Art Nouveau Magazine.

Artists Chris Mars and Jeff Soto will sign their respective books “Tolerance” and “Storm Clouds,” September 14th, 2008 from 3-6pm at The Laguna Art Museum. The book signing is a part of the current exhibition In the Land of Retinal Delights: The Juxtapoz Factor (on display through October 5, 2008).

Please Visit The Laguna Art Museum’s website for more information. The website is located at lagunaartmuseum.org
Source: Juxtapoz

Okay, so the year isn’t over, yet. But, if my math is correct–chances are, it isn’t–we have just over four months left. That’s a 100 or so days. So why not highlight the best albums of 2008 so far? I mean what else do I really have to look forward to in the fall? The Game? T.I.? Young Jeezy? Please. And just in case any of those albums deserve making the cut, I’ll go ahead and do another one at the top of the year. So without further waiting this is my list of the best albums of 2008–so far.
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Artist Eric Ink’s new ONLINE GALLERY NOW OPEN at Fex Tax. Click that link to check it out.

http://vvvv.nicolazgroll.com/

The designs here are mindblowing.

There will be many who will dismiss “Pineapple Express” as immature, overly silly, disjointed, and scatter-shot. There will be others who recognize it as a bizarrely artful, playful, loose genre-bending comedy with some outstanding performances, an inspired comedy script, and some great work from director David Gordon Green, certainly one of the finest young directors around.

The latter group is correct. “Pineapple Express” is, as a whole, the best movie the Apatow clan has produced yet. David Gordon Green is unquestionably the best director to direct one of these movies, but this is also a very different sort of movie than the films he usually directs. Does he rise to the challenge? He certainly does. I never would have believed that he was capable of directing such exciting and fun action scenes, or keep the movie’s tone steady despite the different elements it consists of being so wildly disparate, but somehow he pulls it off. No other stoner movie can claim to be as artful and well-directed as this film.

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s much-anticipated follow-up to “Superbad” is an excellent screenplay, but expect none of the realism and resonance of that film; “Pineapple Express” is all about the laughs, and the laughs are certainly here, and they are practically non-stop, with just about every scene featuring some great dialogue, acting, or the sort of incredible sight gag this movie does so well. This is just great comedy throughout.

In addition to David Gordon Green’s excellent work as director, the film is technically superb. The soundtrack and use of music is brilliant, and frequent Gordon Green collaborator Tim Orr’s cinematography is consistently great.

“Pineapple Express” will be an inherently divisive film. It didn’t get the sort of critical accolades many previous Apatow clan movies did, and I expect audiences will also be a little less unanimous. Indeed, there’s little of the critic-pleasing dramatic scenes Apatow’s comedies have been praised for, and even when they do pop up they’re usually deflated instantly with a joke, and credit has to go to director David Gordon Green for his expert handling of the film’s tone, which never becomes schmaltzy, thank the heavens. Really, the whole film is throughly enjoyable except for the very last scene in the film, which contains one of the film’s best jokes, but is really hard to buy given the state the characters are in, and also more than a little forced. Aside from that moment the whole thing works beautifully, quite astounding given the mesh of many different genres and sorts of comedy that this is. You either go with this movies sense of humor or you don’t, and I imagine more people will enjoy the first three quarters of the movie, before the big, long action scene happens, and lots and lots of violence occurs. I guess you have to have a somewhat morbid sense of humor to laugh at ALL of the jokes in the film, but so what? There are also some nice little tongue-in-cheek references to the film’s influences (”they messed with the wrong melon farmers”).

The cast really give it their all. It was great to see James Franco back in a comedic role, and his performance steals the show. Rogen is good as usual, Gary Cole is a perfect villain, and it’s nice to see the gorgeous and talented Amber Heard finally make a quality film (and get one of the film’s funniest scenes as her character’s final scene). The supporting cast are also all good in their roles.

There are a lot of reasons why “Pineapple Express” won’t work for many people, and they will probably end up being the very reasons the film works for those who like it. The film’s plot is inherently silly to an extent (although this is nowhere near the “Anchorman” style of comedy), and one must be prepared for an outright comedy and not something in the vein of “Knocked Up”. “Pineapple Express” may end up being more enjoyable for stoners and those with friends who are stoners, but it works on its own as great comedy because the humor has much more range and scope than just marijuana. One of the best comedies in years.

-Adanaz

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In case you missed Steve’s incindiary Essential Mix on BBC Radio you download it HERE at fairtilizer.com! Check it out!!! myspace.com/steveaoki | steveaoki.com | steveaoki.rcrdlbl.com

Leave it to Juxtapoz to treat artists like rock stars. The magazine has banned together with Sparks, Upper Playground, to create a follow up to last year’s inaugural Ignite What’s Next Art Tour. The three different events will showcase live painting by Sam Flores, Alex Pardee and N8 Van Dyke. The events will also feature performances by up-and-coming DJs. This year the tour will stop in Atlanta on Saturday, September 13th, 2008 at 10pm at Lenny’s Bar; Boston on Saturday September 20th, 2008 at 2pm at Underground Snowboards in Boston; and finally, Phoenix on both Friday, October 3rd and Saturday, October 4th at 10pm at The Marquee Theatre.

Beautiful layout and typography.

Look fly in these shades by British label, Tonite, and Australian eyewear brand, Colab. The collaboration includes 2 different styles, Caza’s and Vision Quest, both coming in black frames. The Caza’s features gold palm tree and horse logo on the sides with grey resin UV lens. The Vision Quest has a complete cut-out logo on both side temples. Both are limited to 1000 numbered pieces worldwide and are available now at select retailers and Colab online store.

You can’t do anything today without a camera. Think of a blogger, a MySpace and Facebook addict or a student without one. Well Ricoh just made things alot easier with their new R10 compact digital camera. Despite the size, this camera has alot of shooting power check out its four-person face recognition, anti-shake compensation, 1-cm macro mode, and easy presets that automatically levels the contrast and sharpness of the images. It also features a 3-inch screen, 7.1x optical zoom, and a 10-megapixel CCD sensor that can shoot from ISO80 to ISO1600. The camera comes in black, brown and silver and will be available for purchase September 5th in Japan.
Source: HypeBeast

In the late 80s and early 90s during the era of Public Enemy and NWA, Hip-Hop, radicalism and politics went hand in hand. Along the line something happened. I’d guess around the time everyone starting saying “grillz,” back when 50 Cent was still relevant, that the political activist spirit in Hip-Hop died. But with the presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama, the first presidential candidate that looks and acts like a Hip-Hop artist, he’s bi-racial and his favorite song is The Fugees’ “Ready or Not,” everyone is switching their tune.

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One of our favorite galleries, the Corey Helford Gallery presents The Sweetest Thing, a solo exhibition of new works by Los Angeles street artist Buff Monster. This is his second solo show, Buff Monster’s “Pepto-pink” palette bursts into action with a kaleidoscope of geometric patterns, kaiju-inspired characters, and kanji translations.
 

The Sweetest Thing opens Saturday, August 23. Take a sneak preview of some new Buff Monster creations right over here…

Source: Juxapoz

The Fabrik Contemporary Art in Hong Kong will open a new exhibition with world renown artist Takashi Murakami. The show will feature his print and canvas works from 2001-2008, a couple of other artists, Chiho Aoshima and Mr. from Murakami’s enterprise Kaikai Kiki will display some of their creations as well. The show will run from September 11th - 30th 2008.

Fabrik Contemporary Art
412, 4F Yip Fung Building
2-18 D’Aguilar Street
Central, Hong Kong

Source: Hypebeast

New York based designer, Robert Geller, has released his new Fall/Winter jewelry collection. The jewelery fit the seasons perfectly with their subdued, dark and mellow color palletes. Available now at Roden Gray. More pics after the jump

Source: HypeBeast

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Limited Addiction Gallery keeps it coming. After the last show, which was dope by the way, they out do themselves with a new show featuring work by Matt Curry and Robert Hardgrave. The exhibition entitled “Neighbors” is now available for viewing online at limitedaddictiongallery.com and hit up the opening on Saturday, August 16th.

 Source: Juxtapoz

Black is in this season. Don’t believe me? Take a look at Louis Vuitton’s new Damier Graphite Collection. The French fashion house previewed the collection originally a few months ago. Fashion lovers can’t wait to get their hands on these. The collection includes a selection of bags, wallets and footwear.

Source: Hypebeast

These are so cool, I don’t know what type of moderation the normal human being would ever wear these for but if oppurtunity crossed me, I’d wear them! Created from carbon fiber and extruded aluminum, the pneumatic powered Cybertek Wings are one of those gadgets that serves the purpose of cool. The Cybertek Wings extend and retract like a bird’s wings, and will do so about 7 times before they have to be recharged with air pressure for about 5-10 minutes.

All Cybertek sets are made to order and their shipping process might take between 1-5 months, depending the engineer. More pics after the jump.

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Taz Arnold “TI$A” is killin’ ALL style scenes right now especially with his new collaboration with Japanese designer Big-O of swagger along with Phenomenon fame for ”TI$A Phenomenon.” More Pics after the jump.

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You know how it is when you’re broke but sill a bit boujee. Well, if you’re in the A on August 21st at least you’ll be in good company. On Aug 21, at The Five Spot in Little Five Points Fadia Kader’s comeupkids.com and Plush .357 presents “Broke & Boujee: The Fashion Series.” You don’t want to miss this. With snapshots by Hannibal, music by DJ RastaRoot, DJ Dibiase and hosted by Ian Ford this is going to be dope. And at .99 cents before 11 p.m., you can’t afford to miss this. B&B mixtape mixed by DJ Dibiase download link after the jump.

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If for whatever silly reason you missed out, here is the video from Art Nouveau Magazine’s “The Art of Strange” party.

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v15565169hPaFrgaZ

Artist Jeff Soto has a new zine entitled “Brain Decay” composed of drawings and painting experiments from late 2007-2008, and many rare sketches for new paintings Soto is working on. You can check out more pages at his blog, http://jeffsotoart.blogspot.com/2008/08/brain-decay-zine.html
 

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I haven’t been excited for a new Nike SB release in a while. But The Nike SB Shoe Goo Dunk High is really making me itch to cop it. The design is dope from the duct tape inspired parts to the clear bottom. These are slated to release as part of Nike SB’s September line. I’ll be first in line to get them.