Friday, June 27, 2008

I Love a Good Photo in the Morning


Was sent a link to this guy who copies classic photographs with scenes make from legos.
I just love creative people.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

RSG announces VIDEO SMACK


Video Smack
Beginning in July, RSG will present our Summer Project, Video Smack.

Video Smack is a semi-covert artist video/film project where we
take our projector/projectors to various locations
on any given summer night, and turn them on.

Video Smack is inviting film/video artists
from around the world to participate.

Here is how it works:

Sign up for the mailing list at the Video Smack Blog
(even if you are getting this email you still need to sign up)

Six hours before the screening we will send out an e-mail, post on the blog
and announce on Facebook
the location, directions, time and artist/artists.

Come on out and enjoy.

if you miss it, do not worry, most likely we will screen
the films on two separate nights, or you can see all the videos in the gallery.

8 Summer Group Show


Our Summer Group show is scheduled to open July 11th 7-9pm.
It features the work of Eight amazing photographers:

Kyoko Hamada and Tema Stauffer
Jessica Dimmock and Peter Van Agtmael
Alexandra Catiere and Shen Wei
Alison Brady and Ryoko Suzuki

The show has a rotational design.
Eight photographers in Four
2-person, 2-week exhibitions

Opening night all eight will have work on the wall.
That night, we hang the first 2-person show.
So, every other Friday, a show will close and the next
opens the following morning.

Who said nothing happens in the Summer.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Cell Phone Coverage

Are these images of Saturn, taken from the cassini spacecraft not amazing!!



It is a wonder that such clear photos can come from across the solar system, but my ATT cell phone network drops out when I am under a tree in the middle of the city.
Check out the photos..they are amazing.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Matt Mahurin

When I was a young art dealer in Los Angeles, some 20 years ago I traveled to New York to meet Matt Mahurin. Matt was a photographic hero of mine. His work was full of emotion and subtext. It was dark and gritty and his prints were toned apparitions of dreams and nightmares and amazing worlds that crossed the grain of traditional editorial photography.

We had first met in a darkroom I was working at in Santa Monica in '89. He came in to make a print for Matthew Modine (the actor). I knew who Matt was, and I introduced myself. The print he made was amazing. He told me everything was done in his camera. I wanted to press him for details, but sometimes magic is best left to imagination so I shut up.




Matt Mahurin started out at Otis Institute in LA. He soon landed illustration jobs for the LA Times Op/Ed Section. Every week a new illustration would appear and people took notice. The illustrations were hand drawn, burnished, painted, scratched and were friggin powerfully amazing. Then he set out to translate his illustration to photography. This was 1989ish, Photoshop was a billion years away. His portrait work was soon sought after and he began a career shooting rockstars.


Countless album covers and magazine shoots later, he thought that what he was doing could work on film, so he started to make videos.

The first videos he did (music videos) didn't even have rockstars in them. They were art films snippets of film he shot on 8mm or 16mm stock just driving down the street or things he set up. Soon it got more complicated, but his work was groundbreaking for music video (which had been boring "Live" action concert footage or silly Huey Lewis dribble). Artist vision was introduced to music video as a solid component of the song. A component that didn't really mimic the song story line, but created an interpretation of.




So I went to see Matt in NY. I showed him my work and he showed me the prints from his first book. I felt a little bit in awe. I asked him if he would like to show in my gallery in LA, he said that he had just been offered a show at a gallery (a big one) right down the street from me. It was a wonderful private star studded opening. I walked in with Jodie Foster. My friends inside were floored when Jodie whispered something in my ear (I forget what it was...something like "you're standing on my foot").

Time moved on for all of us. Matt's work switched to digital and he now creates amazing digital illustrations based on his photographs. His work is on the Cover of Time all the time.

I talked to him last year. I wanted to bring him into the gallery. He told me no one would want to see his work. I told him he was quite mistaken.

He is now directing films. His documentary "I like killing Flies" is amazing (check it out on netflix). And I think he just finished another film. And he did a number of PSA's like H2...




Reason for my post is I was talking to a curator friend of mine about film work and he popped into my mind. So, while he was still fresh in my head, I wanted to put him here for you to see.

Here is his film version of Unforgiven by Metallica.
its 12 minutes long and I still love looking at it.

Wish me luck as I try and get him to send me a video collection for the gallery!





Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Cara Ober Closes On Saturday...get on over here

Cara Ober's "ia am who i pretend to be" is slated to close this saturday. I strongly suggest you all get on over here and pick up a drawing off the "Wall.


The Wall is a collection of single drawings following Ober's visual vocabulary.
At $75 a piece the original drawings and mixed media pieces are a steal.
Heck, you can pick up several and make you own Ober!
not that we condone such a practice.




Nick Walker Show in London


Mr. Nick Walker will have a show opening in London on April 17th.
Black Rat Press
It promises to be jam packed with London hipsters and people trying for one of 75 limited edition pieces he is making for the event.

Nick sold out his last show in LA in a couple days...Giving the demand I have been seeing for his work, better get in line a day before.

For those of you who can't make the opening...
Black Rat Press will release two limited edition prints on the morning of the show.
(Be prepared to be one with thousands of people looking to get in before they are all gone)

Please remember, London time is 5 hours ahead of the US. So, I suggest stocking on the Red Bull and throwing an all nighter.

If you can't wait...I still have 5 "Can't Be too Careful" paintings left.

Congrats in advance to Nick!

Monday, April 7, 2008

Sarah Wilmer to Open May 31st


There is nothing like that feeling when I find a new artist whose work I absolutely love.
The hairs go up on the back of my neck and I feel the need to speak to them right away. I hate to wait.

Last Summer I came across Sarah Wilmer and put her into my summer group show "Subtext."
I am constantly amazed by what she photographs. From a family trip to New Zealand (My Brother Max...above) to her weekend photographic excursions around Jersey, to her commercial portraits and advertising. Her sense of natural light, composition and her approach to mystery/suspense and that cinematic (without being 'Cinematic") suck me in and hold me in this vortex of wonderment.

On May 31st I am excited to give her her first solo show at RSG. The work will be a wonderful collection of pieces that are both lyrical, romantic, mysterious and linger in a narrative both personal and emotive.

In the coming month I will put the work up on her website...or if you want a sneak peek...
go here.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

I Like Jackson Martin

Create something beautiful and give it away for free!

Jackson Martin
Transform

www.jacksonmartin.com/Jackson-Martin-Transform.mov


The talented photographer/videographer, Hugh Swingle
cut together a short documentary-style video for my
DUMBO Art Under the Bridge project. You can view this
video by clicking on the link. Enjoy!

Monday, February 18, 2008

Lori Nix Cool Hunting Video"

I'm beginning to think all artist need a video as promotion.

Lori Nix, from cool hunting.


Sunday, February 17, 2008

Another video of Nick at work.

Stencils are no laughing matter. Nick is an exacto master.


Friday, February 15, 2008

Nick Walker has arrived...finally



A year ago I started working with Bristol, UK based street artist Nick Walker. Nick is an original. He helped shape the Bristol street artist (some say graffiti) movement some 20 years ago that gave rise to Banksy. Long overlooked, not really into commercial gallery whatevers, Nick just hung out in his studio cutting stencils and making work. He produced limited edition prints and canvas editions. He occasionally ventured out onto the streets of Bristol and applied his vision to a wall, or a door, or whatever he thought needed a bit of color.

Well, Nick has arrived, finally, and recognition is around him.


Last week, Nick sold out his first solo show in Los Angeles. Then one of his amazing Moona Lisa canvas paintings sold for $90,000 at an auction in London. Demand for his work shot out across the pond. RSG has been getting countless requests for the edition "Can't Be Too Careful" and the paintings in stock sold first thing.

We here at RSG wish Nick the best on his success and the art world finally paying some attention. Nick is priceless and a true original who cares more about the work than most baggy pant, aerosol wielding kids that write their names everywhere.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Cara Ober

Well, by now you have all seen, heard, or witnessed the ongoing debate concerning Cara's work being appropriated by another Baltimore based artist. It made the front page of the Baltimore Sun and was commented on in the Washington Post.
So, it seems fitting as Cara's represented gallery in DC to make a statement...so here it is.

There is only one Cara Ober and she is an original.
Her vocabulary has been in the making for (withheld by threat) years
and it will still be refined and expanded in the many years ahead
long after this is all forgotten.
That vocabulary is hers and her authenticity rests
within the narratives she constructs.



We hope you will join us for her first solo exhibition at RSG on March 8th. Please make sure you are on the mailing list to receive upcoming announcements!