Archive for January, 2012

The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts presents Share Your Beauty, an exhibition of 120+ artists from around the world representing the community of creative individuals involved in the You Are Beautiful project. In conjunction with the exhibition, MCCLA will be hosting a number of workshops. I’m proud to be exhibiting with this incredible community project!

Share Your Beauty, a You Are Beautiful exhibition
January 14th – February 25th, 2012
Opening Reception: Wednesday, January 18, 2012, 6:30pm – 9:30pm
The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts
2868 Mission Street, San Francisco CA 94110

Dreamland, an Exhibition of Artworks by Claudio Kirac.

‘Dreamland’ revolves around two key themes; the thrill of travel and the longing for home. While ‘on the road’ for periods at a time, and mostly without the leisure one would assume with travel or ‘holidays’, Claudio grasps the moments around him; wholly embracing local cultures and traditions, venturing ‘off the beaten path’ and stepping outside the comforts of everyday life. While befriending strangers and capturing those special moments one only encounters on ‘the journey’, work and play blur into one. Soon comes the challenge of missing the familiarity of home, the everyday norm, the common voices of close friends and the touch of a loved one. But it is this that makes us appreciate the everyday and helps restore our balance and soon we are home again where we can reflect on the journey and the places that became home for those moments in time. The works of ‘Dreamland’ express and investigate many of these notions.

Feb 23rd – March 6th 2012
Comb Space Gallery
Kirra Point, 23 McLean St, Coolangatta, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia.

Photo © Arto Saari / Artofoto

Proudly hailing from Liverpool, no wonder Geoff Rowley’s career has been maculated with various winks at football culture -the most famous being of course his use of Gerry And The Pacemakers’ “You’ll Never Walk Alone” song in his Really Sorry part, which doubles as Liverpool Football Club’s anthem, duh. How did that one tune come into the picture? Geoff explains on A Visual Sound.

I had loosely suspected it before. It became really obvious when I started working on curating the board exhibit for that one show in Paris last summer: in 2011, there aren’t that many skateboard graphics that have something to say. I mean, by “newer” artists -which immediately sets asides the Templetons, Eli Gesners, Mike Hills, Todd Francises, Clivers, McKees and Aly Moores of Droorstalgic times past.
Not to tout the expired stale fart trumpet again, but my theme being called Agents Provocateurs -a journey through offensive/political board graphics- I sadly only had a couple names in mind when time came not to make this an all-90s board exhibit.
Thanks lil’ Baby Jesus though, there’s still a handful of artists who still carry the maculate torch today. Among the Siebens, the Winston Tsengs (enjoi) and the Whoever-thinks-of-these-sick-Skatementals-concepts, Ben Horton has remained one of my personal faves since he launched $LAVE Skateboards.  The brilliance of it all, the video, Ben Raybourn : the guy behind it had to be a Midas of sorts, I thought.  Well, he is. But he’ll never admit it. Enjoy his interview over at Memory Screened.

On the rare and condemned practice of trying to suckle on one’s own tail

Here’s some new drawings I’ve done, some of which are inspired by ouroboros, some by saxophone playing, and some by well . . . I think you can figure that part out. 

Again on the forbidden and shunned practice of suckling on one’s own tail

A scene in which a merman practice the forbidden and shunned practice of reverse suckling

Tomorrow night this opens in San Francisco. Last weekend I help art director, Porous Walker set up some of the installation and documented the progress. Photos can be seen over on my COLOR blog. More on Porous, the art department and the installation coming soon.

About the installation from the gallery:

FIFTY24SF Gallery, in association with Upper Playground and American Zoetrope, are pleased to announce TWIXT sc. 83, an exhibition and installation coinciding with legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola’s newest feature film, Twixt. The exhibition opens January 13, 2012 with a public reception at 7PM.

Over his past three films, Francis Ford Coppola, famed director of The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now, has set-out to create self-written, self-financed, self-produced, and self-distributed films with his own intimate crew. Developed through personal experiences, a love of American Gothic, Edgar Allan Poe, and Coppola’s own trials as a horror genre author, Twixt is the story of B-list author Hall Baltimore’s process of writing his new mystery while researching an old murder case in a remote Northern California town. While Baltimore (played by Val Kilmer) is seemingly rewriting history with the help of the an eccentric town sheriff, he finds himself embedded in his most personal, demanding story he has ever written. Filmed around Northern California with locals as actors, as well as sets built on Coppola’s own property in Rutherford, Twixt examines the process of storytelling as it applies to personal experience, artistic influences, and the classic American genres that have become staples of modern cinema.

Working within their own self-financed restraints and freedoms, the team behind Twixt had the unique experience of researching and building sets in and around Coppola’s home in Northern California. Many of the sets were built in Coppola’s backyard, while some required the small town backdrops of Northern Napa and Lake counties. In keeping with the original spirit of American horror, some scenes were created with intentional kitsch, while some dream sequence were shot with highly-detailed, ornate sets and original post-production work.

For TWIXT sc. 83, members of Twixt‘s tiny tiny Art Dept, (Jimmy DiMarcellis, David Hopp, and John Paul Goorjian) will be rebuilding the set of the film’s dramatic climax sequence, scene 83. The center of the gallery will feature a remake and stand-alone installation of the film’s clock tower, shown in the film as an impromptu 3D experience. Also on display from Twixt, will be bat and birdhouses from Nice, California artist John Hathaway, whose front yard/gallery/shop “The Woodpecker”, was a key set in the film. TWIXT sc. 83 will also feature a series of other pieces from the film’s set department that were found around different locations in Northern California and in the Coppola archives, as well as behind the scenes photography by the film’s executive producer, Anahid Nazarian and set photographer, Kalman Mueller. The gallery will run trailers of the film, along with other enhancements to bring Twixt‘s horror scenes to life.

Just finished up a Chin Wag with Australia’s Jack Tarlinton regarding his latest “Cursed” Series for Baker (Dustin pictured below).  We have just added a video interview with Tommy Fynn regarding his recent crowning as Australian Champion. We are also about to start the 2012 Nike SbA Am Series and have cut together a clip of the highlights from last years SbA Am Series which can be peeped over here. Stay tuned for some banging features later in the month.

John Freeborn has just released Random Zine #10, with a bit of a twist, this is the first time he’s releasing this zine as an iBook only.

Along with 19 other artists, he kindly asked me to participate in this issue. I submitted one piece, which I would call pretty random for me, it was fun! 100 pages with artwork by (in order of appearance) Hershel Baltrotsky, Sonia Yoon, Clint Woodside, Ryan Wallace, Rich Jacobs, Jim Houser, Kendrick Shackleford, Tom Maher, Ben Horton, Eric McDade, Chris Sembrot, Joseph Hart, Matt Sohl, Dave Delaney, Sam Croswell, Carlos Miaco, Matt Curtius, Amy S. Kauffman and Jordin Isip.

It’s only $.99 in the apple iBook store, click here to get it!

Here is a “Behind The Seams” video that I shot with my wife, Amber B. In it she walks you through the process of creating the stop-motion animation in the Eden video, piece by piece.

Amber and I co-directed the video, which tells the story of Element Eden. The project was a fun break from skate videos, and an opportunity to work together on something creative. I’m really looking forward to see where Amber takes her new found passion for animation and filmmaking.

To view the Eden video, click here. And for an in-depth article, click here.

Please check out my good friend Justin Visnesky’s wonderful print for sale on the Collect.give site. Collect.give is a place to collect contemporary photography and donate to worthy causes at the same time. 100% of the proceeds from Justin’s print will go to The Sprout Fund, a nonprofit organization supporting innovative ideas and grassroots community projects that are catalyzing change in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Sounds good to me!