Arts Archives - Page 10 of 40

Vernon Chatman: A Twisted TV Writer’s Inadvertent Porn Comedy

Accomplished writer and musician Vernon Chatman‘s past work is both obscene and hilarious. He explains how his custom-made “porn” film, Final Flesh, travels down this familiar, twisted path.

Gallery Spotlight: Extra Extra

When Dan Wallace, Derek Frech, and Joe Lacina started Extra Extra in 2009, they had relocated to Philadelphia and were discovering the city’s growing art scene. The three initially met at the Maryland Institute College of Art and planned to eventually open an art space.

“Initially, a lot of people were interested [in starting a space], but then it just dwindled down to the few that were actually devoted to it,” Wallace says. “So we moved to Philadelphia with the intention of starting a space.”

Extra Extra is one of a handful of artist-run spaces in Philadelphia. Wallace, Frech, and Lacina wanted the space to provide a platform that would allow artists to create work that could challenge the traditional notions of what art, an artist, or a gallery could be.

Zine Scene: Shut Up and Love the Rain

Robnoxious: Shut Up and Love the Rain (Microcosm Publishing, 2010)

Sexuality, especially non-normative sexuality, can be a confusing topic. Thankfully, there’s Robnoxious to provide us with a guide to “Queer Anarchist Happiness Thru Good Living” through his eye-opening and creative zine, Shut Up and Love the Rain. California-based Robnoxious, or Rob, has been writing about these and other topics for years, but his new zine is an especially impressive effort of clarity and understanding.

In Shut Up and Love the Rain, Rob describes his early sexual experiences through comics, attempts to explain his queerness in a few essays, and even provides a list of books for further reading. His explicitness in relating his experiences — a bully grinding on him, experimenting with masturbation, and more — are humorous and insightful. Whether wondering if masturbation is the reason “Jesus got busted” or showing his speculative side in a comic about two robots that explore sexual pleasure through mechanized attachments, he writes about sexuality honestly and openly.

The centerpiece of the zine is a wonderful story/interview with Rob’s father, Rachel, and her recent process of coming out as transgendered. Even with a highly supportive group surrounding her, Rachel encountered plenty of difficulties in the process of transitioning, and Rob treats this clearly personal story with honesty and forthrightness. He gives tips for making the transition as healthy and positive as possible, and his father inspires through her success. As Rachel says of transitioning, “It gets easier. As time goes on, it’s getting easier and easier. I go to work, and I don’t even think about being female, I’m just me, and I’m there.”

Gallery Spotlight: Tenderpixel

Etan Ilfeld started Tenderpixel Gallery, located in Central London, in a rather spontaneous fashion back in 2007. After obtaining a master’s degree in film studies, Ilfeld decided to relocate from Southern California to London to pursue a second master’s in interactive media from Goldsmiths, University of London. He felt that Tenderpixel would be a perfect reason to stay in London and become more acquainted with the city’s contemporary art scene.

“My landlord had a vacant store, which I thought I could experiment with and provide as a platform for some of the artists that I met at Goldsmiths,” Ilfeld says. “I initially had no idea how it would all develop, and it just grew organically.”

Tenderpixel is a tiny space (less than 65 square feet) that acts as a creative incubator for artists. Many of the artists that are invited to exhibit usually showcase work that is highly conceptualized.

Zine Scene: Chester 5000

Jess Fink: Chester 5000 (Top Shelf, 6/7/11, $14.95)

Adorable, charming, Victorian, romantic, endorsed by Alan Moore — these are not the words that generally are used to describe a pornographic comic book. However, Jess Fink’s silent-movie-style erotic graphic novel is all of those, and it even features a robot, in a sci-fi twist.

Chester begins with the marriage of a young man and woman, and their disparity in bedroom tactics is immediately apparent. Unfortunately, the young wife is completely insatiable in the bedroom, and the husband is a bit of a prude, so her husband constructs a sex-bot, Chester, to perform his duties while he tends to work. The romantic and charming Chester does a better job than expected, however; the wife soon falls in love with him and sneaks off to have sex with the robot each day after her husband leaves.

Of course, they are caught, and the husband sells Chester to another woman. Chester and the wife pine for each other, and in one great scene, Chester and the husband fight for her love with mechanical attachments and a large hammer, respectively. Eventually, the husband learns the error of his ways, as well as his love for the woman who bought his robot, and, well, more sex ensues.

Gallery Spotlight: LMAKprojects

In 2005, art curator Louky Keijsers Koning created LMAKprojects in New York City in order to give emerging international artists a space where they could develop professionally while building connections with new audiences. LMAK — an abbreviation of Louky’s full name, Louky Marie Antoinette Keijsers — consisted of a main gallery in Manhattan’s Chelsea District as well as a supplementary project space in Williamsburg. The dual-space setup allowed LMAKprojects to simultaneously create innovative and engaging art shows while building a solid reputation within New York’s mainstream art scene.

In 2009, Louky’s husband and fellow art curator Bart Keijsers Koning began focusing on LMAK full time. That same year, the couple decided to relocate its gallery and project space to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, an area that was receptive to its intent of engaging audiences with thought-provoking conceptual art.

“The nice thing that the Lower East Side is doing is drawing crowds that are very serious about art and what to engage, and [they] really look,” Bart says.

Zine Scene: The Homeland Directive

Robert Venditti: The Homeland Directive (Top Shelf, 6/7/11, $14.95)

The Homeland Directive, the new graphic novel by The Surrogates author Robert Venditti, addresses some of the difficulties of the modern war on terror in the guise of a suspenseful and artistic graphic novel. Beautiful, innovative art, some brilliant moments, and trenchant comments by the main characters elevate the story above the average artistic-political commentary, like that of a decent episode of 24. However, Venditti’s ideas are occasionally confused and problematic. Overall, he succeeds wonderfully in creating a splashy and surprising conspiracy thriller, but he loses some points in the presentation of a muddled political message in its final act.

Dr. Laura Regan works as a microbiologist for the CDC and believes that she, along with the US government, is making the world safer for everyone. Soon, she is framed for the murder of her colleague, Ari, nearly assassinated by a man posing as a FBI official, and finds herself in the middle of a vast conspiracy that includes high-ranking members of various government agencies. Her band of rescuers (Pollack from the FBI, Gene from the Secret Service, and Wychek from the Bureau of Consumer Advocacy), who have discovered the truth about the conspiracy, provide some humor and variety in what otherwise would be a classic chase story adapted for the age of terrorism.

Sonnenzimmer: Chicago’s DIY Printmaking Powerhouse

Nadine Nakanishi and Nick Butcher, owners of Sonnenzimmer screen-printing studio in Chicago’s Roscoe Village, were drawn to the art from a young age, and now create posters for bands like The Sea and Cake and Tokyo Police Club.

Gallery Spotlight: Hosfelt Gallery

Jeffery Brown: Incredible Change-Bots Two

Zine Scene: Incredible Change-Bots Two

Jeffrey Brown: Incredible Change-Bots Two (Top Shelf, 4/12/11)

Even for someone like myself, who has the very briefest experience with Saturday-morning cartoons like Transformers, Jeffrey Brown’s Incredible Change-Bots Two is a highly enjoyable send-up of the genre and a silly little slice of nostalgia. Something about recasting transforming robots as incompetent, bickering armies, or featuring a robot with a gun for an arm as having an existential crisis, works perfectly as both an absurd tribute and satire of shows that were, even in their heyday, thinly disguised means of selling toys.

The graphic novel continues the story of Incredible Change-Bots, in which the Fantasticons and Awesomebots destroyed their own planet through war and then traveled to Earth, which they also destroyed. The sequel continues in the same endearingly nonsensical vein. The leader of the Fantasticons, Shootertron, was left behind when the rest of the Change-Bots left Earth and tries to regain his memory with the help of farmers and the ridiculously ineffectual US government that wants to use him as a weapon.

Artist Scott Campbell’s solo exhibition, Noblesse Oblige, in LA

Gallery Spotlight: Secret Project Robot

In 2004, Rachel Nelson and Erik Zajaceskowski, along with a few friends, formed Secret Project Robot in Williamsburg, New York with the intent of fostering conversation among Brooklyn’s creatives by bringing innovative art and performances to anyone who is interested.

“Is there art if nobody sees it?” Nelson asks. “Yes, of course there is, but not on this whole social level. We figured we could get people to talk about it and have this whole dialogue.”

Secret Project Robot is focused on creating a solid sense of community through events and exhibits with a postmodern approach that allows for audience participation. “The viewer is completing the work of art,” Nelson says. The multipurpose venue features installation pieces and shows by a number of Brooklyn-based bands.