Judging from all of his work and his almost European gaze, we were convinced that Chris Turnham was based somewhere in Europe. By Twitter, we found out that he actually is a local Angeleno, something we were both shocked to here. Of course, we had to interview him for Los Angeles, I’m Yours and, a few Sundays back, we met up with him at his cute little spot in Los Feliz and had a chat about art, Los Angeles, and life. First, we were shocked he didn’t have an English accent (like we both assumed). Second, we were shocked that he’d been here for almost a year and a half having just relocated from Portland. Third, we were shocked to find out that his Fleet Street Scandal partner Kevin Dart also now lives in Los Angeles (and isn’t from Europe either). And, fourth, we were glad to find out that Chris is now working as a full time artist and freelance illustrator/animator. All great things to find out!
Chris is super fantastic and has some great things to say about making art, being new to Los Angeles, working in animation, and now working as a free agent in the art world. Also, his apartment is super cute. Check out the story and more photos here.
Last night at Los Angeles’ MOCA, they unleashed an audio and video feast for the senses: the Mike D of the Beastie Boys curated art spectacular that is Transmission LA. The event featured celebrities, a performance by Santigold, people clawing to get in, and an entire art warehouse packed with moving colors that reshaped and recolored rooms: it was like being on acid with thousands of people even though there were no drugs involved (at least for us).
The event boasted tons of video art/moving art superstars that spanned from Ara Peterson and Jim Drain to Mike Mills to Sage Vaughn to Takeshi Murata–even Los Angeles chef Roy Choi had a hand in it! The star of the show was Ben Jones, who created a room that made you feel like you entered some sort of racing video game, smiling sun and moon, moving floor, and everything. It was baller. The event is only a few weeks long and will be gone in a flash so, if you live in LA or are visiting LA from now until the top of May, you HAVE to see this show.
See more photos, a video of Ben Jones’ work, and read about the opening here.
Last weekend Kyle and I took a short trip up the 5 to CalArts for their first ever Print Fair. We were invited by our friend Bijan Berahimi, who’s work you see at top (and Scott Berry below it, which we picked up at the fair). You can read a full review of the event over on Los Angeles, I’m Yours if you’re interested. I personally wanted to touch upon the nature of the print fair, and how the art and design community should encourage more things like that to happen.
I feel like there aren’t a lot of opportunities for young people to showcase their work in the real world these days. On the Internet it feels like you’ve got a million different venues, but not in the physical world. Maybe this is a Los Angeles problem? But I doubt it. Having a REAL event is especially important with something like a print fair, where you can grab a zine, flip through it, smell the ink on the paper. There’s a tactile sensation that gets lost when you view an artists work online.
The whole thing really inspired me. It made we want to get a ramshackle group of local artists and showcase/sell stuff to random people. Maybe even sell some brownies and lemonade. And I think other people should do the same. Take the talented people, young or old, in your local city and give them a place to shine. That’s part of why we started Los Angeles, I’m Yours. Doing it in the physical world though is where things get interesting again. I’ve already spoken to a couple of close friends about doing something like that during the summer, but one event in a year isn’t enough.
If you live in Los Angeles and would be interested in working together on something int he real world then email me. There’s a little button in the sidebar, it’s easy. Even if it’s insane and we need a million dollars, go for it, we can always find someone willing to give us money to make something happen. This is my attempt at being proactive, hopefully you do the same.
I can’t tell you much about this branding for Film Commission Chile by Hey Studio, other than it’s certainly a treat to look at. Honestly this goes beyond simple branding. They’ve created business cards, stationary, and envelopes, but they’ve also made some really nice posters that explain what FCC is all about.
Overall the feeling of the identity is super crisp and I love the idea of the multi-colored ribbon. The bold colors are really strong and at most each of these pieces come in at 3 colors, so it’s pretty effective from a cost side as well. Really nice work on these.
Kenyon Yeh has created a playful twist on the stool/side table with Pushpin, a pushpin shaped stool/side table in partnership with COOIMA. Made out of cork, Pushpin may be a blown up version of it’s pointy counterpart, but there’s something really elegant about the shape that works at such a large size. There are only 30 of these made so far, but hopefully they catch on and can mass produce these, I’d love to have one.
Found through Contemporist
The gang at Adam&Co were recently hired to develop a series of posters for Nike’s Lebron 9 shoe release, and did they ever hit it out of the park. They’ve done an amazing job at capturing the speed, movement, and complexity of the sport and were able to visualize it into a two color poster. These are only two of six, you can see the full set here.
Found through Design Work Life
