Secret Still

Evan Roth is like the Richard Feynman of interaction and street art. Everything he does is open source. Everything he does turns the traditional idea of something on its side. He co-founded the Graffiti Research Lab if that will help you understand how gigantic his innovations are. My favorite part of any of his experiments/projects is that he wants to put them in all of our hands. Open source is the watchword. What makes him like Feynman even more is that he never settles on being great at one thing. His work is constantly moving into different arenas, mediums, ideas, and locations. It’s the process of dreaming up an idea and then making it a reality regardless of whether or not you have the skills to creat it already. People like this are unstoppable forces of change. I’m just glad he’s on our side.

Evan Roth

*Update*

Evan and the GRL project are featured today in an episode of Boing Boing TV that you can watch here. You can also find it in today’s Daily Videos.

I’m gonna have to drop some more apology bombs on the crew over at It’s Nice that for ganking one of their posted artists, but Oliver Jeffers was just too good to pass up. He combines two of my favorite things — painting and math — together into works that feel similar to Magritte even though they don’t quite cross that line into out-and-out surrealism. At least, I don’t see them that way. And of course if you’ve got the science/math background to understand what the equations in some of his paintings are, it adds a new level of depth to each piece. Even without knowing the equations each piece still manages to demonstrate how beautiful the math looks. That’s one of the reasons I ever bothered to learn it in the first place; all the numbers and symbols just flow together so nicely. Well, that and I get really awestruck when I see the underpinnings of the world described in symbols. I am awestruck like 90% of the day though, so maybe that’s not such a big thing.

Oliver Jeffers found via It’s Nice that

I wanted to make a quick note to all of you reading this through the RSS feed. First off, thanks for reading. My stats can’t track you wily bastards, but, as long as you’re looking at the artists I write about, I don’t care about stats. The only problem is that you’re missing out on some of the other features of the site like the Photo of the Week or the Daily Videos sections which aren’t part of the feed. I’m gonna write up a feed for them, but until I have the time to do that you might want to consider visiting the site at least once a day. The videos are totally worth the extra 2 seconds of page loading you’ll have to endure. My photos, probably not so much. Also, get in the comments. Mix it up a little. Call me an asshole. Tell me you’re shocked that I would punch a baby. There’s too much going on with these artists and their work for you to sit idly by. Tell me what you think. You never know, you might be the first person in the world whose input will actually change anything that I do. Feeds are great, but remember what it was like before RSS? Back when we looked at people’s site designs, and images, and annoying embedded flash content? It can be like that again, if only for a moment. Relive the motherfucking magic, assholes. Visit www.secretstill.com/ today! Oh, and tell your motherfucking friends.

I wanted to top off today’s posts with a splash of color and, though it’s not a fitting enough word, whimsy. Whimsy is a word that makes me think of a poster of a kitten peering out of a boot, and not the tongue-in-cheek madness that is the work of Oreli. Usually colorful, always deranged, each of Oreli’s images is like a mushroom trip through some rainbow Dreamtime on the back of a Pegaphant (Flying elephant. Do I have to explain everything?). Oreli, have you met The Little Friends of Printmaking? I can see you guys getting along really well. Or fighting to the death in a technicolor battle royale of ultimate glory. I’m down for either.

Oreli

Since we’re fast approaching road trip season, or really we’re already in the the beginning stages of it, the work of Bill Frederick is probably just the kick in the ass I need to start traversing the great, black arteries of the U.S. It’s been a while since I’ve done anything but a day trip, and Frederick’s vast ink and watercolor vistas of the open road whet my appetite for the long haul. He depicts, in beautiful realism, the overly beaten paths, the desolate stretches of abandoned blacktop, the soulless fluorescent nerve centers of modern gas stations. He understands that the best part of the road trip is the strange view into places that quiet Americans call home, places that are nothing more than a heartbeat of a stop along the way, which you can never really understand. It’s like peeping in the flickering blue windows of hundreds of suburban houses all in one drawn out continuum. Frederick has perfectly captured the isolation, sadness, and absolute obsession of Americans reliving manifest destiny in a last desperate attempt at understanding the lands and people they call home.

Bill Frederick

Since Beijing is hosting the Olympics this year I keep seeing more and more protests calling for the freedom of Tibet from Chinese rule. I agree. What’s more surprising to me, however, is the abundance of Chinese nationals around the world holding counter-protests. Maybe surprise is the wrong word. Incredulity is probably better. How, China? How can you possibly imagine that Tibet is yours? It would be the same as Germany still claiming Poland. Just because the people that occupy the country can’t physically fight back doesn’t mean that you can take it. I know that these kinds of actions go on all over the world, and they have for thousands of years, but proliferation doesn’t make something right. Especially not in a world that is becoming an unbounded global economy (or should be at any rate). National Geographic, in an effort to not let China’s actions be forgotten, have reprinted the essay of Heinrich Harrer, a German living in the sacred city of Lhasa in the middle of last century. Harrer’s story, which you might know as Seven Years in Tibet, is probably one of the best accounts of the Chinese invasion of Tibet. He was an Olympian who later became the tutor of the current incarnation of the Dalai Lama. I can’t imagine a more fitting Olympic protest than the tale of an Olympic athlete who witnessed the horrific actions of this year’s Olympic host not so long ago.

My Life in Forbidden Lhasa

Another art weekend comes and goes, and I have another round of poorly shot photos for you to mock and judge. I made it to Nick Meyer’s show, but it was too cramped to get pictures, plus my hands were frozen, plus who takes photos of a photography show? I don’t like to be part of anything “meta”. Then we rode all the way across town to the Giant Robot opening, which was completely worth the leg cramp and the gay guy with the hairlip complimenting my ass. Finally, downhill and back across town to White Walls/Shooting Gallery. The turnout was surprisingly small for those shows. I blame the icy cold, razor sharp gusts of wind that were harassing people. Winds these days; think they’re such hot shit. I’m gonna start a sort of art weekend bike posse where we’ll ride around to all the shows, drink some beers, have some laughs. If that sounds like your sort of gig then drop me a line and I’ll add you to the mailing list. We’ll call ourselves The Regulators, and yes, that will be our theme song. More pictures after the jump.

Continue Reading »

Holy crap, or better yet, holy shit! If there was ever a time to use a good, solid expletive this is it. Look what the mail carrier brought me today! Mark Penxa (previously mentioned), operating on a level of generosity that I can’t even fathom, sent me this painting from his series of 100 ballplayer portraits. Of course the photo above doesn’t do the real painting justice, but you can click on it to see a photo that does a little bit more justice. There’s still not enough justice, though. There’s never enough justice. I freaked out when I opened the cardboard sleeve that my mail lady handed me, so much that the cat fell off of his chair. This little beauty will reign as the pinnacle of my art collection as soon as I can matte and frame it. Until then I’m locking it away in the Secret vault. Thanks, Mark, you made my year!

I don’t need to say too much about the black and white drawings of Klas. They’re simple enough that they don’t need me gushing about them to make them any better. Look at them, love them, get some inspiration. It’s the great chain of whatever-it-is-I’m-doing-here.

Klas

I live in the Bay Area for some very specific reasons, but LA keeps throwing so many great artists at me that I long for teleportation to become a reality. Take Andrew Hem for instance. Clearly he and I are meant to be friends since his style combines all the characteristics of my top ten artists in a way that’s original, well executed, and magical. I would ask why I’m only just seeing his work now, when it is so fucking awesome, but the Universe usually has a reason for its timing. I hope you’re not trying to get me to move to LA, Universe. Not gonna happen. But now I probably have to visit more.

Andrew Hem