Sunday, March 25, 2012

JUXTAPOZ ART OPENING/chatting militaria with NIAGARA

Niagara's femme fatale painting of Clara Bow, oil on canvas


JUXTAPOZ Magazine held an art opening at
Copro Gallery in
Santa Monica CA 3.25.12 featuring scores of its favorite works of art replete with selfsame artists present. As its focus remains contemporary underground and alternative pop culture, the event proved colorful indeed, despite the chiaroscuro of charcoal grey walls with spotlights on each installation. Think Robert Williams ("Appetite For Destruction" and magazine founder, also at the soiree) meets Flarf (the poetry movement to propel the awkward and/or tasteless in
blank verse) but via visuals.

Crowd waiting to enter

Augmented by hamburger food trucks and a live band, this well-attended show highlighted Lowest Brow in the manner of the Margaret Keane's inordinately giant-eyed portraits or of teddy bears with prostheses, plus surreal, bad taste mash-ups from some fifty participating artists, including Fastfilm favorite Niagara Detroit, seen gesticulating below with unnamed peer.

Overall, my better half Mr. Twister was amused.


I'm pleased to report that Mr. Twister got along famously with Niagara, the two of them chatting about author William Manchester, the war philosophies of Patton versus Churchill, and multi-volume military biographies in general. (Twister's cryptic compliment afterwards: "She is many, many levels above your usual musician acquaintances, Heather.") I am less than pleased that my autofocus died in the pitch dark for the portrait
below, but you get the idea.



Below, photo of your humble photojournalist by Kurt Ingham. A little pixel noise (or preferably a lot) at my age can't hurt. In the spirit of kitsch, I wore my prep school uniform jacket from four and a half decades ago.

Below, WTF? It's The Radioactive Chicken Heads, the
evening's costumed, punk musical entertainment. (Averred Cleo Viper [LINK] online,
" 'saw them last year in L.A. Crazy motherfuckers!") LINK for more Chicken Head intel.

LINK for Juxtapoz; LINK for sales of Niagara's paintings and prints.


Youtube LINK features myriad performances by Niagara in her unique music mode with Dark Carnival and Destroy All Monsters. The jam clip below was chosen for its stellar inclusion of what seems to be half the Detroit legends of the era.


Below, however, the event's installation of Big Daddy Roth and
Rat Fink have the last say herein about Fine Art in general.


NOTE: link directly back to http://fastfilm1.blogspot.com if all elements such as photo layouts or videos aren't here.

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