Fishfry with the Purple Gang & Vogue Italia

Fish Fry 7: Click for Line-up

Tomorrow night is the last Thursday of the month. You know what that means: BILLY'S THURSDAY NIGHT FISH FRY!

You've not heard of this?
On the last Thursday of each month, Southern California's axis of underground pop culture, Wacko / La Luz de Jesus Gallery, hosts "Billy's Thursday Night Fish Fry & Community Social." The monthly event presents a diverse multi-media mixed-bag variety show of music, spoken word, unusual performance and more, putting a spotlight on several generations of Los Angeles performers. Billy Shire calls the night a "21st century salon" and aims to re-connect the local creative community with a free, two plus hour "in the round" show, with the performers in the center of the gallery. The Fish Fry promises short revolving acoustic based musical sets, poetry, odd pairings of performers and much more. The show is open to all ages and there is NO cover charge!

Click below the image (top left) for this month's line-up, starring The Purple Gang (featuring members of Tex & the Horseheads, The DIs, The Hangmen, Kix, Thelonious Monster, The Joneses & Rhino Bucket) and a special live painting event with Van Saro!

While you may not instantly connect La Luz de Jesus Gallery with haute couture (no matter how much money I spend on custom sneakers), we've managed to follow our April coverage in Elle Magazine with an August feature in Italian Vogue!  In the column, Vogue Curvy, Irene Tamagnone singled out "Loaiza'a Curvy Snow White" (pictured right), further adding, "Rodolfo Loaiza plays with the imaginary of the cartoons, at it amazes us thanks to a Snow-White character with a curvy body."

While highlighting Loaiza'a After The Loving from last year's La Luz de Jesus 25 Exhibition (and featured in the anniversary catalog of the same name), the article went on to discuss the Disasterland exhibition and the online version had a gallery and links back the La Luz de Jesus website. Congrats, Rodolfo!

If you can't get enough of the live music events at La Luz de Jesus, you absolutely must not miss the Negativland "Our Favorite Things" opening reception which will feature an incredibly rare performance by the band to kick off a career retrospective of their subversive art projects. It took almost two years to set up this gig, and the fact that Neon Park and Chick Strand will be the other headliners (in Gallery II) for the prestigious September slot makes this an evening for the ages. There will be more special events connected to these exhibitions that we'll be announcing throughout the month, so check back to our Events page often.

Preparing for Beyond Eden...

La Luz tops L.A. Times & Huffington Post Art Picks; lands on NPR!

Tonight we'll unveil the Mark Todd's Force Field exhibition which (in timely July 4th fashion) features the Powerfury Fireworks Stand installation. We've archived fifty photos of the construction of this incredibly important work, accessible at the bottom of the preview page. The Los Angeles Times selected this show as their Top Pick. Several of Mark's pieces have already sold, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is a complete sell out. In addition to his signature comic book deconstruction paintings and collages, he'll be offering custom, non-explosive fireworks in four sizes for as little as $100 each. We'll be holding a BBQ in the back lot for this show, which will also serve as the public party for the Soap Plant 40th Anniversary! Hard as it is to believe that the shop that spawned Wacko and La Luz de Jesus Gallery has been around for 40 years now, it's been a pleasure and a privilege to reflect and contribute to the counter culture as we head towards our fifth decade. NPR just profiled us:


Also on exhibit this evening and for the rest of the month will be new work from Simon Sotelo, Andy Steele, Hui Tan and Van Saro -who earned the distinction of landing a highlight on the Huffington Post as all four were recommended by Artweek.
The breakout stars of this year's Everything But the Kitschen Sync group show cover a lot of ground between Van Saro's graffiti verite, Hui Tan's Chinese nostalgia, Simon Sotelo's Dia de Los Muertos portraits and Andy Steele's deformed children's book illustrations. Come on down and have a hotdog on us!