OMG. Of all the trade shows making their way back after a million billion years of Covid, no return to the land-of-the-living has thrilled me more than that of Five Points Festival — the Mother of All Toy Shows — because Five Pointsjust plain rules! If you failed to make that scene, here’s just a smidgeon of what you missed. Losers.
Today, August 18th 2011, marks the worldwide launch of the highly anticipated Kidrobot x Swatch collaboration. To celebrate this pairing of artist-designed watches and matching Dunnys (Kidrobot’s signature 3-inch vinyl rabbit figure), Swatch is hosting events in eleven countries around the globe, featuring appearances by Kidrobot artists Frank Kozik, MAD, Tara McPherson, Jeremyville, Tilt and Joe Ledbetter. Additional Swatch / Dunny designing artists not participating in the events are Gary Baseman (a favorite here at the Worley Gig) and SSUR. The 3-inch Dunny and Watch sets will be available for sale beginning on September 1, 2011 for $70.00 each. Continue reading Kidrobot & Swatch Design Collaboration Launches→
Here at the ‘Gig, we love Art and we love Toys, and a good place to find Art Toys is The Pink Ghost Store, where you can find awesome collectible designer toys by breaking artists like Buff Monster and Gary Baseman. Pink Ghost also sells accessories, gadgets, books and art prints like Tara McPherson’s rockin’ concert posters! Cruise on over to Pink Ghost Dot Net right now and take a look! Pink Ghost!
Today, May 16th, is the birthday of one of the most entertaining people I’ve ever met, Jon Schnepp, who directs Metalocalypse, and works on a bunch of other awesome shows for the Adult Swim Network. Back in April, at least I think that’s when it was, I was lucky enough to hang out with Jon while we waited in line to get into Tara McPherson’s Cotton Candy Machine store for the Tiny Trifecta art sale. Jon is completely hilarious and had Geoffrey and I almost peeing our pants for the three hours it took us to get into the store. Jon, I hope you have a wonderful birthday and thank you for the laughs and the cool TV programs! If you’d like to learn more about Jon, and perhaps also wet your pants from laughter, you can read my February 2010 interview with him at This Link.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: art is awesome. And when you can combine art with rebellion, stuff that rocks, free food and booze, and throw it all together in a happening party space that used to be a den of iniquity where people took crazy drugs, had aberrant sex with strangers and danced to throbbing music, well, it just does not get much better than that for my money. Last week I had just such an experience when I attended The Art of Rebellion, a New York art show featuring works by ten assorted artists in both the music and art worlds including Art Chantry, Brian Ewing, Derek Hess, Dirty Donny, Frank Kozik, Harpoon, John Van Hamersveld, Lindsey Kuhn, Tara McPherson and some dude who calls himself “the Pizz.” Sadly, the exhibit was only open for two evenings, the VIP Press event held last Friday (which I attended) and an open to the pubic reception on Saturday the 18th (which my pal Geoffrey attended, thus affording us this lovely accompanying photography – thank you G!), so if you weren’t there you, will have to live through me/us.
Bullet-Riddled, White Enamel Gas Tank With Red Bulb
The party went down at LA.Venue, (formerly home to one of the ’80s most notorious nightclubs, The Tunnel) located way the fuck over on West 28th street in Chelsea. So there was no way you were going to accidentally stumble upon this shindig unless you were “working the Avenue” as they say. Since the event was sponsored by Harley-Davidson, each artist displayed his or her own custom painted/modified Harley-Davidson Iron 883 gas tank, along with two examples of their signature rock art posters, at the show. This made for a diverse yet cohesive collection of very hip, visual and inspiring art! All posters as well as gas tanks were for sale (tanks ranged in price from about $1500 to $4000 each), with a portion of the proceeds from tank sales being donated to the CUE Art Foundation. Charity!
The Art Of Rebellion exhibit travels from city to city, with featured artists always rotating, so you can find out when and where the next event will be, meet the various artists and view more of their work at Harley-Davidson.