Because you don’t have time to find your horizons (let alone broaden them), we give you Culture Samples: our essential guide to gallery shows and openings that every man should see, and which recurs about once a month. Sally forth.
Into Oblivion and The Coaster Show
Harold Fox and Various Artists
La Luz de Jesus Gallery
Hollywood
On display as of now: both Harold Fox’s brooding dark paintings and The Coaster Show, a collection of 1,000 drink coasters designed by local artists. This the third year La Luz de Jesus Gallery has done the Coaster Show, and if you haven’t been, it’s a (table-staining) riot. Kicker: every piece in the show is available to take home for $250 or less. Take a gander.
September 4th
Still Life
Mark Jenkins
Fabien Castanier Gallery
Culver City
Don’t be alarmed. That’s not a burglar. It’s a sculpture of a burglar by one Mark Jenkins. His first-ever solo show is this Saturday at Fabien Castanier in Culver City. His work treads urban and dystopian themes. In case you couldn’t tell.
September 5th
The Rise of David Bowie 1972-1973
Mick Rock
Taschen Gallery
Beverly Grove
When he released The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars in 1972, David Bowie broke barriers — musically, stylistically, gender-wise — that people are still having trouble negotiating. Mick Jagger, no slouch at this point in his career, wanted to be Bowie. Everyone did. Everyone still does. Mick Rock was Bowie’s sole photographer during this period and in his new book The Rise of David Bowie (presented in typically elegant fashion by Taschen’s printing press), you’ll see stage shots, backstage snaps and 50 previously unseen candids. You can buy prints or the 310-page book. Or both.
September 7th
The Cassavetes Project
Steve Reisch
Canon Hollywood
John Cassavetes is largely considered the godfather of American independent cinema, and in early 1981 he staged three of his movies — Love Streams, Knife and The Third Day Comes — at the Center Theater in Hollywood. Photographer Steve Reisch shot the plays and behind-the-scenes—which include Peter Falk, Cassavetes, Jon Voight and a young Angelina Jolie as well as Cassavetes’ wife and muse Gena Rowland—using a Canon AE-1. Those images have been reproduced on Canon imagePrograf 6450 for extra eye-popping detail.
September 19
Metamorphosis
Jean Louis Gaillemin
Please Do Not Enter
Downtown
Please Do Not Enter is bringing the work of Parisian digital artist Jean Louis Gaillemin to their shop across from Pershing Square. The work, Metamorphosis, is a Kafka-inspired series of digitally enhanced photographs of male models bearing ornate, tattoo-like graphics. It’s part tribal with its primitive sexuality, part baroque with its themes of flora and fauna. And if you haven’t been in Please Do Not Enter, it’s a store full of one-of-a-kind items that is more experience than shop. Go. There’s much to buy that will elicit a “Where’d ya get that?” And you’ll be like, “I know a guy” (or guys, as the case is here).
September 23rd
The Broad
Downtown
As you’ve probably heard, The Broad opens its doors this month. If you haven’t been in for a sneak preview, get ready to be wowed. The place is superbly skylit, houses 2,000 works of post-war modern art and, architecturally speaking — with its veil-and-vault concept — serves as a work of art itself.
September 22nd
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