The group show American Beauties: Different Stories, opened on April 1, 2006 to an appreciative crowd who gathered at the Space On Spurgeon gallery in Santa Ana, California, to view the art and meet the artists. In his review for the OC Weekly, No Punches Pulled: American Beauties’ is life, unedited, Justin Edward Coffey wrote: “Before the heat of the…
Whatever Happened To The Future! – Silkscreen print. Vallen 1980. In 1980 I created a silkscreen print that captured the apprehension many were feeling at the time, the general malaise over the state of society and a fear that atomic war with the Soviet Union was imminent. My print, Whatever Happened To The Future!, was a street poster that became…
London’s Victoria and Albert Museum has mounted an important exhibition titled, Modernism: Designing A New World, 1914-1939. It is not only the first exhibit to offer a comprehensive look at the modernist movement and all its spheres of influence – from architecture, furniture and clothing design to graphics, illustration and fine art; it has reopened the debate on the lasting…
It’s more than a little interesting that the most reactionary administration in America’s history would nominate an openly Gay conceptual artist to be a symbol for the “excellence, vitality, and diversity of the arts in the United States.” The Bush State Department has chosen Felix Gonzalez-Torres to represent the U.S. at the 2007 Venice Biennale, and what a wise pick…
This is getting ridiculous. A man was frog-marched off a London bound airplane flight because he had listened to the song, London Calling, by the legendary punk band, the Clash. 24-year old Harraj Mann took a taxi to Tees Valley International Airport in Northern England, and while in the cab he listened to his own music through the cab’s stereo….
Starting April 1. 2006, I’ll be exhibiting several paintings at American Beauties: Different Stories, a group show at SpaceOnSpurgeon gallery in Santa Ana, California. Two of my latest oil paintings, The Red Dress and La Muerta (The Dead Woman), will be on view for the first time – in fact they were both painted especially for this exhibit. I wrote…
A music CD with a painting by Hieronymus Bosch on its cover has been banned by Polish “education inspectors,” because in their words – “There are pornographic scenes in the Bosch picture that can damage people.” The Polish education ministry had intended to give away copies of the CD to high-school students who excelled in their studies – but reactionaries…
The Centre Pompidou in Paris has mounted a major survey of art from Los Angeles, titled Los Angeles 1955-1985: The Birth of an Artistic Capital. The exhibit offers 326 objects produced by over 80 artists working in LA during a thirty year period, tracing the explosion of creativity unique to the city of my birth. The Centre Pompidou website describes…
