This past weekend, the Mid-City Arthouse in Los Angeles honored animation luminary Hayao Miyazaki and his works with a Miyazaki Tribute Gallery for the ages. The show featured submitted works from an array of talented artists, working in multiple media. But they had one thing in common: a rabid devotion to one of the most inspiring individuals in contemporary popular art.

The sweltering heat didn’t deter crowds from cramming into the Mid-City Arthouse event space August 6-7th to celebrate a truly original voice in mainstream animation. The Miyazaki Tribute Gallery drew visitors old and young, rabid and casual. Miyzazaki-themed cocktails were on tap, prints sold like hotcakes, but the main draw was, of course, the art.

It was beautiful to see Miyazaki through the lens of those aspiring talents who adore him. The artists in attendance drew from the animator’s entire filmography, though favorites were clear, and to be expected. Predictably,  Studio Ghibi heavyweights like Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and My Neighbor Totoro made up the majority of the works. Illustrators and painters adopted the telltale iconography from all three films, to produce a range of compositions. Of course there were more illustrative prints, but also present were design-like patterns, collage, mixed-media, and even a gorgeously crafted felt sculpture.

While more obscure works were a tad under-represented (why no love for my favored Porco Rosso?), the artists also featured side-character favorites like the susuwatari soot spirits, No Face (of course!), the Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke, and even a Lupin-inspired piece!

Perhaps the most exciting moments happened when you could see Miyazaki’s works truly reimagined in another artist’s style. That’s when the creator’s influence and spirit are concretely reincarnated and immortalized. At that moment, you’re not just a Miyazaki fan, but someone who believes in the generations of works that will bear his imprint.

Disappointed that you’d missed it? Don’t sweat it! This is Los Angeles after all–there’s a gallery opening basically every evening, and we’ll try our best to keep you updated. Let us know if there’s anything we should check out, and support your local galleries!

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From now until June 11th, art installation Intrude is bringing massive, glowing inflatable rabbits into the heart of downtown LA. The sight is beautifully surreal. But hidden in plain sight is a dire message. 

An Unexpected Visitor

Art installation Intrude is the newest in a ripe season of great Los Angeles art openings. Imagine moving amongst the skyscrapers and marble plazas of downtown LA. What could be more shocking than seeing a 20-foot-tall rabbit just around the corner? By day, they stand fantastically in the midst of LA’s busy foot traffic. By night, their glow outshines the skyscraper lights that surround them. On my visit, Intrude drew crowds of visitors, and turned the heads of shocked joggers. In spite of their size, the inflatable bunnies are adorably sculpted. One cleans its ears at the glass entrance to the Bank of America Building. Several feet away, another reclines on its stomach. Behind the building, a third hibernates with its ears down. It’s a perfect example of the increasing popularity of accessible, public art installations penetrating into urban spaces.

Where to View It

From 12pm to 9am, from June 5th to 11th, these mysterious invaders will mystify DTLA residents with their enormous and luminous presence. Art installation Intrude, by Australian artist Amanda Parer, has come to Los Angeles as part of a four city tour that started in April in New York. These massive bunnies are located in three locations around downtown:

• Bank of America Plaza (333 South Hope Street),
• Wells Fargo Center (330 South Hope Street), and
• FIGat7th (735 South Figueroa Street).

While the piece’s visual experience is captivating enough, its meaning is even more fascinating. Most of the world perceives rabbits as innocent, playful, and cute creatures. But that isn’t the case in Parer’s native Australia. There, to call rabbits an ecological disaster is an understatement. Introduced in 1788 by white settlers, bunnies have proved incredibly destructive to the country’s native species. They’ve survived numerous attempts at eradication. And this continues even to the present day.

And so the meaning of the title becomes clear on all levels. As an art installation Intrude calls attention to this unwanted animal intruder and its impact. Beneath the fur and fluff lies a destructive and persistent by-product of globalization and colonialism. The fact that the Australian view of bunnies contrasts so much with their ‘cuteness’ lends Intrude its power. This is an expression of the ways that ecological disaster is masked by cultural perceptions. Hence, to misunderstand the installation (as most visitors will!) is to reflect the necessity of its message.

For more information and a list of tour dates, visit the Facebook page.

All photos taken with the Fujifilm XM-1 mirrorless camera, with a Konica Hexanon 28mm lens.

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The Museum of Broken Relationships LA has finally arrived. First opened in Croatia, the U.S. branch brings a starkly human touch to Los Angeles and delivers everything it promises: a display of human affection and disaffectation, spoken through the memorabilia of broken relationships.

LA’s art scene has been a’bustle lately, with public performances and spaces both fantastic and stoic. The Museum of Broken Relationships LA is a welcome addition to a city that gets stranger by the day. The premise is simple: donors worldwide send in personal artifacts and memorabilia of their broken relationships. Each artifact is plainly displayed with a placard, bearing a title and the item’s story, penned by the donor. These range from brief and amusing anecdotes, to deeply involved testimonials.

Some of these artifacts are to be expected, like diary pages, event tickets, and teddy bears. But also: silicon breast implants, and two separate sets of fake, wearable breasts, all accompanied by suitably morose stories of unwanted bodily modification. Under a glass display sat a vial of gnarled pubic hair. A heart-shaped display of photographs hung on the second level. All the photos are of the word ‘color’ seen in various signs, assembled for a lost love named Carla.

There was a wedding dress, de-ceremonialized and packed into a jar, and a mouldering dreadlock snipped from the scalp. One of the stranger things: a molten cellphone retrieved from an oven by a landlord, probably debris from his tenant-couple’s tumultuous relationship. And then there were the mundane things, transfigured by virtue of their human history: toothpase tubes, coffee mugs, torn jeans. Each is an untold life, encased in inanimate still life.

Museum of Broken Relationships LA sometimes felt more like visiting a website (man, does anyone remember Post Secret?) than a museum–to its credit. I think most of us think of museums in terms of boundaries and restrictive solemnity. You are here, and the piece is over there; don’t cross the line. That’s not quite the case at Broken ‘Ships. Here, there are no master creators from on high–the exhibitors are lovelorn fools like the rest of us. Neither are there priceless artifacts–just a heap of household items, intermixed with smut, trash, and the occasional DIY valentine. While there is definitely something under the glass, there’s nothing on the pedestal, except for the abstracted, collective melancholy of the donors and their untold stories.

Hopefully it isn’t too hammy to use the phrase ‘anti-museum’ here; rarely have I been to a museum where so little feels forbidden. That simply isn’t the point of Broken Relationships LA. Like they said on the website, the point is to offer a closure ritual to the lovelorn, something not easy to achieve in bustling urban spaces. Like coming-of-age rituals, comfort for the romantically frustrated simply isn’t a service that modernity offers. The Museum of Broken Relationships LA, however, is a place to bring the private into the public space, to externalize the indigestible heaps of emotional detritus that many of us can’t process alone.

It has the solemn air of a museum, but it’s a naturally meditative, rather than repressive one. Oddly enough, it reminded me of what museums are supposed to be: places where you put things under glass so that you can inspect them more clearly. And love is a very bizarre thing to see, naked and objectively. It’s a damned unique experience, especially considering where Broken ‘Ships is. Surely it was by design that the Museum of Broken Relationships LA roosted itself in the busiest portion of Hollywood Boulevard. It stands a stone’s throw from celebrity wax museums and Guinness sideshows. Outside its doors, droves of tourists hunch fixated on the hollow hieroglyphics of the Walk of Fame. Yet in the middle of Tinseltown, the godhead of an industry built on happy-ending dreams, there’s the Museum. Like a monastery of catharsis, dedicated to helping us process the breaking of those same dreams.

All photos taken with a Fujifilm XM1 mirrorless camera, and Konica Hexanon AR 28mm lens.

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The second Petal Drop LA was a low-key public art installation featuring a downtown Los Angeles industrial building and street, festooned with purple flowers. It was a surreal collision of the natural and the industrial, art and commerce. And it was exactly what inner-city Angelenos needed on a sleepy Sunday morning.

Numerous plans have been made to beautify the polarizing industrial landscape of Los Angeles. We’re going to carve out the concrete-plastered LA river into recreation space (at some point)! Smorgasburg LA is coming in June, a permanent outdoor weekly market! There’s a, uh, ‘temporary pop-up park’ somewhere in Hollywood, with umbrellas mimicking real trees!

Don’t get me wrong–all of these sound like well-meaning, much-needed facelifts in a city that feels increasingly difficult to enjoy. But at present, they also sound like drops in the bucket, little cosmetic fixers that fall just short of injecting true life and beauty into the urban sprawl of LA. While these plans struggle to excite me, Petal Drop LA was an unexpectedly immersive, beautiful experience that encapsulated what all these attempts are groping for: a living Los Angeles. A city for people rather than cars. A place where beauty isn’t segregated into city blocks for admission’s price, but commonplace. A community with all the liquid smog scrubbed out, replaced with living blood and flowers in its veins.

On May 29th, the group behind Petal Drop LA transformed an industrial block on Main & Lamar into something quietly different. The street corner is a typical downtown LA sight: traffic signs more numerous than ads, scattered e-waste, powerlines crisscrossing the sky, just as lane dividers graph the streets below. But on this morning, closer inspection revealed purple flowers carefully packed into sidewalk cracks, plumbing, everywhere. You would’ve seen littered cups, cracked computer monitors, and the carcasses  of defunct automobiles similarly bursting with loose purple leaves. The street signs and bus stop benches too, filled in with little bloom fields.

When I arrived, there was a gentle trickle of visitors turning out for the event. Precious little info was available. The location was kept undisclosed until dawn. Even then, you had to either call their hotline or check the twitter. The hush-hush wasn’t for pretension, but to foster a certain ‘business as usual’ attitude. This wasn’t a grandiose LA makeover, a dramatic reimagining. The organizers wanted to depict LA as it was, but with just an ounce of the whimsical injected. No gasping crowds–rather, passersby and their curiosity. Most Los Angeles art functions have ‘scene’ written all over them, with Instagrammers swarming like LED flies. But at Petal Drop LA, I saw mostly couples, an acceptable amount of selfie sticks, and a refreshing number of children. Almost everyone had small flowers in their hair, pockets,and bags.

On the way down to the main installation area, I was offered flowers twice. The first time was from a hard-hatted girl on the corner, dressed exactly like a factory worker, except for the lavender motifs on her uniform. There were several such installation ’employees’ sauntering around, directing visitors. The second was from an old Asian woman, happily handing out blossoms from an ice cream cart.

At the main installation was a chain divider and a smiling factory woman at an office desk, serenely stamping miscellaneous papers. Behind her, the industrial apparatuses bore tons upon tons of purple flowers. The jacaranda blossoms piled in enormous mounds between the crumbling grey walls. Above, another worker manned a loudspeaker. Intermittent messages were broadcast in a grocery-store PA voice: “Los Angeles is my mother.” “The city is still beautiful.”

What was most impressive was that there was no rejection of LA’s industrial or commercial appearance. They didn’t pick up the litter, paint the trucks, or costume the organizers. Then it wouldn’t be LA, right? Instead, they simply infused them all, with a small spray of flowers. Petal Drop isn’t here to destroy ugliness, but to marry it with the beautiful. You don’t transform a city by erasing its identity, even the unsavory parts. You accept and beautify it as a whole.

The anonymous group had done this once before in February. In the alley between the Arcade and Cameo theaters on Broadway, they sprinkled flowers for hours. They were also behind the Griffith Park Teahouse in June of last year. When I asked one of the tight-lipped but smiling employees if there will be more Petal Drops in the future, she shrugged. “We’ll see!” Though the group has been charmingly mum about its activities, you can follow them on twitter @petaldropLA. Or, you know, just happen upon their work in the street. That’s probably preferable.

All photos taken with a Fujifilm XM-1 mirrorless camera, and Konica Hexanon 50mm lens.

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Belladonna of Sadness is a 70s Japanese adult animation gem formerly forgotten, but recently restored for current limited release; the film combines psychedelic and erotic imagery in a boldly experimental re-imagining of the idea of the ‘witch’. 

From now til next week, the Los Angeles art and cinema scene will be treated to screenings of Belladonna of Sadness, the newest conduit for our current obsession with all things witch-y and goth, which all stated with the release of a staid yet hypnotic horror flick from last year. The political and social moment seemed so ripe for the arrival of 2015’s The Witch, the indie horror/thriller that turned the traditional conception of the witch on its head. Aside from its masterful control of atmosphere and tension, The Witch enchanted modern audiences with subtly feminist (and explosively anti-establishment) themes, subverting the witch into a modern symbol of female empowerment.

Serendipitously, this year sees the limited release of Belladonna of Sadness, a Japanese adult animated feature that, like The Witch, features a female protagonist mistreated and maligned until the arms of Satan are the only logical recourse. Belladonna packs the same progressive thrust as The Witch, but for a few differences. One: obviously, one is animated, the other is not. Two: Belladonna came 40 years earlier. Three: The Witch is all Puritan doom and gloom, while Belladonna is all Yellow Submarine-style psychedelia, Japanese pinku erotica, with a dash of Schoolhouse Rock.

Belladonna of Sadness tells the story of a beautiful commoner named Jeanne, who is brutally raped on her wedding night by the local ruling Lord with his corrupt court spectating. Over the course of the film, Jeanne’s awakening sexuality manifests as a phallic anthropomorphization. Persecution and exile eventually compel her to enter a Satanic pact, empowering her at last to combat her foes. Belladonna was made back in 1973 by Mushi Production (a studio established by the god of manga himself, Osamu Tezuka) which was famous for putting their money and efforts in technically ambitious (and overtly erotic) animated releases, a trio of flicks called collectively Animerama.

The film series was essentially the animated counterpart to the then-popular erotic/exploitation genre known as Pink Cinema. Towards that end, Animerama was a success by its own standards. The first ambitious first title, Thousand and One Nights, clocked in at a whopping 130 minutes and set the trend of experimental and ambitious animation, continued by the bafflingly avant-garde Cleopatra. While the former at least was a success in Japan commercially and critically, neither gained traction abroad: the rest of the world simply wasn’t ready to accept ‘adult’ animation, much less erotic animation. In spite of all that, Mushi Production cleaved to their philosophy of bringing liberated animation to the big screen, and went ahead with Belladonna of Sadness, whose commercial failure would go on to bankrupt the company

This public aversion to erotic animation only lends Belladonna of Sadness greater cultural gravitas as an act of transgression on multiple levels. Not only did it tell a story of unpent sexual energies, its artistic style reached for a liberated freeform style. Director Eiichi Yamamoto and artist Kuni Fukai looked to erotic-symbolist painter Gustav Klimt for stylistic cues, and incorporated experimental animation techniques such as live action sequences, and still panoramic paintings with narration. Just the simple fact of its ethos and existence flew in the face of sexually repressive cultural norms, an ethos that can be seen clearly in the the text that Yamamoto and Fukai called their main inspiration: Satanism and Witchcraft by Jules Michelet.

The seminal 19th century treatise was remarkable in its sympathy towards the historically persecuted figure known as the witch. Far from being a condemnation,  Satanism and Witchcraft was an examination of the witch’s philosophies and motivations, in the context of repressive Christian and masculine forces. It unambiguously painted witchcraft as an anti-establishment practice meant to combat feudalism and the iniquities of the Roman Catholic Church. According to the text, the sorceress’s mantra is that “nothing is impure and nothing unclean,” in direct challenge to modern and traditional taboos on feminine identity and biology

Michelet’s proto-feminist ideas and allegory of the witch were revived in Belladonna, which is now currently seeing its own revival at an exceedingly timely cultural moment. The technical restoration of Belladonna of Sadness was initiated by Hadrian Belove, cofounder of Cinefamily, a nonprofit revival cinematheque located in Los Angeles, CA. Distribution company Cinelicious Pics undertook 1000 hours of painstaking touch-ups and edits to restore the original reels to glory. Most exciting is the addition of eight minutes of cut footage, fortuitously discovered in the possession of Belgian cinema archive Cinematek. According to lead restoration artist Craig Rogers, the footage was probably cut both to reduce the running time, and also probably for the sexually explicit content therein.

The exceeding visual beauty of Belladonna of Sadness is reason enough to catch one of the numerous screenings happening now until mid-June. But in consideration of the film’s tumultuous history and bold spirit of artistic/sexual release, Belladonna should prove a landmark event for anyone interested in nontraditional animation, cinematic history, and foreign film.

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March 14th saw the 115th birthday of Akira Yoshizawa, widely recognized as origami’s one and only grandmaster. Yoshizawa was responsible for innovative techniques that brought unparalleled realism to the craft, and for the standard diagram notation that you see in instructional booklets today.When we think of artists today, we think of individuals attempting to shock and awe with stunning exhibitions, or bizarre figurations. But Akira Yoshizawa represented art at its most pure–free of profit, miniscule in scale, magnificent in meaning.

Akira Yoshizawa’s Misunderstood Art

It was 1959 when Akira Yoshizawa had an open exhibition at the Japan Center in New York. Yoshizawa had published two books already, and had numerous successful exhibits in Japan. However, worldwide interest in origami had not quite solidified yet. During the exhibition, visitors somehow mistook his models as free souvenirs. Before anyone could intervene, the entire display had disappeared in the hands of strangers. The incident speaks volumes about the importance and strangeness of origami, as Yoshizawa practiced it. Its humility and elegance was baffling, incomprehensible to these Western tourists. After all, how could mere folds transform paper from common trash to priceless craft?

Humble Beginnings

It takes a lot to appreciate what it means to devote yourself to an art that no one else recognized as art, and that no one outside your culture knew existed. Akira Yoshizawa was born to a dairy-farming family. He pursued origami in his youth and in his 20s while working in a machine factory. With the help of night classes, he attained a position as a draftsman for the same factory. There, he used origami to demonstrate geometric principles to new employees. Both his work and his art impressed Yoshizawa’s employers, who didn’t seem to mind his practicing folds during business hours. Yoshizawa left at the age of 26 to pursue origami full-time and supported himself by selling fermented tsukudani side dishes door-to-door.

Onto the World Stage

While serving in the military’s medical corps during World War II, Yoshizawa continued to practice origami. In the hospital quarters, he created pieces to soothe and distract the ailing soldiers. After the war, Yoshizawa didn’t get his break until 1952. The graphic magazine Asahi Graph took notice of his work and commissioned a series of pieces based upon the zodiac animals. The magazine set him up in a hotel and bought him clothes so he could change out of his army uniform, his only outfit at the time. After he worked day and night to finish the pieces, the issue was published. And the world finally took note of Akira Yoshizawa, soon to be the most renowned origami craftsman of his time.

He eventually lifted himself out of complete poverty with Atarashi Origami Geijutsu (New Origami Art) in 1954, the first book to use the Yoshizawa-Randlett notation. Even if the name doesn’t sound familiar to you, anyone who’s followed origami directions has seen them. They use a variety of curved arrows, solid lines, and dotted lines to indicate the many folding techniques required in origami. Up until that point, there was no standard notation for origami visual diagrams, certainly none that achieved the elegance of  Akira Yoshizawa’s system. He went on to found the International Origami Center in Japan, and was eventually sponsored by the Japan Foundation to travel and teach origami worldwide as a cultural ambassador.via Origami-Art.us

Aside from his eponymous diagram notation, Yoshizawa was also known for inventing the technique of wet folding. This involves wetting the paper beforehand in order to give the folds a more organic, rounded feel. Such a relatively simple innovation allowed origami to achieve new levels of realism, and quickly came into use by successive artisans.

Akira Yoshizawa reportedly made over 50,000 pieces without the use of scissors or glue. As a trained Buddhist priest, he took care to pray before every folding session. None of his pieces were ever sold; he only ever gave them away as gifts, or lent them out for exhibition. Origami never ceased to be a thing of beauty for Yoshizawa, something to be shared but never exploited.

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Los Angeles is no stranger to art and the surreal, but from October to mid-November, the city was treated to one of the most eye-catching installations in recent memory. Husband and wife artist duo Dabs Myla, famous for their Golden Age illustration aesthetics and whimsical design projects, collaborated with the Modernica Factory, a manufacturer / design collective dedicated to North American Modernist design. The installation was Before and Further,  a 2-story household festooned with custom-made furniture, illustrated wallpaper, and recreational doodads, all aiming to establish a cartoon wonderland in the midst of Los Angeles.

Navigating LA’s Arts District

I came to Before and Further the night before its closing day. The drive there was misleading to say the least; if you’re new to LA, the Arts District might come as something of a shock. Ostensibly, it’s a labyrinth of corrugated warehouses and alleyways, more akin to an industrial town than the artistic hub of a major city, but make a wrong turn and there’s no telling what you’ll find: a prop warehouse, an architecture museum, a fleet of pierogi trucks, a craft market inside a brewert decorated outside with Dia de Los Muertos designs–the disparity’s all part of the charm.

The drive towards Before and Further was certainly part of the explorative experience: in the midst of this extended funhouse of warehouses and murals, sitting right beside stark-white corporate buildings, beyond the smokestacks silhouetted against the setting sun, the house stood like an oasis of light and dream.

Step Inside Dabs Myla’s Before and Further

This is the illustrator’s dreamhouse, kissed all over with warm, retro wood-and-amber tones, and Dabs Myla’s characteristic vintage cartoon motifs suffusing everything from the false brick walls mined from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, to the staircase stenciled with brown/orange heart patterns. Step into the bar lounge, where fiberglass high-chairs accommodate a counter modestly festooned with miniature cacti, with more prints abound featuring playful skulls and brownbirds on a background of bright yellow.

True California Dreaming

It’s interesting that Before and Further presents a dreamscape commonly associated with California and the mythic West, but it’s a dream that’s also so completely antithetical to the sprawl-choked city of Los Angeles. On the second floor, in the middle of a wall, sits a miniature succulent garden roosted in plain porcelain cups, that juxtapose nicely with the angular greenery growing within. In some hidden sideroom, two steel-frame lawn chairs painted orange sit in a room sprayed to resemble maybe dusk at Echo Park, where palm trees stand, leaves outspread against the dying orange light. Twin swans offer a soft white respite to the warm tones. Everywhere is the amber glow of wooden homeliness, equal parts 70s craftsman bungalow and Western frontier cabin. Altogether, Before and Further impresses as the impossible dream-soul of the city it’s sitting in.

If the initial lounge seems too conventional to you, check out the one-person pyramidal hut flanked by ferns. Take another door, enter into a black-lit tripping booth, speckled with glow-in-the-dark decals, blasting Pink Floyd (“Interstellar Overdrive” to be exact).

The second floor comprises the playroom, complete with record player on a low wooden stool, surrounded by another patterned mat upon a soft burnt-orange rug; a set of headphones rests on its own designated pillow, invitingly, with a massive cartoon cat eyeing from behind. The entire house is similarly alive, as though there were faint big band music leaking from between the floorboards. Across the room there is a boardgame set up, and at every window are mounted binoculars and spyglasses trained on the street. And again, literally every square inch is tastefully plastered with the art of Dabs Myla.

A Marriage of Dream and Reality

Before and Further is not simply a product showcase or an art exhibition; it is a union of vision and utilitarian design, a realization of a livable dream. In that respect, it is remarkable how well Modernica’s product line matches with Dabs Myla’s artistic sensibilities, both visually and ideologically. The simultaneously modern and retro designs inhabit the whimsical landscape seamlessly, probably because both aesthetics revolve around reappropriation, reinvigoration of old forms in new settings to give a hauntingly familiar aura, like seeing a childhood breakfast cereal sitting inexplicably on the market shelf after being discontinued for decades

A vintage utopian consumerist dream brought into the present; the ramblings of a whimsical mind brought to life in sculpture and color; a two-story funhouse sitting in a remote corner of an iron-and-asphalt maze. Before and Further exhibited layers of expression that I didn’t expect, and it’s fitting in hindsight that my visit took place on the penultimate day of its passing. Dreams don’t last. They pop like soap bubbles, or, they coalesce, into a factory of dreams like Modernica, or a fruitful union like Dabs Myla.

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Cat Art Show LA 2: The Sequel came to Los Angeles this past weekend, proving the city’s love for all art–highbrow, lowbrow, and everything in between.  Invited artists included both established names and some more surprising personalities (Daryl from Walking Dead?), with all works centered around one theme: cats. Cats. And More Cats. 

What a time to be alive. A time where cats dominate the interwebs, and the cat-cult has spilled out into RL as not one, but two cat-themed art openings, both wildly successful. This year’s iteration materialized at Think Tank Gallery, a citywide favorite venue for its galleries intersecting popular and high-concept art. Even though it seems like there’s a talent-packed gallery opening every weekend in the city, Cat Art Show LA 2 cuts deep into popular taste, for obvious reasons. The appeal isn’t hard to understand: take a ludicrous visual theme, pour an incommensurate amount of professional talent into it, and voila! Instant scene, both digitally and physically.

Among the curated artists were illustration giants like Luke Chueh, fashion representatives like Tokidoki, renowned tattoo artist Kat Von D, and a smattering of names from left field. Yes, I’m talking about Norman Reedus, aka Daryl Dixon of Walking Dead-fame; apparently, when Daryl’s not tracking zombies through yards of thick foliage, he’s taking subtly surreal photographs. Cat Art Show LA 2 made an effort to include voices from all walks of artistic life, so as to capture the essence of ‘cat-ness’ from all possible angles, and they succeeded wildly.

The pieces at Cat Art Show LA 2 ranged from faux-fine art, to dynamic graphite sketches, photography, sculpture, illustration, and beyond. The effect was immersive, a glimpse into a parallel universe wherein the lifeform of Earth was feline-kind.

The first 2014 show attracted thousands of visitors, and this year’s iteration saw a packed gallery-space every single day of its too-short run, from March 24-27. Cat Art Show LA and its sequel were masterminded by journalist Susan Michals, also the founder of CatCon, because of course she is. In the gallery’s description, she makes an apt observation about the historical ubiquity of the cat:

“Cats have been part of our lives for thousands of years. The Egyptians frequently aligned them with the gods and artists like Picasso created masterpieces centered around cats. Now people post them on Instagram and artists interpret them.”

Here’s hoping for a threequel.

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It’s not often that the sweet tooth bites back, but that’s the premise behind the LA art installation Break Bread. Until mid-March, the Think Tank gallery space will host the installation’s fanged cake sculptures, urban memorial shrines, and more. Collectively, the pieces speak barbed volumes regarding consumerism, artifice, and the primitive urges that drive them.

Sweetness and Predation at a Provoking LA Art Installation

Los Angeles has no shortage of art galleries and creative events, but Break Bread still manages to stand above. Like any respectable LA art installation, it’s housed in a nondescript building in a similarly quotidian area of downtown. Past the entrance, the landing room houses a distantly erotic scene: a four-poster bed crowned with flowers, bathed in the pink neon of the Break Bread Logo. The room thoughtfully breaks the installation into two halves: the lavishly decorated cake galleries and installations through the doorways on the right, and the shadowy mirror maze through the left.

Getting Lost in the Thought

The first gallery is suffused in an incense-like blue hue,  with the solemn air of a child’s mausoleum. In one corner is a life-sized ice cream truck with a painstakingly illustrated menu of rocket pops, ice cream bars, etc. In the other corner stands a basketball hoop before a chainlink fence, with plush animals and stark portraits of pop culture icons festooning it. You’re reminded of an urban shrine for the deceased, the kind you see on neighborhood sidewalks, resplendent with candles and offerings. In that respect, this LA art installation shows off a distinctly Angeleno aesthetic in this memorial to childhood.

The other room houses the installation’s gorgeous cake sculptures and other pieces. The most eye-catching are the wall-mounted cakes exaggerated to resemble big game trophies. Beneath the ornamental icing and fruit fringes, the cakes boast toothy taxidermy maws poised to strike. The detail makes the viewer feel simultaneously endangered by the lurking beast, and fascinated by the beautiful confections adorning it.

The installation’s other half is drastically different; the entrance is marked by a single cake sculpture of a darkened mansion. This is the entrance to the underbelly of animalistic intent lurking beneath the glitzy plumage of the installation’s first part. Past the cake mansion, you’ll find yourself in a small prison cell decorated with bleached white bones and the sound of radio static.

And beyond that lies a mirror maze with tropical details throughout. Here, reflections and notions of identity and intent rebound and entangle with one another. One exit leads to a cubical space where two opposing mirrors reflect the viewer into infinity. The third wall projects scenes of rainfall and fire in contradictory alternation. The other exit leads you through a dimly lit boutique with ceiling disco balls and cake-and-foliage chandeliers.

The mirror maze and boutique exit back into the landing room with the four-poster bed. Yes, the two halves of the installation coincide in the bedroom, suggesting that the diammetrically opposed forces of artifice and natural savagery find simultaneous expression in sexuality and intimacy.

Much Thanks to Think Tank

Break Bread occupies the Think Tank gallery space in downtown LA. The artists behind Break Bread are Banksy collaborator Scott Hove and CalArts illustration graduate Keith Magruder, aka Baker’s Son. Hove is currently continuing his Cakeland project, challenging “society’s notions of comfort, pleasure, celebration and their dark counterparts.” Magruder’s works in turn offer “an artistic commentary on the socio-political aspects of food and the relationship that people and cultures around the world share with it.”

Break Bread is accessible, and free to visit daily from 11am to 5pm, except Wednesdays (and with RSVP). In the evenings, the space hosts special ticketed events. These range from culinary experiences, to poetry readings, and theatrical performances. It’s certainly one of the more engrossing LA art installations in recent memory, and at the price of absolutely free, it’s an experience that can’t be beat.

All photos taken with the Fujifilm XM1.

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Yesterday, LA was treated to the newest Giant Robot Gallery, a ‘Year of the Monkey’-themed showcase featuring a typically excellent array of both veteran and up-and-coming artists. Even if you missed the reception last night, which saw several of the artists in attendance,  you’ll be able to view the pieces up until February 10th.

The Monkey King (Revisited) by Luke Chueh

Year of the Monkey by Maggie Chiang

Monkey and Plum Blossom by Martin Hsu

The Year of the Monkey

Traditionally, the Monkey sign of the Chinese zodiac represents mischievousness, playfulness, and cleverness–in other words, you couldn’t hope for a more fitting set of keywords for the new Giant Robot gallery, an excellently-curated show from one of the foremost voices in alt-pop culture and illustration. While some pieces locked onto some of the more traditional attributes of the Monkey, such as its affinity to water and metal, others chose to highlight the universal craftiness of the creature, while still others chose to accentuate its physical form. The pieces also ranged from more peaceful, contemplative imagery, as above, to more complex and nearly psychedelic pieces.

Abstract Monkey King by Yu Maeda

Hyotan Namazu by Candie Bolton

by Moira Hahn

Also impressive were the non-illustration submissions, which included sculpture, mixed-media works, and photography, to lend depth to an already stunning Giant Robot Gallery.

Earthly Delight by Aaron Brown

Print by Sean Chao

Giant Robot Past and Present

The Year of the Monkey gallery clearly indicates Giant Robot’s influence as a powerful tastemaker and venue for everything cutting-edge in the popular creative arts. GR started out as a print magazine with a focus on Asian American culture, with special regards to graphic arts, skateboarding culture, and collectibles, but steadily grew into a multi-faceted venture, and at one time boasted galleries and outposts in New York and San Francisco. Though their final issue was released back in 2007, they still continue to hold tremendous sway in art scenes in LA and beyond. Currently, GR occupies two locations on Sawtelle Blvd. near Westwood Village in Los Angeles, CA; GR2 (located at 2015 Sawtelle Blvd) functions as the group’s artspace, while the main Giant Robot store (located at 2062 Sawtelle Blvd.) boasts an array of merchandise from contemporary print artists, zine makers, and vinyl toy companies.

Giant Robot just finished celebrating their 4th Biennale at the Japanese American Museum in LA’s Little Tokyo district, which included pieces from such modern-day masters as Yoskay Yamamoto, James Jean, and Audrey Kawasaki. Today, unfortunately, was the final day to view the massive retrospective, but if Year of the Monkey is any indication, this certainly won’t be the last we’ll hear from GR.

Untitled by Miso

Untitled by Theo Ellsworth

Blooming Tea by Shihori Nakayama

The Bubble by Peter Chan

Monkey by Mari Inukai

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