By now everyone’s aware of the impending closing of SoHo’s legendary DEITCH PROJECTS on June 1st when JEFFREY DEITCH assumes the helm as Director of MOCA in LA. That doesn’t mean the gallery will be slacking in the meantime. Currently on display at the massive Wooster Street location until February 16th is KEITH HARING’s  70-foot-long mural painted in 1985 for the gym of the South of Market Childcare Center (SOMACC), a non-profit childcare center that serves pre-school children from the SOMA neighborhood in San Francisco. The mural is one of 16 public works painted at hospitals and children’s centers around the world during the artist’s lifetime. Painted in one day, the mural incorporates cartoon characters and animals inspired by the artist’s childhood drawings. When SOMACC lost its lease and moved to a new location in September 2006, the mural was dismantled and is now on view for the first time outside of San Francisco.

ORIGINAL SF MURAL INSTALLATION SHOTS:

Our friends at SOUR HARVEST have provided this weekend’s lineup of must-see shows in the Southland:

Sat, Feb. 6th 8-11PM
Merry Karnowsky Gallery
170 South La Brea Ave. in Los Angeles / 323.933.4408
‘She Wolves’ featuring new works from Miss Van + ‘Strange Fruit’ featuring new works from Victor Castillo
(On view through March 6th)
www.mkgallery.com

Sat, Feb. 6th 8-11PM
Subliminal Projects
1331 W. Sunset Blvd in the EchoPark region of Los Angeles
New works from Albert Reyes & Andres Guerrero at Shepard Fairey’s personal gallery
(On view through March 6th)
www.subliminalprojects.com

Sat, Feb. 6th 6-10PM
Copro Gallery
2525 Michigan Ave, Space T5 in Bergamot Station in Santa Monica
Closing reception for ‘Desensitized’ featuring new works from Brian Viveros and Dan Quintana with a live performance from The Billy Bones
www.coprogallery.com

Sat, Feb. 6th 7-11PM (with a special Zombie walk at 6:20PM)
Gallery Nucleus
210 E. Main St., Alhambra / 626.458.7482
‘Zombies In Love’ group show featuring works from Yoko d’Holbachie, Junko Mizuno, Jonathan Wayshak, Scott C., Mindy Lee, Kevin Dart, Ippei Gyoubu, Edith Abeyata, Anna Chambers, and many more + tons of Zombie goodness going off throughout the evening including a Zombie walk near the gallery before the event kicks off, signings, contests, and more – check their site for full details and lineup
(On view through Feb. 22nd)
www.gallerynucleus.com

Sat, Feb. 6th 8PM-12:30AM ($8 at the door)
Hive Gallery
729 S. Spring St in downtown Los Angeles
Monthly group show with featured artists Eric Vasquez, Michael Pukac, Andrea Shear, Jessica Ward and Mikolaj Wyszynski with performances from live acts and resident DJs and more
www.thehivegallery.com

Usually Terry keeps the camera pointed the other way…

Yes, we at Supertouch are known to grind on and on about how dead-in-the-ground the vinyl toy world is these days, but every once in a while a toy comes along that restores our faith in the medium. Today, that toy is the TERRY RICHARDSON figure by upstart toymakers UNCLE YORK for Parisian culture boutique COLETTE (we woulda bought a Terry x Michael Lau toy ages ago but they never got made). Available in red or blue trademark flannel, the must-have piece don’t come cheap at $200 USD, but it sure beats the other junk on the shelves…

The Big O gives his seal of approval…

Shaun Gladwell gets a firsthand lesson in the art of war…

Australian experimental film director and Supertouch buddy SHAUN GLADWELL has just returned from a tour in Afghanistan as an official “War Artist” drawing inspiration for a new body of work from the action on the front lines. Of particular interest to Gladwell were the experiences of the individual fighters, whose emotional states informed his experience: “I wasn’t interested in photographing sensitive material, in terms of the technology or weapons,” he informed THE ART NEWSPAPER. “My interest was really the experience of the soldier as a thinking and feeling subject. I’m interested in how bodies move through space and the capacity of bodies to perform in certain situations. Particularly how it relates to landscape. These are issues I’m always interested in. That informed the way I was dealing with that experience in Afghanistan. But I didn’t try and direct anything.”

SHAUN GLADWELL ON LIFE IN AFGHANISTAN
The Australian artist’s three-week sojourn with troops will form basis of new work
By Elizabeth Fortescue | The Art Newspaper

SYDNEY. Shaun Gladwell, the Australian multimedia artist who represented his country at the 2009 Venice Biennale, and who has just returned from being an official war artist in Afghan istan, told The Art Newspaper that his experiences were “inspirational” and will inform his next body of work.

Gladwell was speaking on his return from Oruzgan province, where he lived and worked for three weeks alongside Aus tralian soldiers in October 2009. He says he will spend the next six months in his Sydney studio, working to “digest” his experiences while in the field. “I’m cherishing [the trip], and starting to analyse what’s taken place at this particular time,” he said.

Before settling back into his studio to work with the raw photo graphs and moving images he shot in Afghanistan, Gladwell returned to Venice to pack up his Biennale work—a video series titled MADDESTMAXIMVS—Planet & Stars Sequence, 2009, set partly in the Australian outback. Gladwell said it had been a long-held ambition to undertake a tour of duty with Australian fighting forces, stemming from the stories his father had told him about being a soldier in the Vietnam War. Click HERE to continue reading…

ST buddies Damien, Hacula, Terry Richardson, and our beloved John Waters at the fete. Flix by AA…

Our friends at ART IN AMERICA covered the scene well at the opening of DAMIEN HIRST’s “End of an Era” show (so named because supposedly it’s the last time his formaldahyde pieces will be shown) at GAGOSIAN’s Madison Ave. gallery, but the NEW YORK OBSERVER did a good job summing up the show quite nicely:

IS THIS THE END OF A DAMIEN HIRST ERA?
By Alex Taylor | New York Observer  Feb 2, 2010

It’s time we had a talk about Damien Hirst. I know, I know. Mr. Hirst, who was born in 1965 and came to prominence in the London art scene of the late 1980s as the first among equal of the Young British Artists, has for so long been ascending to the kind of fame perversely reserved for artists of maximum visibility and a minimum of formal skills that the mere mention of his name may prompt a fatigued groan even among the most detached museum-goer. That guy? Again? So what’d he do now? Mr. Hirst has been such a big player in art during the last decade and a half—everything from its calculated affronts and controversies to its biennial boom to the explosion in cost-and-scale: in short, the very market mechanism itself. If you are one of those people who don’t particularly like contemporary art or disagreed with the Met’s decision to display Mr. Hirst’s dead shark for three years, you probably think Mr. Hirst has a lot to answer for. This thought was occasioned by Hirst’s current show at the uptown Gagosian Gallery, which runs until March 6. “End of an Era,” its called. And the title feels just about right. Click HERE to continue reading…

HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

ST buddy SHEPARD FAIREY has teamed up with his STUDIO NUMBER ONE (creaters of the “Hope For Haiti” CD cover) designers CLEON PETERSON and CASEY RYDER to create a new poster for HAITI relief based on a photo by TAO RUSPOLI. The $50 signed and numbered edition goes on sale at an unannounced time on Friday, February 5th at Obeygiant.com, with all proceeds from the sales going to ARTISTS FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE:

“Artists for Peace and Justice (APJ), established in early 2009, is a fundraising effort founded by Paul Haggis and friends that encourages peace and social justice and addresses issues of poverty and enfranchisement in communities around the world. Over the past year, APJ has directed its efforts to raising enough funds to fully sponsor three schools in Haiti in support of the initiatives of Father Rick Frechette and his team. These schools aren’t just a place to learn but provide for a hot meal, clean water and a chance at the future to children who desperately need it. Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, APJ has focused its efforts on raising much needed dollars for emergency aid in the ravaged country that is only a few hours from our shores.”

Kehinde celebrates the glory of African football without breaking a sweat…

Gearing up for the massive global throwdown that is WORLD CUP, fashion sportswear brand PUMA has teamed up with KEHINDE WILEY in a poignant celebration of African football. The company sponsors a total of 12 African teams, four of which have qualified for the World Cup being held this year in South Africa. Wiley created portraits of three Puma-sponsored football stars; Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon, John Mensah of Ghana and Emmanuel Eboué of Ivory Coast with each player wearing their national team kits.

A fourth “Unity” Portrait was painted with all three players together, symbolizing the united countries of Africa. The players’ pose was inspired by a pendant Wiley discovered while touring the Continent. In the “Unity” Portrait, the players are wearing the Puma Unity Kit, a limited edition uniform designed to be a third kit shared by all African teams, symbolizing greater African unity. The brown pigment in the kit is a customized Pantone created by mixing actual soil samples from four different African nations—Ghana, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire and Mozambique. The brown to blue color gradient represents the soil to the sky progression. In each portrait, Wiley captures the essence of each player using the rich heritage, customs and people of Africa as inspiration.

The individual portraits, measuring 5 feet by 6 feet and the “Unity” portrait measuring 9 feet by 12 feet, were unveiled in Berlin on January, 20 2010. The portraits will then travel as an exhibition beginning in February to Paris, London, New York, Beijing and Milan, ending in South Africa in June for the World Cup.

Born in Los Angeles to an African American mother and a Nigerian father, Wiley describes his relationship with Africa as “one of searching and longing.” Kehinde, which means “second born of twins” in Yoruba, grew up without knowing his father and curiosity led him to Nigeria at the age of 20 to retrace his roots. Upon meeting his father, Wiley completed a series of portraits of him, and later, in 2007, returned to Africa to compile a body of work entitled “The World Stage: Africa Lagos-Dakar,” which was exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Kehinde’s distinctive patterns (taken from local African sources) will appear in Puma’s Spring/Summer 2010 Africa lifestyle collection of apparel, footwear and accessories. The Seven graphic patterns from Wiley’s existing work are integrated throughout the bright, bold, color-blocking patterns of the collection, including a limited edition Kehinde Wiley football boot. HAVE A LOOK:

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Supertouch buddy LANCE ARMSTRONG has added his custom SHEPARD FAIREY-designed TREK Madone cycle into rotation as he rides in the 100th edition of the legendary GIRO D’ITALIA race in support of teammate LEVI LEIPHEIMER. With a matching Shepard Fairey-designed brain bucket to boot, Lance is sporting a coordinated ensemble that even Bruno would give an enthusiastic “Ach ja.”

*Watch live feed of the Giro daily HERE…