Scion kicks off the next incarnation of its  national art tour this weekend in Los Angeles. Installation 6: VIDEO features an all-video lineup which will visit several cities over the coming months. Featured artists are: Dust la Rock (Brooklyn, NY), Eric Nakamura (Los Angeles, CA), Saelee Oh (Los Angeles, CA), Funeral Fog (French + Alan Glass) (London, England), Ill-Studio (Paris, France), Josh Graham (New York, NY), Monihan Monihan (New York, NY), Mark Mothersbaugh (Los Angeles, CA), PMKFA (Tokyo, Japan) and Sage Vaughn (Los Angeles, CA)

January 23rd, 7pm – 10pm (runs through Feb 13)
@ Scion Installation L.A.
3521 Helms Ave (at National)
Culver City, CA. 90232
www.scion.com/installation

free valet | open bar | all artists in attendance

Should be interesting, here’s a sneak preview:

Scion Installation 6: Video – Los Angeles from Scion ART on Vimeo.

This info comes courtesy of DJ Franchise of KnowTheLedge.com who will be spinning at this event and has been raising awareness on behalf of the Holy Grail store.

Know The Ledge is hosting a special event in Los Angeles on July 19th to help LA sneaker store,The Holy Grail. As you may have seen on the news, The Holy Grail was looted of all but 20 of its sneakers the evening that the LA Lakers won the championship. Not one to sit and rest in self-pity, The Holy Grail has picked up from where they left off and aggressively worked in the following days after the Lakers Looting to rebuild the store and reopen for business. Among the many that offered support and help, Know The Ledge pulled together an event that allows sneaker addicts to consign their shoes at a great rate, receive free giveaways, and enjoy the spirit of hip-hop and celebration on July 19th. Come join us from 12-6pm for the gathering of sneaker addicts and rebuilding of a great LA store!

Opening this weekend at Mid-City Arts is Miami Graffiti, a celebration of Jim & Karla Murray’s book documenting the Miami graffiti scene, and an art show featuring the work of many of Miami’s top street artists.
July 11, 7pm – 9pm
www.midcity-arts.com

MID CITY ARTS PRESENTS: MIAMI GRAFFITI – Street Art Exhibit, Installation & Book Signing
Mid-City Arts continues to bring the best of street art to Los Angeles with its latest show honoring the Miami graffiti scene. “Miami Graffiti” opens July 11, 7pm – 9pm and will be on view through July 26th.

Rapidly becoming one of the United States’ top graffiti destinations, Miami, Florida is home to a deep well of talented artists driven by a fiercely competitive graffiti scene.  Miami’s profile has risen thanks to the city’s role as host to the famed “Art Basel” and most recently “Primary Flight.” “Primary Flight” is the internationally acclaimed, site-specific, street level mural installation that takes place during Art Basel. Artists that have graced the Primary Flight walls include Crome, MSG, Typoe as well as Blek Le Rat, Retna, El Mac, David Choe, Revok and many others.

Miami Graffiti by photographers Jim and Karla Murray is the first book to capture Miami’s graffiti scene. Documenting 20+ years of graffiti art and history along with Miami’s most notorious crews and writers, Miami Graffiti is a detailed presentation of South Florida’s past, present, and future of graffiti.

Mid City Arts’ “Miami Graffiti” show is a celebration of the release of Jim and Karla Murray’s book – they will be on hand to sign books -  and a showcase of some of Florida’s finest street artists from the MSG, TCP, SH and THC crews. Artists from these crews are coming out to Los Angeles and will be displaying their work in the gallery as well as customizing the gallery’s back yard space. Featured artists include Crome, Typoe, Acme, Enve, Murder, Afex, Kemo, Cynic, Gere, Flojoe and others. The show is curated by “Slow”.

The MSG crew formed in 1994 by a group of kids bonded through their shared street backgrounds and love of graffiti. Now, 14 years later, MSG has evolved into a creative collective that has expanded into everything from graphic design and fine art, to retail and product design, and everything in between. South Florida’s Crome is one that region’s graffiti pioneers. Crome’s work is an amalgam of sex, color, crime and fun. Drawing inspiration from Miami’s clashing of tropical South Beach & seedy underbelly of Downtown Districts, he creates images that reflect the dichotomy between the beauty, style and color of the former, while balancing it with the images of prostitution; drive bys and drugs of the latter. Crome is multifaceted and multi-dimensional.  He’s an artist with a dark past and a bright future making his mark on the vanilla, superficial Miami art scene.

More info: http://www.midcity-arts.com

Two of street art’s finest talents, Retna and El Mac, are appearing together at 33Third this Sunday, June 7 for a rare live painting collaboration. The two have worked together on several well-known street pieces, but this will be a great opportunity to watch them work their magic live before your eyes! The event will take place from 12pm-6pm at 33Third and will also mark the opening of their joint show in the adjoining Mid-City Arts gallery. An afternoon not to be missed.

Check out the teaser video:

Retna & The Mac – Mid-City Arts – Preview from elemental on Vimeo.

Some examples of their collaborations:

Can’t wait for this one! Lisa Shaw will be at Strictly Social this Weds!

Nu-Soul Magazine & Soul Union are proud to present a very special edition of Strictly Social on Wednesday May 20, 2009.

Salted Music recording artist and soulful house music legend Lisa Shaw will be gracing our stage for a very special intimate live performance that you won’t see anywhere else. With the release of her second artist album, FREE, Lisa Shaw continues to produce eclectic soul and soothing house with her one-of-a-kind voice.

This intimate set will differ from the DJ oriented house sets many clubgoers are used to seeing Lisa perform at. Instead Strictly Social will place Lisa among live musicians for a unique journey into her diverse body of work.
Read the Lisa Shaw interview
www.myspace.com/lisashawmusic
www.saltedmusic.com

DO NOT MISS THIS SPECIAL SHOW!
THERE IS A LIMITED CAPACITY AT THIS VENUE AND IT WILL SELL OUT SO PRESALES ARE RECOMMENDED!
Limited $10 presales available at  Groovetickets.com
$12 at the door

Strictly Social Residents Destroyer and Myxzlplix will keep it sexy with their patented blend of progressive soul and soulful electronica.

In the B Room Jayvon and Atlantic Connection present Soul Good, a night of sexy and soulful drum&bass.

Strictly Social
Wednesday May 20, 2009
9pm-2am
21+
Little Temple
4519 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90029
www.myspace.com/lastrictlysocial
www.littletemple.com

I didn’t grow up in LA but for those who did, around the early 90s, Chaka was a mysterious, but ubiquitous presence in the city. He left his signature tag in literally tens of thousands of places around the LA city-scape, gaining the unwanted attention of the authorities, as well as a new level of infamy, previously unknown for any graffiti artist. These days Chaka does only permission- based work and he is having his first solo show ever. Mid-City Arts is hosting this memorable event which opens this weekend, Saturday April 25th 7:00pm – 9:00pm. Full details below.
www.chakaone.com
www.midcity-arts.com

Chaka – Show Teaser from elemental on Vimeo.

Mid-City Arts Presents The First Solo Show From Chaka, Los Angeles’ Most Infamous Graffiti Artist

Mid-City Arts is pleased to present the first solo show ever from the infamous LA graffiti artist, Chaka. Resurrection opens April 25th and will feature highly anticipated new work from the mysterious Chaka.

Daniel Ramos, AKA Chaka, was 18 when he was arrested and charged in 1991 with 48 counts of vandalism, trespassing and causing $500,000 in property damage. Chaka’s signature tag had appeared in a staggering 10,000 locations from Orange County to San Francisco. At the height of his notoriety Chaka was demonized by mainstream media and culture as being little more than a prolific vandal. At the same time he was celebrated by street artists who admired the ability of a teenager from the projects to literally make his mark on the vast, glitzy LA cityscape in such a ubiquitous manner. He is credited with breaking away from the New York “wildstyle” popular at the time and introducing clearer, more blockish lettering into tagging. Chaka was one of the first to create a reputation as a recognizable individual tagger, and spawned many imitators. However Chaka was not just a lone operative. He was part of the LOD crew and as such, his work in reclaiming hard to reach places of the cityscape (freeway overpasses, walls, trains etc) on behalf of his crew is recognized by fellow taggers as a selfless achievement for LA’s graffiti scene as a whole.

After spending a year tracking down the once unavoidable Chaka, Mid-City Arts presents his first solo show. For Chaka’s fans as well as street art collectors, this will be a rare opportunity to revisit the nostalgia of the early 90’s, and own a piece of LA’s cultural history. Chaka himself will be in attendance and there will be a limited number of signed posters in addition to his works available for sale. The opening reception will take place April 25th, 7:00-9:00pm at Mid-City Arts, 5113 West Pico Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90019. For more info visit: www.chakaone.com

Mid-City Arts was established in September 2009 as an extension of the store 33third – LA’s premier source of graffiti art supplies, streetwear apparel, and related books and magazines. The gallery was established with the purpose of showcasing local, national, and international artwork by up and coming and established artists with a focus on (but not limited to) graffiti / street / urban art. Mid-City Arts offers a show space that interacts with other artists and events that surround the 33third Los Angeles location. The gallery’s artwork is available to view by the active customer base of 33third, which includes graffiti artists and fans of graffiti art. Mid-City Arts is open Monday through Sunday 12-8PM. For more information, visit: www.midcity-arts.com

Progressive soul newcomer Brittany Bosco is coming to LA! She will perform at The Dakota Lounge on April 26th, along with Mike Baker, Definite, Joe Wells, and Nola Darling.

Should be a good ‘un!

Culver City’s art scene is burgeoning and the Cerasoli Gallery is a new, but important player in town. This weekend they present a unique opening featuring three artists: John Grande, Nick Potter and Franziska Klotz. Preview images from Glamour and Gloom here

April 18  – May 13 , 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday April 18, 6 – 9pm

here’s the official word about the show:

C E R A S O L I  gallery presents the fine art work of three painters invoking various photographic genres in their work:  John Grande in Gallery One, Franziska Klotz in Gallery Two, and Nick Potter in Gallery Three at the Cerasoli Gallery (8530-B Washington Blvd in Culver City). Opens April 18, 2009, and remains on view through May 13, 2009.  Opening reception is Saturday, April 18, from 6pm  – 8pm.

In Gallery One, contemporary painter John Grande’s oil on canvas portraits often resemble archival budoir photographs cleverly interwoven with archetypal gender narratives.  Grande’s approach to painting is influenced by high fashion photographers such as Annie Liebowitz, with whom the artist worked as a printmaker for years.  His doll-like subjects are rendered in high relief with dramatic light and dark contrasts, reflecting both innocence and idealistic beauty as well as eluding to underlying chaos and mystery.  Inspired by life and the consequences of its destruction, Grande’s paintings touch on enigmas of sexual culture and stereotypes while investigating the connection between art and fashion.  Grande’s work has been exhibited worldwide with solo shows in Canada and the United States.

German-born artist Franziska Klotz collects, tags, and archives snapshots, which she then reconfigures as paintings that are often contradictory and dreamily abstract.  Klotz’s deconstruction and composition process is not unlike the creation of a recipe whose end result no longer bears any resemblance to its original list of ingredients.  Klotz’s layering technique allows viewers to make connections organically, rather than immediately: the representational quality of the paintings are embedded  deep within the works. Delicious pastel hues are engulfed in shadow, cloaked in encroaching darkness and discord, conflating references to Monet and De Kooning.  In many of Klotz’s large-scale paintings, brush and spackle paint applications coincide with graphic elements and aerosol techniques, further emphasizing Klotz’s consideration of the boundaries between depiction and abstraction, image and afterimage, expression and impression.

Influenced by the banality of everyday spaces in his native England, Nick Potter’s current works use architectural spaces and images of desire to explore the implicit interrelations between class, materialism, isolation and anxiety.  Visually seductive, photo-real depictions of familiar Modernist settings and subjects constitute Potter’s compelling and, at times, unnerving imagery.   Utilizing a gorgeous, sliding scale of grays in his black and white works, Potter employ elements of simplification and abstraction to build tension and to sow the underlying sense of anxiety and foreboding of our post-Cold War society within his dewy utopias.  Potter’s recent exhibitions include a 2008 show at the La Salle University Art Museum in Philadelphia.  He is an Associate Professor at Cal State University, Fresno.

Strictly Social was off the chain as usual last night. Excellent performances from Erik Rico and Kissey Asplund were just the beginning….an impromptu freestyle session featuring cameos from Jimi James and Babystone’s Novena Carmel, and orchestrated by fantastic beat selections from DJ Anthony Valadez, was the highlight. Their birthday serenade to organizer and Nu-Soul founder Norman Mayers was also pretty sweet! I nabbed the following pics from Vala’s blog – please head over there for more pics and his wrap-up of the event. Next month Strictly Social is hosting Lisa Shaw, so that’s gonna be a must-see as well…..