The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology celebrates their 150th Anniversary with creating the world’s largest Lite Brite. Just kidding. NOVA is its name and color is its game. This light monster is consisted of 25,000 suspended lightballs and it has the ability to display 16 million colors per second. Go have a look at it in person. It will be on display at Switzerland’s Zurich train station, in the main hall, until September 2009, but I wouldn’t stand directly below it, just in case!

Stina Perrson says her illustration style is basically about “finding the right balance between the edgy and the elegant the raw and the beautiful.” This Swedish born artist has quite an impressive list of corporate clients ranging from Coca Cola, Sony Music to Bloomingdale’s and Target that she creates work for in several different mediums- inks, watercolor, cut paper, and gouache. Each work is scribbly yet simple and adorned with stunningly fashionable female forms. Stina gives you a chance to purchase one of her originals at the Cosh Gallery. We are so inspired that we may purchase one of these works for the office.

If you are going to be in Los Angeles Area on May 10th you can catch some Stina Persson’s new work at the opening of Le Femme at the Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra, California. Admission is free and this sounds like a really great Mother’s Day activity. They will even have complimentary flowers for Moms.

With his own typically cheeky answer to Cannes, underground mischief maker extrordinaire Bansky has answered in kind with his own “Cans Festival” in London. Our favorite graffiti impresario brought together more than three dozen internationally renowned graffiti artists to take muster a “a street party of stencil art” in a tunnel underneath Waterloo station last weekend.

Bert Simons amazes us with his very life like paper sculptures of himself and other lucky candidates. This Rotterdam, Netherlands native seems to have quite a hand at 3D imaging and rendering. The sculptures he creates could almost be the real clones of the people they represent.

This seems to be an interesting facet of art imitating life. While some of you video gamers have probably created characters with your picture applied to them, this process seems to work in reverse. Rather than creating art in the real world and bringing it to life on a computer Simons’ process works the other way around.

“Some time ago I had a midlife crisis,” says Simons “and was thinking a lot about the purpose of my life, things that will remain and stuff like that…instead of indulging myself into depression I desperately started looking for a solution and I came up with this idea..I decided to clone myself..more me’s have more chances..”.

Want to have your own personal Bert Simons clone? Click here to print out your own paper sculpture of Burt Simons. It seems he’s already got a small club of clones popping up across the world. We will be adding a few to the bunch real soon.

Shoe typhoon Adidas celebrates the release of a new collection of Superstars with a not so little surprise. In gigantic joining of the east and west Adidas brought NYC’s Surface to Air and San Fran’s Upper Playground together for a chance to turn a colossal shoe into a work of art. Each crew had 3 days to splash some color on their mammoth plain white replicas of an Adidas Superstar. This was an even more exciting celebration of Adidas releasing an all white model of Superstars, not seen since 1969. After the masterpieces were completed, the shoes were strapped down to a flatbed truck and each team set off to Venice Beach, CA for a battle on the boardwalk.Check out the gallery for tons of awesome photos.

We know how you are, you love to draw. Oh but wait you love taking pictures. Um, actually, you really like all kinds of art and your pretty hand with a computer as well. Funny, you sound a lot like Belgian designer Geraldine Georges. This stunning collection of illustration, photography, and mixed media hit’s all the right spots for us. You can check out more after the jump.

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Sat, April 19th, 6:30-10PM
GR2
2062 Sawtelle Blvd in Los Angeles / 310.445.9276
“Deharavath: Zombie Children” featuring new works from Dehara X David Horvath + Sun-Min Kim
(On view through May 14th)
www.gr2.net

Sat, April 19th, 5-7PM
Richard Heller Gallery
2525 Michigan Ave, Space B-5A at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica / 310.453.9191
“Mapping The Great Hush” – new works from Randall Sellers
(On view through May 17th)
www.richardhellergallery.com

Sat, April 19th 4-8PM
Monkeyhouse Toys and Art Gallery
1618 ½ Silver Lake Blvd in Los Angeles / 323.662.3437
“Having Fun With Animals” featuring new works from Douglas Alvarez, Paul Torres, L. Croskey, Jeremy Szuder, Walt Hall, Catherine Brooks and many more
(On view through May 4th)
www.monkeyhousetoys.com

Sat, April 19th, 7-10PM
Project:
8545 W. Washington Blvd in Culver City / 310.558.0200
“Familiar Friends” featuring new works from Lisa Alisa, Cherri Wood, Erika Yamashiro and Lindsay Cambell
www.projectgalleryla.com

Via Sour Harvest

Sat, April 12th 7PM
Carmichael Gallery of Contemporary Art
1257 N La Brea Avenue / 323.969.0600
Herakut
http://www.carmichaelgallery.com/future.html

I got a chance to meet up with German art duo Herakut Wednesday afternoon to check out some amazing installation-in-progress before their American debut show opening this Saturday night at the Carmichael Gallery in Hollywood.
Both talented artists in their own right, Jasmine Siddiqui (Hera) and Falk Lehmann (Akut) referred to they way they work as a conversation in pictures, as one starts a piece that the other will finish. I was excited to catch this work in progress, because as the couple paints one layer over another, the piece may change completely five or six times as one work covers up the last. Taking inspiration from the immediate world in front of them influences color palettes that reflect the warm tints of a sunset in Greece, the cold feeling of a German morning, and characters could include anyone from the family dog to the odd Hollywood denizens wandering in off of La Brea Boulevard.

Herakut was born in the world of street art and still does installations at graffiti festivals as well as the back alleys of local cities they where ever they travel. They told me they want to put a piece on the big mural wall in Venice beach, if you have info on who to talk to be sure and post it in the comments section.
This street heritage translates into the gallery setting as Herakut’s paintings sometimes move from the canvas straight on to the wall. It gave the feeling that if someone hadn’t slid a canvas in front of them the entire piece would be on the wall and there’d be nothing for patrons to take home. “I hate white space,” confesses Siddiqui, “and the canvas is actually a small area for spray paint. I like a wall because I can use broad strokes”This is made apparent as she stands up a cardboard cut out (after the jump) that is nearly ten feet tall.

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Before I left my house for this opening, I peeked at Ryan’s website. My first impression was that the images were dark and there was something very frightening happening. I couldn’t figure them out right off the bat, and I almost didn’t want to because something about them made me uncomfortable. When I got to the gallery, I walked right up to the first painting, Communion, and became mesmerized. There was a very personal moment between these animals and me! I was suddenly drawn in and completely enamored with his technique and amazing talent. The animals and the dead trees they inhabit stood out in the absence of any background. The white paper he used provided a starkness that shed light on a meaning that I was barely grasping before. What seemed scary to me was in fact, scary. The animals were involved in a struggle in their habitat. They were holding onto what they could in their home – somewhere that had been encroached upon, somewhere that was barren to them, and somewhere that they needed each other to survive in.

All the paintings have a common thread visually in the use of a bear made out of foliage that consists of little leaves and vines. The bear is shred to pieces in many of the images. However, parts of it are used for a nest in Expecting, and even as a home, as seen in Accommodations. Another stirring portrait of survival is its use by a pair of moose who are pulling at the vines with their mouths, each trying to get a piece, hence the title, Rochambeau. The bear brings sensitivity to the paintings. Its fragility mirrors that of the environment and the animals’ existence that is often overlooked when neighborhoods are expanding or cities are encroaching. The bear almost seems like a big, soft, helpless teddy bear that is coming apart at the seams. A favorite of mine, Perimeter, shows a group of deer on the outer edges of this dying forest, with one feeding on the remnants of the foliaged bear head. In the rear is a majestic longhorn that looks onto them a bit concerned, and distanced in his corner. It’s as if he has been pushed back, away from his environment. The painting is sad and beautiful. The realism is remarkable thus making you question the changing environment and your role in this eco-system that is shared by all.

More photos after the jump.

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We got a few photos of the Panopti(con) opening at the Bank gallery in downtown LA earlier this month. Aside from the openings, Bank is usually by appointment only because it’s one of those tiny downtown galleries with really incredible work by amazing artists for serious collectors. If you’ve got the dough to throw down go ahead and make an appointment. Otherwise getting on their mailing list for the next opening is you best bet for a look inside.

The current show Panopti(con), is a group exhibition curated by Los Angeles based artist Martin Durazo. This exhibition presents the work of 17 artists working in painting, photography, drawing, sculpture and video that engage in theories centered around power structures. Panoticon, from the Greek words for “all” and “sight,” refers to the ingenious late 18th and early 19th century architectural construction British philosopher Jeremy Bentham devised that became the ultimate surveillance machine (and ideal prison). Designed as a large circular building with a watch tower in the center, the Panopticon allowed the observer to observe at all times without being seen, creating the most invisible omniscient authority.

For more photo’s from the opening check out the flickr feed