On Saturday afternoon Sam and I headed to Culver City to check out the Art Walk.  Sam liked this one better than the downtown Art Walk.  I reluctantly have to agree, it was easier to navigate, had better art and wasn’t on a week day.

Culver City is becoming a very trendy area, no doubt in part because of the boom in art galleries catering to the New Brow movement.  The area is also a hotbed of young architecture, home furnishings, antiques and other “young educated liberal elitist” trappings.  (only a hint of sarcasm there, as I’d actually love to be one of those liberal elitists that could afford a home worth decorating with the supplies found in those stores)

One home (siding?) store had these curious moss balls sitting in a big basin.

A gallery had this triptych featuring… Ohio State fans?

One gallery had huge amounts of wall space with very little art on the walls, and a back room that had this:

The videos were accompanied by audio that started off (when we walked in) with: “I want to look at my vagina… I mean… I can’t just bend over and look… I need some kind of tool, y’know… I -” and we walked out.

Walking further down the street we approached the epicenter of the Culver City arts scene, the one-two punch of Thinkspace and Lebasse Projects:

Upon walking into the Kopeikin Gallery’s back room we were greeted with this odd sculpture:

We thought we were in for more modern art nonsence, but after examining the prints on the walls we were pleasantly surprised.  Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick have created some very impressive photoshopped photocollages.  These are parts Dali, parts Beksinski and parts Geddes (the astronaut fixation).

Below are a few of my favorites (that I would buy if I was a wealthy man)

Later, we walked into Blum and Poe to find nothing but a sign on the wall with an artist’s name, exhibit title and dates.  We kept walking, joking “is this the show?  empty walls?  How ground-breaking…”  However, a few more turns and our jaws dropped when we found these massive brick sculptures by Zhang Huan:

This little (big) piggy went to the garden.

So Sam could pet it.

Walking into another gallery we could see a lot of people, but no art in the window.  We decided to take the plunge and walk in.  As we walked into the main room we could hear the beating of drums and cymbals, like a kabuki theater.  It turns out it was a home-made marionette kabuki in which the marionettes fought to the death.  Unfortunately we came as the characters were almost finished.

The gallery was filled with strange sculptures made from every day materials.  The one below reminds me of something that Tim Burton might make for a stop-motion film.

A bit further along we came to a private club that had every wall covered in succulents.

Our last stops were thinkspace and Lebasse.

The only thing I liked at Thinkspace was a Fumi Nakamura piece:

John Park was doing live painting outside:

At LeBasse the only things I liked were these Melissa Haslam paintings:

This Matt Haber piece:

and this Edwin Ushiro piece:

Further down the street two old dudes were playing in the alley.

There were a few other pieces I liked at Koplin Del Rio:

Marina Moevs – Fog VI

Robert Schultz – I can’t find an image of the drawing I liked online – but here is something similar, you get the idea – very intricate and delicate pencil work…

For some reason on Saturday my allergies exploded.  My nose was running like a faucet and my head was becoming extremely congested.  I was thinking about skipping my next destination (Sam opted out), the Hive opening.  Glad I didn’t though, as there was a buyer interested in my painting.  When you don’t show up for the opening, the gallery takes an extra 10% of the sale.  Ordinarily I wouldn’t write about the Hive opening, but save it all for the Art Walk post, however, here I’m going post a few shots because there are a few sights that won’t be there for the art walk.

Exterior, hive of activity

Inside, lots of “circus” themed art, people dressed up and a band playing

(that’s my piece, the long vertical one above the fan – I’ll post a full photo after my Downtown Art Walk review later this week)

I keep seeing this guy with an Andy Warhol wig at art openings.   At this opening he was interviewing two of the more bombastically costumed attendees.

One of the featured sections of the Hive had clown drawings from the Chiodo Brothers.  You may not know who they are at first, until you take a closer look at their drawings, mostly characters from their cult classic film: Killer Klowns from Outer Space.  I actually liked the drawings, the line quality was quite good.  One of the brothers was sitting outside the Hive doing live drawings.  I’ll blog with photos of the actual art when I cover the Hive for the art walk later this week.  For now, here is Charles drawing outside the gallery: