Art for Obama, Thursday, Sept. 23

Art for Obama
Tuesday, September 23, 2008, 6 - 9pm
Bert Green Fine Art and LA Center for Digital Art.

Nice blend of visual art and presidential politics here. In Downtown LA, these two art galleries at 5th and Main Streets are doing some clever fundraising for Barack Obama. For one night they will host a $20 per person fundraiser, with 10% of all art sales going to the Obama campaign. This is in association with Art for Obama, a national series of fund raising events founded by Bruce McBarnette to benefit the Obama campaign.

"Last Train" by Bas Waijers

My friend Bas Waijers (pronounced "Boss Wires") is a really incredible artist and designer. He speaks fondly of his love of Disney characters as a child in Holland, and now creates his own, fantastic characters. He a freelancer and always looking for awesome clients!

He recently sent me this new, gorgeously spooky illustration. In his words, this is the description of this piece:
"The other day I was thinking about war and global warming, and I got the ominous feeling that we're all heading into the wrong direction. It inspired me to make this piece 'Last Train.' Luckily, it seems that a lot of people are waking up to this problem, I hope we can turn this around!"

He and his wife live in NYC and are expecting a baby, making this work even more poignant.

Click here to view Bas's blog.
Click here to check out his awesome characters.

BCAM & Lazarof at LACMA

Gina and I played hooky on Friday and kicked around LACMA for a couple of hours. Actually, we were mostly at the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (which has a spectacular elevator, check it out!), which is kinda sorta part of LACMA but not totally. It's complicated. BCAM is full of contemporary masterpieces, but I'd say my faves are Robert Rauschenberg's. I so love his "combines." It's always a treat to see Jeff Koons's monumental, mirthful works, like Balloon Dog (Blue) and Cracked Egg (Red), shown at left. You can view a pretty nifty slide show of each floor of works at BCAM, just click here.

But being a Modern Art junkie, I really LOVE the new Janice and Henri Lazarof Collection, an incredible treasure trove of modern masterpieces that the Lazarofs donated to LACMA late last year. How lucky we are to have this collection in a public space!! With dozens of works by Brancusi, Degas, Giacometti, Kandinsky (like this one at left), Klee, Picasso, Pissarro, this fractional and promised gift of 130 is truly a gift to the public. Hats off to the Lazarovs for the generosity.

Massive Art Heist in LA

Wow, this would be impressive if weren't really heartbreaking. An art thief walked right into the unlocked door of an elderly couple's home - while the couple was in another room and the maid had stepped out for a moment - and stole more than a dozen works of art valued at many millions of dollars. Click here to read the whole story in the LA Times.

The stolen artworks include Emil Nolde's "Figur mit Hund" (Figure With Dog), 1912; Lyonel Feininger's "Fin de Séance," 1910; Chaim Soutine's "La Vieille Dame au Chien" (Old Woman with Dog), 1919; Soutine's "La Femme en Rouge" (Woman in Red), 1926; Kees van Dongen's "Alicia Alanova," 1933; and Hans Hofmann's Untitled (Blue Bottle), 1947, authorities said.

What's really interesting to me is the unusual nature of the collection, worth millions of dollars but including several lesser-known artists instead of the usual mid/early 20th Century art superstars. The couple, who has not been named, clearly had really refined and particular tastes. I do hope that if/when these works are recovered, the couple will commit to eventually leave them in the safe hands of a museum so they can be enjoyed by the public. One can only hope that while the works are missing they will be well cared for - the thief must be some sort of art lover, right?

Paul Paiement at Peter Blake Gallery

Boy, politics sure can be distracting for the art lover. It has been far too long since I've stepped foot in a museum or gallery - but I did walk a precinct for the first time yesterday, espousing the fabulous-ness that is our Congressional candidate, Debbie Cook!

But I digress. This blog is supposed to be my escape from maddening things such as politics. So, if I were to have gone to an art-related event in the last few days, it would have been to an opening at Peter Blake Gallery in Laguna Beach, to see the beautiful works by Paul Paiement. I love Paul's work so much - Eric and I were lucky enough to have acquired one of his watercolor's last year at the UAM auction that I coordinated. He continues to fuse nature and technology in his "hybrid" series, as you can see in this piece CALCOLEPIDUS SATELLITERADIUS. Click here to read more about the hybrids and check out the cool catalog of hybrid pieces.

Only 60 more days until I can have my art life back...