Jessie Rose Vala: Future Teller

Ever Gold Gallery in San Francisco presents Future Teller from artist artist Jessie Rose Vala. Vala is known for her site specific installations that emphasize her diverse skill with multiple media backgrounds. Future Teller is an elaborate three dimensional mythology that serves as the artist’s personal investigation into Man’s fall from ‘Paradise’, as depicted in a utopian existence. Many cultures and religions maintain a belief in a ‘Tree of Life’ or a ‘Great Tree’ that describes or reflects the human journey back to a spiritually divine existence. Vala’s prior installations have involved rebirth and decay as primary theme, and this new body of work also follows that path, examining the subject from both eastern and western perspectives. Her graphite drawings directly interact with and support the other aspects of the installation.This encompassing environment has been built through the meticulous layering of materials over a six month period between Brooklyn, NY and Portland, OR. Future Teller was conceptualized by Vala and presentation will be assisted by San Francisco based independent writer and curator, Gabe Scott. Future Teller is on view until November 25 at Ever Gold Gallery, 441 O'Farrel Street, San Francisco. 

Bombs & Candy

From Rizzoli publishers comes first monograph, entitled Bombs and Candy, on Kata Legrady's works presenting a collection of drawings, photographs, sculptures, and video installations. Kata Legrady belongs to that long and bountiful line of artists for whom an object offers the stimulus for artistic thought and action. Her work takes the form of a symbolic encounter between two distinct universes: on the one side, weapons of war, and on the other, confectionary. In other words, there is a short-circuit between the lethal and the inoffensive; a tension between childhood and destruction, between carefree and suffering. The use of Smarties--those famous multicolored 'pills'--cannot but evoke the "colored dots" used by Roy Lichtenstein to create his enlarged and framed comic strip images. With the difference, however, that these Smarties are not used to create images but to decorate weapons, covering them systematically, although this is not enough to make them unusable or unrecognizable. In the hands of the artist, machine guns, grenades and knives become strange and colorful, almost beautiful and appealing. There are also bombs of various formats and size, varying from a few centimeters to several meters. This time, they are not recovered objects, however, but sculptures of essential form covered in metallic industrial paint.

Big In Japan

Butoh dancer Yuko Kaseki

Big In Japan, which was established in June 2009 in Australia by fashion brand Ksubi and Kirin as a platform for cultural exchange, presents Big In Japan 2011 with art exhibitions and performances by leading experimental Japanese artists in Sydney and Melbourne such as Kyozin Yueni Dekai, OVe-NaXx, Fuyuki Yamakawa, Onnacodomo and Yuko Kaseki. This year the events take place at Paddington Town Hall in Sydney (November 15 and 16) and 1000 Pound Bend in Melbourne (November 18 and 19).

Douglas Gordon Retrospective

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Born in Glasgow in 1966, Douglas Gordon is today among the most important as well as the most influential artists of his generation. While he is famous for his films and large-scale video installations such as 24 Hours Psycho, his oeuvre also encompasses photographs, texts, sculptures and sound installations. In addition to Play Dead; Real Time, one of Gordon’s chief pieces, the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst also has a number of other photo and video works by this artist in its holdings. Together they will provide the point of departure for the first major retrospective to be presented on Douglas Gordon in Europe since his show at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg in 2007. With his analyses of images drawn from the collective memory and everyday culture, Gordon exposes basic patterns of perception. Within this framework, his works often revolve around phenomena of duplication and reflection: the couple, the double, light and dark, guilt and justice, etc. His latest work is entitled k.364, which stands for “Köchelverzeichnis No. 364”, the Köchel catalogue number assigned to the Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Vienna in 1779. After hearing this work of chamber music in Poznań (Poland), Gordon organized another performance of it with the well-known musicians Avri Levitan (viola), Roi Shiloah (violin) and the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio. The musicians’ journey from Berlin to Warsaw by way of Poznań and the performance of the symphony in Warsaw account for the major proportion of the film. The two musicians’ conversations on their way to Poland reveal that their pasts, and those of their parents, are complexly interwoven with German-Polish relations, and above all with the history of the Polish Jews during World War II. The new film k.364 will be supplemented with the pieces by Gordon in the MMK collection and a large number of other prominent works of the past years to form a comprehensive exhibition – the first to assemble the latest works and thus to provide a concentrated and impressive overview of this multifaceted artist’s oeuvre. On view from November 19 to March 25 at the Museum für Moderne Kunst.  

Talking Pictures

Talking Pictures brings together over 200 black and white images culled from Ellen Graham’s work for such magazines as People and Time, her personal archives, and her collection of family photographs. Each photograph is accompanied by a personal narrative that takes you behind the scenes of these celebrated images and breathes life into the glamour of Hollywood’s golden age. Each portrait captures a rare and unguarded moment in the lives of these highly-photographed stars, giving a truly intimate and fresh look at such legendary figures as Frank Sinatra, Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, and Prince Albert of Monaco. Whether shooting actors, performers, or European royalty, Graham redefines the resonating myths that have come to surround these iconic characters. Ellen Graham: Talking Pictures is out now on Pointed Lead Press.

Thomas Ruff

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Thomas Ruff (b. 1958), known for his deadpan portraits and gorgeous views of the night sky and architecture, is one of Germany's leading contemporary artist/photographers. Among his work is an exploration of the internet, that parallel visual universe teeming with sexuality of every flavor and variety. He gathers from that virtual playground erotic and often pornographic photographs that he subsequently manipulates in his computer, making beautiful--and disturbing--artwork from visual material that, for better or worse, is probably more abundant than any other type of image in our world today. The pictures, which are graphic and abstract at the same time, are accompanied by an excerpt from a forthcoming novel by controversial French writer Michel Houellebecq, whose work is similarly influenced by the sex industry. Reviewing the series in the Village Voice, Jerry Saltz wrote: "Ruff may think these images are analytic or objective, but they're also sweetly, luxuriantly visual...Sex slips into something ravishingly, optically comfortable, and these everyday, off-world images morph into parapaintings from the Planet Love."

Bruce of Los Angeles: Beefcakes and Boundaries

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As part of Pacific Standard Time, Pop tART Gallery in Los Angeles presents Bruce of Los Angeles: Beefcakes and Boundaries. In the same pioneering spirit as many others who have packed their bags and headed west, Photographer Bruce Bellas, or Bruce of Los Angeles as he came to be known, arrived in California in 1946 and immediately began challenging the norms of acceptable society. With post-war conservatism growing, Bruce of Los Angeles photographed Muscle Beach’s most beautiful male bodies and published an extensive body of homoerotic work during a time when institutionalized homophobia was the norm. His pin-up images of the male physique pressed the boundaries between art and obscenity. Having influenced contemporary photographers such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Bruce Weber, and Herb Ritts, Bruce of Los Angeles is regarded as a “creative force in the establishment of the modern American homosexual identity”. This exhibition will showcase original prints of the photographers extensive body of work as well as exhibit the work of contemporary artists who’ve found inspiration in the classic style and boundary breaking approach that mark the contribution Bruce of Los Angeles made to art as we know it today. Bruce of Los Angeles: Beefcakes and Boundaries is on view until December 21

Hollywood Arsenal

For his latest journey, Hollywood Arsenal, artist James Georgopoulos combines unique and extremely large silver gelatin prints with elegant multi-layered fields of acrylic paint. These meticulous and painstakingly produced prints are created in a mural darkroom, and each image often combines many layers of individually toned and processed fiber based prints which are then layered and trimmed to create a unique, seamless, and extraordinarily powerful artistic statement. Georgopoulos has amassed Hollywood’s most notorious arsenal in one location. He has photographed famous cinematic guns along with a selection of motion picture cameras used to record some of the most celebrated film and television shows ever made. Hollywood Arsenal will benefit The Art of Elysium, a non-profit organization. Founded in 1997 by Jennifer Howell, the group encourages actors, artists and musicians to voluntarily dedicate their time and talent to children who are battling serious medical conditions. The Art of Elysium provides artistic workshops in acting, art, comedy, fashion, music, radio, songwriting and creative writing. On view Saturday, November 12, 2011, 7:00pm - 11:00pm – Siren Studios 6063 W. Sunset Blvd. Hollywood, CA.

Melody Nelson

Artnet Auctions announces the sale of nine rare and beautiful works by photographer Tony Frank (French, b.1945) to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the legendary album, Histoire de Melody Nelson, by iconic French singer and artist Serge Gainsbourg. This photographic sale includes the memorable album cover, which contributed to Melody Nelson’s stature in French culture, and will only be on artnet Auctions until November 16, 2011.

Rita's Opening

Rita Lino is an unabashed, self exploratory photographer based in Porto, Portugal. Her work delves deep into the psyche of the feminine in a post-modern landscape where there is no curtain to hide behind.  Rita also makes brilliant short cinematic shorts that bring her photography to life. She just sent over her latest video, entitled Rita's Opening, which is a personal statement of sorts of her art and work.

Nate Lowman: Thirty Million Dollar Smile

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Triple A is a two-year public art project initiated by Francois Ghebaly, Emma Gray, Mandrake Bar and OHWOW gallery. Eight internationally recognized artists will be asked to create a single color image to be painted at large scale on the exterior wall of a former muffler shop that sits at the corner of Venice Boulevard and La Cienega Boulevard, just south of the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles California. The wall, situated in the Culver City gallery district, also sits at one of the most heavily trafficked intersections in Los Angeles.This location offers high visibility to both arts professionals and the larger general public. The eight images painted on the wall over the course of the project will also be used to create a suite of eight individual silkscreen prints in an edition of ten. The inaugural project, a wall painting by New York based artist Nate Lowman, is now on view. Lowman's piece, Thirty Million Dollar Smile, is a halftone transfer of a photograph of Julia Roberts originally taken for a Loreal campaign, but later rejected by Roberts because she felt the image was over-photoshopped. The mural is located at 2600 South La Cienega Blvd.

Sweet Violence

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Sweet Violence is the first museum exhibition in the United States of the work of Sanja Iveković (b. 1949, Zagreb) covers four decades of the artist's remarkable career. A feminist, activist, and video pioneer, Iveković came of age in the post-1968 period, when artists broke free from mainstream institutional settings, laying the ground for a form of praxis antipodal to official art. Part of the generation known as the Nova Umjetnička Praska (New Art Practice), Iveković produced works of cross-cultural resonance that range from conceptual photomontages to video and performance. Sanja Iveković: Sweet Violence is on view at the MoMA in NYC from December 18 to March 26, 2012.