Arts

Five judges review 6,500 illustration entries to choose the 322 “most striking pictures of the year” in the twenty-fifth edition of American Illustration. This collection, coveted by student and professional illustrators around the globe, marks 25 years of highlighting significant illustration and includes a history of the past issues on trading cards inserted in the back of the book.

My Compliment, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love, a Kara Walker retrospective, presents her better known work (narrative scenes made with cut black paper on a white background) along with collages, ink drawings, paintings, and sketches.

Did you covet the hat with the sewn-in mohawk worn by Depeche Mode’s Martin L. Gore? Well, now you can make your own.

Though Paprika, the latest work from director Satoshi Kon (Tokyo Godfathers), creates strong parallels to thematic elements of stories like The Matrix trilogy, the magnificently surreal work of anime captures a space in film all its own.

Feeling inspired – or just have energy to expend – from that Red Bull you just drank?  If that’s the case, hop off the couch and get cracking on some artwork!

Acting as an excellent portal to the past for those that either missed the boat or were too young to experience The Jesus Lizard live, MVD Visual’s DVD release of Touch & Go’s basilisk-loving band provides more than an hour of bona fide mid-90s flashback.

Descry, Rosalux Gallery’s exhibit featuring the latest work from John Alspach and Terrence Payne, will run from September 4-30 with free admission. Alspach, also the owner of the Shiny Robot Art Studio and Gallery, focuses on removing otherwise mundane pieces of urban decay from their environment and reassembling them, often including fragments of old metal signs and billboards.

Running from June 9-30, Scion will display artwork – like the Patrick Martinez piece shown above – of some of Los Angeles’ most prominent aerosol and graffiti artists.

Running from June 23 to July 21, 2007, New York’s Jonathan LeVine Gallery will host an exhibit of Shepard Fairey’s artwork titled E Pluribus Venom. Fairey, best known for his “propaganda engineering” and stencil-esque renditions of Andre the Giant for his Obey Giant campaign, will show pieces that include paintings, mixed media, screen prints, album covers, and more.

Coming as the first film to be branded with the label Morgan Spurlock Presents… but having no work credited to the semi-famous director of anti-McDonald’s documentary Supersize Me and television program “30 Days,” Chalk, a mockumentary in the style of “The Office,” has begun to be released in select cities around the United States.