wakarusa is holding a poster design contest, and the winner gets 2 VIP passes to the festival. seeing as we’re a fairly creative bunch, i thought some of you might be interested. you can find the details at: http://wakarusa.com/2009/poster_contest.asp
Cai initially began working with gunpowder to foster spontaneity and confront the suppression that he felt from the controlled artistic tradition and social climate in China at the time. While living in Japan from 1986 to 1995, Cai explored the properties of gunpowder in his drawings, an inquiry that eventually led to his experimentation with explosives on a massive scale, and the development of his signature explosion events, exemplified in his series, Projects for Extraterrestrials. These explosion projects, both wildly poetic and ambitious at their core, aim to establish an exchange between viewers and the larger universe around them.
Cai quickly achieved international prominence during his tenure in Japan and his work was shown widely around the world. His approach draws on a wide variety of symbols, narratives, traditions and materials such as feng shui, Chinese medicine, dragons, roller coasters, computers, vending machines and gunpowder.
Celebration
Dragon-Sight
Five Olympic Rings: Fireworks Project for the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games
Inopportune: Stage One
Head On
Dream
Kaleidoscope: Time Tunnel
UFO
Dear CoSM Community,
Over the past year, we have become great friends with Jan Mathews, CEO of East West Living in Manhattan. East West has hosted numerous CoSM related presentations, including the recent official unveiling of Alex’s portrait of Barak Obama. East West Living is the planet’s most awesome spiritual book & gift store with a delightful vegetarian cafe on the mezzanine, and an event and yoga space upstairs.
As CoSM was closing its doors in Chelsea, Jan realized a mutual opportunity to transform the beautiful East West Yoga Studio into a magnificent gallery to include some of the most important works of art from the Chapel collection. Thanks to her generosity, the beautiful second floor studios at East West Living are now transforming into CoSM @ East West Gallery. Though the 21 piece Sacred Mirrors series will remain off view, in their “chrysalis” as CoSM Art Sanctuary in upstate New York undergoes its metamorphosis, many other popular works such as “Theologue”, “Cosmic Christ”, “Net of Being”, and Allyson’s “Nameless Presence” will be exhibited on the second floor at 78 Fifth Avenue @ 14th Street, a refuge for contemplation and renewal in the middle of New York City.
East West will continue to host yoga classes, workshops, movies, social events and rentals around the gallery schedule. CoSM’s Manhattan retail store will open at East West Gallery, with a complete selection of Alex Grey prints and posters, apparel and artistic gifts.
Love,
Alex and Allyson
About the new CosM Art Sancutary in Wappinger, NY:
Full Moon celebrations in 2009 will be hosted in a variety of locations and begin on the land after renovation has prepared a space for guests, anticipated for late spring 2009. The exhibition of Alex Grey’s Sacred Mirrors collection will not be open until the spring of 2010, after massive renovations of the existing brick exhibition hall.
A Portland based artist, who’s exhibition’s are mostly shown in San Francisco. He recently had a show at the Joshua Liner Gallery in NYC alongside the artist Mars-1. Some of his work includes elements of Surrealism. He describes the overall theme of his work as Armageddon and the end of life on this planet as we know it.
http://soule23.tumblr.com/ << Artist’s Blog
“self determined entropy can produce highly contagious effects, until the horizon line begins to recede and the ends become independent of narrative.” – Damon Soule
Gemini Jesus
Molecular Tree
Birdbrother
Mati Klarwein, although considered a psychedelic artist by some, when asked in an interview “How do you feel about being classified as a psychedelic painter?” his response was:
I think it’s subjective. Anybody can classify me as they wish. In the fifties I was classified as an illustrator, even though my work consisted of paintings. And in the sixties my work was classified as psychedelic. So I took psychedelics to find out what it was all about. I found out I couldn’t paint on them. I’ll tell you about a funny episode. Jean Houston and Robert Masters put together a book called Psychedelic Art in the sixties, and they came to me. They did an interview with me, like we’re doing now, to include me in their book. And they asked me, “What kind of psychedelics do you take when you’re painting?” And I said, “I don’t take anything when I’m painting. When I take psychedelics I get very horny, and I start going out to nightclubs and cruising.”
So they said, “Well, we can’t put you in the book.” I freaked out, because I wasn’t in any book yet (laughter), and I said, “But I get my ideas when I’m high.” And they said, “Alright, we’ll put you in the book.” Next they asked me for the names of other psychedelic painters, and I gave them a whole list, including Fuchs. I called them all up right away, and I told them, “Tell them that you’re taking psychedelics!” And they all got in the book.
Nativity, 1961
Clone (unfinished), 2002
Zonked, 1971
Time, 1965
One More Thing, 2005
Deitch Projects Installation view
Waterwall, 2004
Untitled (Painted wall of faces), 2005
Acrylic on panel, Dimensions variable
One More Thing, 2005
Installation View, Deitch Projects
Fusing together found and invented imagery, tags and assorted objects Barry McGee draws on a range of influences including the Mexican muralists, tramp art, the graffiti artists of the 70’s and 80’s and the San Francisco Beat poets to create a unique visual language. The work has the strong immediately recognizable visual signature of the best graffiti art, but is also enormously poetic and evocative. It communicates the artist’s strong empathy with people who have been left behind by contemporary society. Also known by his street name, twist, Barry McGee has a large following in the street art community. He has been working on the streets of San Francisco, his native city, since the mid 1980’s where his images continue to endure on walls, mailboxes and other surfaces despite the continuous campaign of public authorities to paint them out. McGee has long resisted showing his works in museums and commercial galleries but he has recently become more active ion the conventional art world context.
“By subverting corporate iconography, former skater punk Ryan McGinness has built a reputation as a Warhol for the 21st century.”—Black Book
“McGinness has knocked the stuffing out of the spare, modernist white-cube concept of a gallery and filled it with his own brand of art: ornate, jazzy pop visions that spring as much from graffiti and corporate logos as they do from art history.”—Boston Globe
Aesthetic Comfort, 2008
acrylic on canvas paintings with vinyl installation under black light
“Color and form explode from the corners of Ryan McGinness’ slick, graphic mindscapes. His unique and accessible visual language is generated by his imagination and day-to-day environment. Layering images and symbols, McGinness’ cacophonous microcosms express his reality as much as our own.”—Zink
Aesthetic Comfort, 2008
acrylic on canvas paintings with vinyl installation under black light
