Wow, Hsiao!

Congrats to Karen Hsiao who has two cover features on news stands now –just as her new exhibition, Between the Spaces, is about to open. Come on down this Friday (October 1st) to congratulate her! Between 7 and 8 PM, she'll be signing copies of her deluxe photo volume, Rubber Duck, recently published by Baby Tattoo Books. The reception closes at 11, but the show is up all month long. Fellow Art Center alumni Christine Wu and Matt Wood will be making their gallery debuts alongside her in Gallery I, and the Art of the Lowbrow Tarot Exhibition occupies the recently constructed Gallery II. Bear Flag Wine is sponsoring, and there are secret plans unraveling that I can't talk about yet. See you on Friday!

BUT BEFORE THEN: Don't miss Thursday night's Dave Cooper book release party either!
From 6-9 PM, he'll be kicking off his Bent Tour! Way to go, Dave!

Wu who? Christine Wu, that's who!

The complete online preview for Christine Wu's debut exhibition Romancing the Looky-Loos is now live, and you can get a studio tour by activating the above YouTube video. The show opens this Friday (October 1st) at 8PM alongside Matt Wood's debut Mom's in Prison and fellow Art Center alum Karen Hsiao's Between the Surfaces.

The back gallery exhibition is the highly publicized Art of the Lowbrow Tarot Exhibition, guest curated by Silver Era Tarot scribe Aunia Kahn, and showcasing the best and brightest artists in the Pop-surrealism genre. We've got Bear Flag wine on hand to sponsor us, and there'll be an elective Absinthe bar. Prepare for an epic mind-blowing!

Auto-reply is evil, but Brian McCarty rules!

Hello,
La Luz de Jesus Gallery Director Matt Kennedy will be out of office and unreachable from September 13 through 26, back in the gallery on Monday September 27th. If you are attempting an art purchase, redirect your query to theposterfinder@yahoo.com.
If you are emailing a submission, no further action need be taken. Matt will be reviewing submissions when he returns.
If you have a delivery, pick-up or general information question, please email sales@soapplant.com or call (323) 666-7667 and ask for Billy Shire. Thanks –Matt will be back in touch with you soon!

Above is the out-of-office message that responded last night to pretty much every email that has been sent to the gallery in the last year and a half. My apologies that my auto-responder went cuckoo. It has been disabled and our I.T. guy will have a sensible replacement on Monday. So if you don't get a swift reply to your email, it's because I'm not here, and won't be back until we start hanging the October shows on Monday, September 27th.

I'll be gallery hopping in China.

The 2011 schedule is already pretty full, so the impact of this trip won't be readily visible (if at all) until we post the 2012 schedule. I don't think that means that the Gao Brothers will be showing at La Luz de Jesus, but I'm very interested in what's happening over there right now, and I'll be introducing many of our artists to galleries in Shanghai and Beijing as I discuss the possibilities of introducing the next wave of Chinese artists to Los Angeles. In other words, I'm hoping to open up the trade routes like that other Californian did forty years ago –but please don't call me Tricky Dick!

Thursday night's Brian McCarty book signing turned into an impromptu gallery exhibition, so head in and check out a collection of signed and numbered prints (editions of only 10 each!) featured in his incredible photo book ART-TOYS. This special exhibition will be on the L-wall in the rear gallery until this Friday. On Saturday, they'll come down off the walls to make room for the first ever gallery exhibition of Punk Rock Icon Dee Dee Ramone's lowbrow art.


This special birthday memorial show (Dee Dee would have been 59) has the largest collection of Dee Dee's paintings ever assembled at once. These pieces are not for sale, so we've collaborated with the Dee Dee Ramone estate and produced a special screen-printed commemorative event poster (limited to only 150 editions). This item is fully sanctioned by the band, and will be released on the night of the show (Saturday, September 18th) at 7 PM. The poster features Dee Dee's signature self portrait "The Blue Demon," alongside the band's logo. Designer Alexia Pellegrini has hand screened each poster, and they will be signed and numbered. We'll also have a limited edition (21!) of six great archival photos from the Jenny Lens Photo Archive which will also be signed and numbered. The exhibition will be displayed through September 26th.
Gabba Gabba Hey!

The complete preview of the Art of the Lowbrow Tarot Exhibition is posted, as are sneak previews of Christine Wu's Romancing the Looky-Loos and Matt Wood's Mom's in Prison, and Karen Hsiao's Between the Surfaces. All shows open on October 1st, and the opening is going to be insane, with fetish models, a cash Absinthe bar, and free spirits from our new sponsor Bear Flag Wine.

Dave Cooper makes his return on Thursday, September 30th, too, and I suspect he'll bring more than his latest book, Bent, so be sure to cruise in for these incredible events!

Meanwhile, check out the coverage we received in this month's GQ –on newsstands now!

200 Posters Later...

The print release and artist reception for Nathan Ota & Yumiko Kayukawa was an elbow-to-elbow success! We actually gave away about 150 free posters for each artist (instead of the 100 we announced) to the throngs of patient fans who attended the opening night celebration. It's a rare pleasure to host Yumiko Kayukawa for a brief stay in Los Angeles, and it's always great to be able to spend time with Nathan Ota, who is perpetually busy at work as a professor at Otis and SMC when not working tirelessly on an exhibition or commercial assignment. Both artists were overwhelmed (in a good way) with the tremendous response that their work received, and were likewise bowled-over by the special show posters we printed for them (sponsored by Sino Tequila).

We were able to hold back a very small portion of the 200 edition run of Nathan's "An Unforeseen Homecoming" and Yumiko's "49 Days" prints.

We currently have them on the website in the online galleries for each of them, and for a limited time they will be available for $20.00 each. I don't think they'll last through the next couple of weekends, so if you couldn't attend the opening but still want a keepsake (and can't afford a painting), here's your chance –and don't blow it! I'm still lamenting the pair of Yohji Yamamoto Y3 Swarovski Edition Adidas that I didn't buy when I had the chance back in 2007. They were my size and everything! Trust me, you don't want to live with this kind of regret, so call or come in and get yourself one of these before they're gone.

Later this week we've got a Brian McCarty book signing (for his beautiful photography tome ART-TOYS on Thursday), as well as welcoming back Mick Farren to read and sign his new alt-deviant-non-fiction-history book, Speed-Speed-Speadfreak: A Fast History of Amphetamine (on Friday). The following weekend on September 18th, we'll be hosting a posthumous birthday exhibition of Punk Rock Legend Dee Dee Ramone's lowbrow art, for which we'll be debuting a new, extremely limited edition screen print featuring Dee Dee's art and selling silver-gelatin prints of some Ramones photos from the Jenny Lens Photo Archive. This event is fully sanctioned by the Ramones estate, and ought to draw some very special guests.

Stay tuned!