Show” with his partners Scott Bibus and Sarina Brewer of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists—the organization who coined the term in 2004. Taxidermists working in the field use “recycled” animals—from roadkill to discarded livestock—to create a bizarre and fantastic body of work. The show runs from May 7^th through the 30^th, and promises to deliver high art, in both concept and craftsmanship. They even will have a live demonstration on the 8^th! If you’re an animal lover, don’t worry—no animals were killed for the sake of a mount—all the sources are recycled. It’s nice to know that 3000 miles from home, taxidermy is alive and well.

By Helen Kearns

“The Rogue Taxidermy Show” opens on Friday, May 7th and runs until May 30th at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Feliz. Reception begins at 8 PM on the 7th and ends at 11 PM.  For more information, please visit www.laluzdejesus.com, or call 323-666-7667.

Last week I had a skunk-off in my driveway. There I was, just trying to make it home, the Los Feliz Blvd traffic behind me and a night curled up with X-Files reruns and a glass of two-buck waiting, when I met my match. Two skunks caught in a deadlock in the middle of the driveway. A fence to my left. A house to my right. Nowhere to go but straight down. I stopped. They stopped. One ran. The other looked my way. She raised her tail into the air, where it plumed above her like a hot curl of smoke from a flame.

“Hey, little girl,” I said, trying to sound friendly.

She was silent. She waited.

“Ummm?” I backed down the driveway. I walked into the street. “I’m over here, now, see? You can go over to the bushes, where it’s safe. Where I’m safe…”

She stared.

Some neighbors walked by, watching my awkward hesitation. I was carrying an armload of groceries, by the way. “Heh, skunks,” I told them.

They stared.

I approached her again. Her tail stretched higher. I retreated. It went on this way for another five minutes, until I decided to just go ahead and put the groceries down and have a cigarette on the curb. Admit defeat.

It worked! She left. Moments later the sound of a cat howling and a streak of white light across the lawn, but I was already shimmying to the door to that well-deserved two-buck.

If you’re looking for a moral here, sorry, there isn’t one. Except maybe try not to happen upon two skunks when they’re in the throes of some weird mating ritual in the middle of your driveway? I mean, obviously, circumstance can’t be avoided. What I’m trying to say, y’all, is it’s Spring!

Alright, so you already know how much I love spring, but let me give you another reason: It’s music season. After spending winter months hunkered down in dark studios recording new LPs, bands across the country are dusting off their tour vans and hitting the road in the name of that glorious American tradition: the Summer Tour.

LA will have no shortage of music to see this summer, and let this weekend stand testament to that. In the span of five days, you’ll have options at almost every venue in the city.

Wednesday, 4/21: Megafaun, Breathe Owl Breath, and Hi Ho Silver Oh! at the Echo.

If you don’t know Megafaun, find out quick. Bedroom folk-rock that rattles so hard but jangles so pretty that it’ll get you drunk before you can even think of saddling up. The night starts off with LA’s own Hi Ho Silver Oh! (there’s North Carolina blood in those boys, to be sure) and Michigan’s banjo-wielding-folksters Breathe Owl Breathe.

Thursday, 4/22: Grouper, John Wiese, Infinite Body, and Ilyas Ahmed at The Smell.

Even though you can’t drink in there anymore, The Smell is still, hands-down, one of LA’s best spaces to experience art in its rawest, all-ages form. Ilyas Ahmed opens with his spectral guitar workings, followed by the yearning drone of Infinite Body. John Weise will then bludgeon it all with his most excellent noise-scaping, leaving the hazy and healing ambiance of Grouper to dry your tears.

Friday, 4/23: +DOG+, Actuary, Bavab Bavab, Drum Jester Devotional, The New Brutalists, and Oscillator at Synchronicity Space.

Get yourself over to Sync Space. Right now. Art gallery by day, venue by night, this place has an event calendar that would put LACMA to shame. Friday night: Noise! Sadists and masochists alike: put your dancing shoes on.

Saturday, 4/24: Yoshitake Expe, matthewdavid, Samuel Partal, and Dead Western at Echo Curio.

The Echo Curio’s doing it just like Sync Space, the whole two sides, one coin thing, and they’re doing a darned good job. Seems a week doesn’t go by that I’m not over there, knee-deep in something good. Dead Western’s baritone psych-folk may seem weird, but it’ll only get weirder—and better—with the crunchy charm of matthewdavid and the delightful neuroverb of Samuel Partal. Yoshitake Expe, whose experimental guitar-noodlings can be found alongside the Boredoms and Keiji Haino, will finish with [insert many expletives here]. Period.

Sunday, 4/25: Aaron Dilloway + John Wiese, Damion Romero, Cleanse, Darksmith and Rale at Synchronicity Space.

They just don’t stop over there at Sync. Rale: newage (rhymes with sewage. I’m just quoting their Myspace). Darksmith: comedy-hop (universal appeal, in my opinion). Cleanse: Either trip-hop from Detroit or something else (If there’s this little info on him on the world wide web, you know it’ll be fresh). Damion Romero: Minnesota minimalism? (Ditto). John Wiese: need I repeat myself? (Yes. This man may be a god.) Aaron Dilloway: No better way to spend a Sunday (except, maybe, this).

I think the Dodgers season may have started, too. Hey! There’s the moral! Keep your eye on the ball, kid.

- By Helen Kearns

Unless you work in advertising, or unless we’re talking about the genius of the new Old Spice ads, it’s safe to say that art and advertising are rarely synonymous.  We’re generalizing here, but oftentimes some people believe that ads are where the arts go to die; we’ve all heard of “selling out.” The MAK Center for Arts and Architecture and MOCA agree and are sick of seeing the twelfth billboard for Calvin Klein perfume with no respite or cultural buffer.

Their project, How Many Billboards: Art in Stead, is based at the Schindler House in West Hollywood and features 21 commissioned works displayed on billboards all around town.  These aren’t hidden in off-the-grid sites, either.  You can find them from east to west near Sunset and Vine, near Melrose and Fairfax, and on Venice Blvd in Culver City.  Artists include John Knight, Christina Fernandez, Martha Rosler, and Eilieen Cowin with such messages on display as a bold “Astonish” on Beverly and Pico or a frame of simple, slightly menacing gray clouds on La Brea just north of Venice.

To get a better idea of this genius, rogue project, MOCA is hosting a film screening on Thursday evening (during the Downtown Art Walk) at 6:30pm.  The free screening will feature videos chronicling How Many Billboard’s insights into the worlds of pop culture, media, and advertising.  You’ll see Phantom Limb by Jennifer Bornstein, Endless Dreams and Water Between by Renee Green, and Lottery of the Sea by Allan Sekula.

All in all, the project is not one of these petulant-child-artist-who-complains-for-no-reason types.  It is a new and semi-revolutionary way of high-jacking those pieces of visual information we see all too often: billboards.  Sometimes we do enjoy glancing up to see Jake Gylenhaal’s face promoting his latest film and sometimes we need a little cultural sustenance.  It’s all about balance.

How Many Billboards screening at MOCA will be held Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 6:30pm.  It’s FREE!  Please call (213) 621-1745 or click here, for more information.

It’s easy to get jealous in Los Angeles.  Most everyone came here from somewhere, even if it was here, to try and create art of some sort, to go behind the curtain of media-making in an attempt to toss in a pinch of their own individual ingredients.  The result is an endless stream of Facebook invitations, familiar postcards on coffee shop pin-boards, and a daunting sense that others’ ingredients—some friends, some enemies, some people who just got to town—are taking over the stew.

But if there’s anything I learned in college—a smaller, but similar stew—it’s that the work of my peers, in analysis or collaboration, is often the best teacher out there.  And it’s precisely because you are jealous, because you can view their creative process as a mirror of your own.  You can say, “Huh, this person is no genius, they’re practically an idiot, but they made this choice.  I never thought about doing that.  Maybe I too can make that choice, only better.”  It’s creative capitalism, but the only way it works is when you’re actively supporting one another.

This seems to be motto of the Los Angeles-based art collective, This Is What We Imagine (TIWWI, or Teewee), a group of young video, film, photography, and design makers—many of whom I went to school with—that are exhibiting their latest projects tonight, Saturday night, at the Echo Park Rec Center.  Beginning at 9:00 PM, the program, called “Show and Tell,” boasts the premiere of two recent collaborative efforts: “Weekend of Wonderment 6” and “Remember When.”  If you haven’t heard of the first five installments of the “Weekend of Wonderment” campaign, it’s comprised of about four or five projects, all made within the time-span of two days and with the help of anybody and everybody available.  “Remember When,” also the product of many (as opposed to few), is a new comic web-series about a group of friends who try to recreate the lost memories of their amnesia-begotten buddy.

TIWWI’s “Show and Tell” begins tonight, Saturday, 9:00 PM, at the Echo Park Rec Center, located at 1161 Logan Street in Echo Park. For more information, please visit www.tiwwi.com.

What do you get when you showcase the brightest and boldest of Angeleno performance artists?  GUTTED.  Gutted is the only word to describe Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions’ encompassing performance art-based program, which includes live performance, texts, and objects speaking of, from, and to the body.

GUTTED is Saturday, February 20 at 7:00pm, LACE.  Click here for more info.

The exhibition Actions, Conversations, and Intersections at the Los Angeles Municipal Gallery in Barnsdall Art Park continues to add new participatory projects to its roster.  This weekend, roll up your sleeves and join artists Edward Pine Stevens and Joseph Stuckleman with their installation Make Objects Make Marks or BikeHaus as they bike through Los Angeles as part of Cloud Lines and Chemospheres.

Check out the rest of this weekend’s programming here.

Newly purchased by Quentin Tarantino, the New Beverly Cinema is continuing its program of repertory cinema.  Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Election will play back-to-back not only once, but twice this Saturday because it is oh so nice.  Save Ferris!  Pick Flick!

The Matthew Broderick double feature starts at 3:20 and 7:30 at the New Beverly Cinema.  Click here for more info.

It seems only natural to combine our two first loves – art and food.  Yet that combination is rarely accomplished in a tasteful manner — that is, until recently.

The artist group Fallen Fruit has pioneered a considerable effort that is changing the way we view Los Angeles’s urban landscape, one tree at a time.  Fallen Fruit, founded by Matias Viegener, David Burns, and Austin Young, mapped areas of Silver Lake that have public access to fruit trees — i.e. free, locally grown, organic food.  This project continues to connect those with too much and those with too little of that good stuff.

Fallen Fruit’s next big project is at LACMA and is aptly titled EATLACMA.  Both today and tomorrow, Fallen Fruit will be giving away free fruit trees to kick off their year-long investigation into food, art, culture, and politics.  And keep your ear to the ground as their program unfold seasonally, including the exhibition Fallen Fruit Presents the Fruit of LACMA and day-long event in November.

An apple a day never tasted so good – or so free for that matter.

For more information about Fallen Fruit, click here.  For more information about EATLACMA, click here.

It was only a little earlier today that the Los Angeles City Council voted down the proposition to eliminate the Transient Occupancy Tax (the TOT), the sole source of governmental funding behind of the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA).  This action, had it been carried through, would have effectively shut down 18 cultural centers—including the Barnsdall Arts Center in Hollywood and the Center for the Arts in Eagle Rock, host to the Sony Pictures Media Arts Program for middle school youth—as well as five professional theatre facilities, and an array of classes, programs, and cultural events.

Such a worthwhile institution as the DCA might seem like an easy stronghold in such a creatively centered city as Los Angeles, but it was largely due to incredible advocacy organizations like Arts for LA that the proposition was shot down.  They, along with other activist groups and privately-funded museums such as the Hammer, urged their supporters to write letters to their councilmen, and voice their opinions at the City Council public hearing this Wednesday.  Some handed out stickers with the phrase “Arts Fuel LA,” others toted hand-made signs, and one woman addressed the council in a full-on angel costume.

Lo and behold, these efforts proved successful, and as a website strictly devoted toward promoting the arts, artists, and cultural community of Los Angeles, FineArtsLA would like to sincerely thank both the City Council members, and the hard-working advocacy organizations for their aid and congratulate them on their accomplishment today.

Of course the fight for the arts is never through—the council issue still undecided is whether the current cultural grants will be honored—but in celebration of this week’s victory, may I suggest checking out the DCA-funded Municipal Arts Gallery in the Barnsdall Arts Park.  From January 24th through April 18th, they are hosting an enormous series of participatory exhibitions entitled “Actions, Conversations, and Intersections,” all aimed at enhancing the artistic community of Los Angeles.  In residency this week is Smart Gals Productions, whose patented “Reading Preserve and Speakeasy Collection” features public readings from some of LA’s best authors, including John Albert, Noel Alumit, and Aimee Bender (my personal favorite).

The Smart Gals will toast off their weeklong program on Sunday, February 7th at 2:00pm with the collaborative “Winter Picnic Performance,” a fun mix of music, theatre, fresh bread courtesy of the Bicycle Bread Company, and hot coffee from Cafécito Organico.  So come along, fuel the arts that fuel LA, and if you get the chance, thank somebody.

Curated by Edith Abeyta and Michael Lewis Miller, “Actions, Conversations, and Intersections” runs until April 18th, 2010 at the Los Angeles Municipal Arts Gallery in the Barnsdall Art Park.  For more information, visit www.actionsconversationsintersections.com

The way you start off a new year is very important to the way the new year ends up going for you.  At least that’s what they say.  Put their theory into practice with some of January’s most promising arts events in our fair city – would you like your 2010 to look a little more Bond-like? Would you rather it looked a little more experimental than your 2009?  It’s so tempting to answer those questions with: there’s an app for that, but really your city has got what it takes to kick off your new year just the way you’d like.

Mr. Bond

Friday, January 1 is not likely to be your most shining and perky day.  That doesn’t mean you can’t start on a sleek, technologically advanced, Bond-like bend – from 7:30pm at the Egyptian Theatre there’s a double feature of Dr. No and You Only Live Twice.  You may not be at your sharpest on Friday, but you’ll soon make a better Bond than Mr. Connery.  If you’re less than interested in leaving your house that day, worry not.  Saturday evening (January 2) from 7:00pm, they’ll be screening Goldfinger and Thunderball – if you don’t have a love/hate relationship with villains after a weekend like that, you’re not cut out to be the next Mr. Bond.  And that’s no way to start a new year.

Please click here for the Egyptian Theatre’s full January 2010 calendar.

Barely There

At Sam Lee Gallery, just near Dodger Stadium, you’ll find local artist Jeff Gambill’s exhibit “Barely There,” on through January 23.  His paintings have this generally zen, colorful feeling that convey the transient, transitional message he’s going for.  Fresh from a trip to Japan, you’ll definitely see an East Asian influence in each of his works.  They don’t scream out at you, but they definitely make you want to look closer.  And what better message than looking closer at something that doesn’t shock and awe for a new year?  Time to delve a little deeper, kids.

The Sam Lee Gallery is located at 990 N. Hill Street #190.  Please call (323) 227-0275 or click here for more information.

New Year, New Music

It’s so easy to fall into an all-Mozart (or all-Beyonce) rut.  Take some time in January 2010 to break out of it.  It may not last the whole year, but at least you can say you tried.  On Saturday, January 16 at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica,Jacaranda invites you to discover Thomas Ades, Benjamin Britten, Peter Maxwell Davies, George Benjamin, and others.  The concert, called Licorice and Rosin (“licorice” is a slang term for clarinet and rosin is a solid form of resin used on string instruments), will present some of Britain’s more exciting contemporary music from the last twenty-five years.

If a church is the last place you’d like to be, Monday Evening Concerts at the Zipper Concert Hall at the Colburn School kicks off 2010 on January 11 at 8:00pm with a concert called “Mostly Californian.”  Featuring compositions by Clint McCallum, Luciano Chessa, Michael Pisaro, and others, you will hear sounds of contemporary California.  (No, that doesn’t include woeful cries for our current economic situation.) The composers in question present lyrical, theatrical works that won’t sound like anything else you’ve heard before.

Please click here for more information about Jacaranda.  Alternatively, click here for information about Monday Evening Concerts.

Soundtrack for a Revolution

The Grammy Museum just celebrated their first birthday – still haven’t been? Monday, January 11 at 7:00pm they’re presenting Reel to Reel: Soundtrack for a Revolution, a documentary that looks at the American civil rights movement and the unparalleled soundtrack that went along with it.  Filled with archive footage, interviews with civil rights leaders, and a soundtrack of freedom songs sung by modern day R&B, Hip Hop, and Soul legends like Joss Stone, Wyclef Jean, The Roots, and John Legend.  Monday’s screening will be followed by a panel discussion chock full of everyone you’d like to get advice from for a soulful 2010 – Danny Glover, filmmakers Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman, producer Dylan Nelson, and music producer Corey Smyth.

For more information, please click here.

So I’ve been writing for Fine Arts LA for almost a year now, and I realized that this affords me one of the greatest of art-reviewers’ honors: the end-of-the-year top-ten list.  As a devout follower of numerous art, theatre, and film writers, I find that it’s often popular to downplay the top-ten tradition, dismiss it as a sad reality of the quick-fix world we live in.  But even in this downplaying, there’s a hint of relish in the writer’s voice, as if he/she felt obligated to somehow contain their own excitement at the prospect of shedding off those hundreds upon hundreds of shows, films, galleries, albums, installations, and happenings they consumed throughout the year, finally to narrow it down to the even, clean number of ten.

I myself haven’t been to hundreds of shows this year.  But as a weekly contributor to Fine Arts LA, I have been privy to some of the best art this crazy city has to offer, and I wasn’t limited to one medium.  I saw plays, movies, photography exhibits, I even flirted with the perils of a natural disaster, and thus… my top ten:

10. “Sam Cherry: Photographs of Charles Bukowski, the Black Cat, and Skid Row”

Representing one half of the double exhibit entitled “Bukowski and Burroughs” that went up in early April at the Track 16 Gallery, this series of simple photographs succeeded in portraying what none of these phantasmagoric, apocalyptic fantasy movies can pull off: it showed an old, self-destructive man, reflecting back on the good times he’s had, proud yet regretful, strong yet weak.

9. Ken Tanaka’s “Maximum Pleasant”

Ken Tanaka is one artist/performer/youtube-phenomenon I was lucky enough to interview.  His show at the Billy Shire Fine Arts Gallery back in May included videos, paintings, drawings, music, and even a fully functional garage sale.  But it neither the media mash-up that impressed me about Ken nor even his possible double identity.  It was his sense of pure pleasure in creation, his contagious childlike sense of comedy that emanates off his pieces, and made for one of the smiley-est art openings I’ve seen in LA.

8. Landscaping the Den of Saints

It’s easy to skip over small, live theatre in Los Angeles, especially when it’s a three-hour meditation on the ideas of success and ambition like Jacob Smith’s recent, original production at the Avery Schreiber Theatre.  But sometimes you miss out on gems, and this play took on the issue of being young and hungry in Los Angeles, and ended up representing the struggle with a sense of playful accuracy.  And actor Sean Fitzgerald deserves some sort of award for his transformative performance.

7. Visioneers

This film, which is now up on Netflix instant-play, began its distribution independently.  And I mean independently.  I saw Visioneers at the Echo Park Film Center, when it was traveling around to any screen that would take it, and I have to say that it stuck with me.  Starring the still-underrated Zack Galifianakis, the movie is about spontaneous combustion in a futuristic, corporate-run society, where giving someone the middle finger is a sign of respect.  Every time I enter an office building, I think of the bearded Galifianakis flicking me off with a smile.

6. Gavin Bunner’s “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”

Another interviewee, the friendly Mr. Bunner isn’t afraid to dress in a cardboard Moby Dick costume and compete in a public boxing match against a Berenstein Bear.  Sure it seems silly, but it’s emblematic of what this young, promising painter is attempting to capture and celebrate in his work: the absurd convergence of pop and pomp in our Google-ingrained brains.

5. Lie of the Mind

I only saw this play last week, so it might just be a fresh lie of my own mind, but Studio Five Productions’ latest show, which you can still catch until the 19th at the Studio/Stage Theatre, is a brave and forceful retelling of Sam Shepard’s original, 1985 story.  The actors are physical and fierce, the music is haunting, the makeup is extraordinary, and the set is like something Jason Schwartzman’s character would dream up in Rushmore.

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