I caught up with Bettina Korek, founder of ForYourArt this week to discuss the current state of the L.A. scene and what we have to look forward to this fall.

“The art world isn’t just about collecting often-expensive objects,” said Korek, “it’s also about learning and engaging and it can be a gateway to all different discplines.”

It’s great when both MOCA and LACMA have showcases like Art in the Streets and the Tim Burton exhibit but it’s equally important to experience and engage with the museum space as a whole.

“I hope that ForYourArt can be a resource for people to not only know what’s going on in L.A. but also to find that inspiring context that they can delve deeper into,” she said.

2011 has already been a strong year for art in L.A. but just wait for the fall: Pacific Standard Time, a collaboration between over 60 arts organizations with exhibits from San Diego to Santa Barbara. The first project of its kind in L.A., Pacific Standard Time, opening in October, is the result of nearly a decade of research by the Getty Institute and comprises a veritable history of the rise of art culture in Los Angeles over the years 1945-1980.

But wait, there’s more. Shepard Fairey was approached by Death Cab for Cutie bassist Nick Harmer to reinvent the band’s upcoming single, “Home is a Fire” as a video with lyrics appearing as street art across the Echo Park cityscape:

Fairey posted a thoughtful essay on the experience at his Obey blog, excerpted here:

One’s relationship with home might be complicated, but ultimately it can be a two-way dialogue, of which we can at least affect one-way. The city can be an impersonal place, imposing, simultaneously anonymous and claustrophobic. However, there are opportunities for us to affect the city(and life) experience rather than accepting things as passive voyeurs.

“Home is a Fire” appears on Death Cab’s Codes and Keys album, out May 31 on Atlantic.

Originally posted at LAist on May 18, 2011.

Video and interview below as well as photos from the event.

Originally published at LAist.com.

“YOU LOOK LOVELY TODAY”

“YOU ARE NOT COOL”

These may be the kinds of phrases you mumble while driving around Los Angeles wishing the few open parking spots weren’t so far away and didn’t have $4/hr (incl. Sunday) meters. But what if those six-part, multiple-infraction, day-and-time sensitive parking signs in Hollywood were replaced with something more sensible?

Last spring, NYC-based artist(s) TrustoCorp did exactly that, posting street signs with phrases such as “BROKE is the new BLACK” on downtown Manhattan streets (summarized by this brilliant middle-finger map).

TrustoCorp decked out Gallery1988 last weekend with a wall of signs as well as an installation of collages and mock-brands subvertised for the helplessly vain, paranoid, and foreclosed-upon American consumer. TrustoCorp skipped town early Monday but left behind prints available for purchase at Gallery1988. And who knows… keep an eye out for copycats!

Originally published at LAist

The Lightning in a Bottle festival returned Memorial Day weekend after a one-year hiatus bigger — and better — than before.

We’ve come to expect The Do Lab to only go big, bold, and beautiful in their multi-platform, lifestyle-agnostic, installations and event productions. We’ve been dazzled by The Do Lab-produced Lucent Dossier Experience, the Do Lab Tent at Coachella and Lucent L’Amour Valentine’s love-fest. But Lightning in a Bottle – in it’s ninth iteration – is the sum of all parts and yes, the sensory overload can be thrilling.

What began as a small family affair in the early 2000’s came of age during 3 years (2006-2008) at Live Oak in Santa Barbara County (see our photos and posts from past LIBs). This year the 3-day festival, at its new home at Oak Canyon Ranch near Irvine, featured a wider scope of programming — adding speakers, workshops, yoga and more in a zen-like “temple of consciousness” forested area adjacent to the campground.

Two DJ stages were offset by the main Lightning in a Bottle stage, which featured an eclectic mix of performers and musicians, from March Fourth Marching Band to the lo-fi post-rock stylings of The Album Leaf to the Eastern European-inspired acoustic sounds of Fishtank Ensemble to the booming beats of The Glitch Mob. All to be outdone by the sideshow shenanigans of Lucent Dossier and Vau de Vire on an adjacent stage between sets and the sight and sound of William Close and his monstrous Earth Harp.

True to The Do Lab’s roots as a radical arts collective, the grounds were transformed into a wonderland of installations and dozens of live art stations at which paintings were created for a silent auction benefiting Sonic Muze, a non-profit that helps provide art and music supplies for local schools in need. Most notable was the lack of trash visible throughout (a lack of meat as well). By providing multiple water stations (basically consisting of a hose with a filter and multiple spigots) and not allowing sales of bottled water, the festival avoided the oft-criticized wasteland of plastic bottles that is standard at most events. LIB chartered a new motto at its new location: “Leave it Better, Leave it Beautiful” a policy which included the planting of 32 native trees at the outset of the festival.

Video by Matthew F. Smith.

Video by Sander van Dijk.

All photos by Andy Sternberg

Originally posted at LAist.

Please take 11 minutes out of your day to appreciate [part of] Jonathan Jarvis‘s Master’s thesis, “The Crisis of Credit Visualized.” Jarvis is a student at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. May his grad school debt vanish with great haste.

The context:

The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated. This project was completed as part of my thesis work in the Media Design Program, a graduate studio at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. For more on my broader thesis work exploring the use of new media to make sense of a increasingly complex world, visit my website here.

Visualization was also a part of my Master’s thesis, though only in theory.