Today we've launched a new music video I've created. The video is made in stop motion using an analog camera (Olympus Mju I) and around 80 films. It's for Kreatones a young wave band from the Netherlands.
I hope you like it and like to show this to the Fecal Faces out there. -Jorrit Spoelstra
If you've never seen it or haven't in awhile, add the film Grave of the Fireflies to your rental queue. This heartfelt Japanese animated classic tells a stark tale of two young children who lose their parents towards the end of World War 2... We love it, and for more info listen to this guy... and again, we recommend you watch any Japanese animated film in Japanese with English subtitles.
What are some of your favorite Japanese animated films? Let's post some up in the comments:
Last night we watched Hayao Miyazaki's animated classic Spirited Away. We watched the English dubbed version for the first time. Don't do that. Animated Japanese films are so much better when you watch them in Japanese with English subtitles. Reading enhances the film by bringing your own your imagination into it... Plus, Disney has a way of Americanizing the film. There's a clumsy touch to such a delicate masterpiece.
Got an email from Tim Bierbaum who wanted to let us know about his fantastic new multimedia web series Real Artists he created. It's great, and he wrote and directed this pilot episode. He also photographed, illustrated, animated, and recorded a voice. We love it. Think you will too.
"Real Artists" (a Thrash Lab special created by Tim Bierbaum)
This first episode of Real Artists finds a number of characters engaged in their daily routine in New York City. Presented as a collection of vignettes, the episode connects the characters and discussions in a digressive unpredictable way.
The best part of the cinema program at SF State was taking the history/ theory classes. They would screen iconic classic films in SF State's wonderful Coppola Theater. Always took these classes early in the morning. That's the best time to see any film. As opposed to viewing a film at night and then going to bed soon afterwards, viewing a film early in the morning allows you the entire day to reflect. Highly recommend your next viewing with a cup of coffee.
Visionary Design: The Cinema of Charles and Ray Eames - Fri. Feb. 24 - 8PM @Oddball Films in San Francisco --> Oddball Films presents Visionary Design: The Cinema of Charles and Ray Eames. Among the finest designers of the 20th Century, the husband and wife team are best known for their groundbreaking contributions to architecture, furniture design, industrial design and manufacturing, but the Eames’ were also brilliant and inventive filmmakers, able to illustrate the most abstract concepts with readily understood images. There is so much to say about the legacy of the Eames’s that an entire period has been named after them. ~complete details
As cool as it is to be nostalgic about an artist's past, you don't have to hold onto it. Especially since there are people like C.R. Stecyk creating works in the now with even more punch than they had 30 years ago - a trait that can only be attributed to the character of a true artist. In fact, he's just made a new experimental film named "FIN", that's packed full of the elements of culture and spirit which have always fascinated Stecyk and his fans.
The film will be premiering at H Space Gallery on February 8th and if you think it's going to be a regular old screening, think again - since Stecyk and the creative team at Hurley will be fully transforming the space into an old movie theater. I'm talking a floor to ceiling installation that will be 110% unforgettable. Not to mention that "Fin" will continue to evolve even after its screening - taking on a life as a limited edition clothing run and web series.
If you don't know who C.R. Stecyk is, all you have to do is open up practically any skateboarding magazine and point to any page knowing that what you're seeing wouldn't exist without his vision of how to the capture the radical images and lifestyles that forever inspired our imaginations. From his Dogtown Articles in the 1970's, to his recent exhibit of posters at the Art In The Streets exhibit at MOCA - the man is just unstoppable. And so the film based on the lives of the z-boys he made part of history might have been called Lords Of Dogtown, but Stecyk was and is still most definitely the king.
Twixt @Fifty24SF Wednesday, 18 January 2012 /// Written by Trippe
Last Friday, we swung through Fifty24SF to check out their current show coinciding with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola's newest feature/ horror film, Twixt (art directed by Jimmy DiMarcellis aka Porous Walker).
The show references many scenes from the film, which Coppola wrote himself, and which struggles to win over critics (ouch).
Incredible set design complete with a heavy duty fog machine, it certainly was photo worthy. The bird houses were priced very inexpensively with many sold by the time we arrived... Didn't even recognize the gallery is was so reworked.
Pledgers receive all sorts of goodies from a Creative Lives sketch kit, tshirt by Henry Gunderson, prints from Ferris Plock & Andrew Schoultz, tickets to the LA & SF screenings, etc. Donate as little as $5 now.
80+ year old NYC based street fashion photographer and icon Bill Cunningham is an interesting character who still buzzes about New York City by bicycle making fashion shows and society soirees for the NYTimes. The film, "Bill Cunningham New York", documents the thoughtful/ matter-a-fact nature of the man who believes fashion isn't about celebrity and glamour but about finding beauty in a harsh world.
We highly recommend this honest portrayal of a man whose life's work isn't about money but about following your heart's desire and truely being yourself, working hard continuing to do what you love. The film is a wonderful portrait of an honorable man and well worth checking out (Netflix streams it, if you go that route).
Influential figure in experimental and underground filmmaking, George Kuchar passed away from cancer yesterday. Kuchar had been a professor @SFAI since 1971 while working on his lo-fi films and videos.
Kuchar's 1966 "Hold Me While I'm Naked"
If you've never seen a movie by the Kuchar Brothers, you really should. When George and Mike Kuchar were in their heyday, their work was the epitome of 1960s underground cinema: 8mm, no budget, wild ideas, wilder content. Unless you went to film school or lived near a cool theater or museum? They were almost impossible to see. Now? They're a click away on YouTube. ~read on
Saturday update via U.P.:Officially billed (according to Harry Kim and Dave Choe) as the "Dirty Hands Release: Jerk Off Cum in Your Eye Party. Everybody Cum". We're keeping it in the hood and doing a DVD release party at Nickies (466 Haight St) Sunday night at 10pm. If you're around come by and get a dirty dirty from Dave. That is all.
Guess it's the way things are these days. Remember The Alhambra Theater? How about The Regency Theater? So many of San Francisco's best indi one screen theaters are going the way of the 8 track, and it sucks. It sucks that more people didn't support and enjoy them, but what's the way it is. Streaming video, Netflix, etc and with people's limited time they have... Well...
The best popcorn with yeast in San Francisco, the Red Vic celebrates their 31st anniversary this July 25th, and it also happens to be the day the classic Upper Haight theater closes their doors. "Our closure is 100 percent certain at this point," co-owner Claudia Lehan said. "On July 25, our birthday screening of 'Harold and Maude' will be our last, I'm sad to say." ~Chronicle story.
Wanna check out some of the now closed classic SF theaters? A man on Flickr has tons of photos.
Underskatement is back and they want your films for this US touring skate-centric film festival. Fecal Face is proud to be a media sponsor of this great program that's now in its 10 year.
UnderSkatement is a traveling film festival featuring short films made exclusively by skateboarders. Underskatement originated in 2001 to showcase the talents of both well-known and unknown skateboarder filmmakers. Entering this film festival doesn’t require a big name in the skateboarding world, but rather-just like skateboarding- requires creativity and imagination.
This is an open call for participants to appear in a film commissioned by the Oakland Standard, a series of contemporary art projects produced by the Oakland Museum of California. Once selected, participants will visit the museum on Monday, June 27, 2011, for a single forty-five-minute on-camera interview.
The film, titled Nothing Happens for Long, is an investigation (by the filmmakers, Jonn Herschend and Andrew Leland) into the normal, even boring moments that happen every day at a museum. It’s our belief that these quiet, mundane experiences are what lead to real discovery and wonder, and that museums are especially good at creating the right atmosphere to make them happen—in other words, to make nothing happen. (A more detailed explanation of these ideas appears on the film’s project page.)
We are looking for stories by individuals who have been to the Oakland Museum—recently or years ago—and experienced a moment where nothing happened.
Saw the documentary on Bill Hicks last night, AMERICAN: The Bill Hicks Story, and was so pleased to see a feature length film dedicated to telling the story of his genius and of his career starting out at age 16 to his early tragic death from pancreatic cancer at age 32 in 1994.
Bill Hicks, self described "Chomsky with dick jokes", was one of the best stand-up comedians, social critics, and satirists of all time, decades ahead of everyone else and culture at large. The film is currently playing here at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas and runs through... Well, tonight, Thursday, is the last showing, and you should get there and see it on the big screen before it's gone.
Yes, Bill Hicks was on stage many years ago, but the humor is completley timeless- everything is just as funny as it was 2 decades ago when it was written. If you miss the film in theaters, download some of his stand-up or watch it online.
Considered the comedian's comedian, whose act generally flew over the heads of most Americans at the time (his 12th appearance on David Letterman in '93 was pulled for being "over the top"), Hicks never garnered much US mainstream success, although, a huge hit in the UK selling out massive theaters filled with thousands of fans... Any comedian you love today was hugely influenced by Hicks who stayed true to his words and art, never selling out his act and completely just being himself throughout.
The film is smartly assembled, keeping even those obliviously unaware of Bill Hicks entertained with jazzy after effects/ animated motion of the old photographs of Bill's early life and career, such that you feel as though you're watching classic footage. Very well done, and for those of you who are huge Bill Hicks fans, the film is a way to relive classic performances and to appreciate and be inspired by an artist who stood his ground and kept focused on what more of us should.
R.I.P., Bill. You are greatly missed, and we would to see how you'd respond to our nutty ass world today. -Trippe
Wowzas, there's a lot of art happenings this weekend, and while you're making the rounds, be sure to stop at SFAI's MFA show Currency opening Friday, May 17th at the beautiful old SF Mint Building (88 5th Street).
SFAI's 2013 MFA graduates—working in painting, photography, printmaking, film, sculpture, installation, digital media, performance, and across media—will present work that embraces the Institute's signature spirit of experimentation and conceptual risk-taking.
Opening reception: Friday, May 17, 7–9 pm & running through Sunday 11-6pm daily. -- complete details
London based Pedro Matos opens the solo show Building Castles Made of Sand this Friday in Los Angeles at the Martha Otero Gallery featuring a new series of oil paintings on canvas and azulejo panels - a traditional Portuguese medium of hand-painted, tin-glazed, ceramic tile work.
San Francisco -- CCA opens their 2013 MFA Thesis Exhibition this Thursday, May 16th at their SF campus. Every year another graduating class produces steller work. One of the best SF art events worth getting to, but be sure to get there early as there's always a long line. ~details
Our buddies at Needles & Pens celebrate their 10th anniversary on Friday, May 10th, and it's not to be missed with this steller lineup - all going down at The Luggage Store.
Check the details, mark it in the calendar, and we'll be seeing you there!
San Francisco based photographer, Michael Jang, who's been shooting for decades and who has captured some great shots over the years (Reagan and Frank Sinatra is a good one) turned his camera on his family while growing up in the suburbs in the 70s. An intimate portrait of a Chinese-American family inside their Pacifica home living their lives. Sounds benign, which it is, but what also makes the images fascinating.
The Jangs - Opening reception, Thursday, May 2, (5:30-7:30pm) Stephen Wirtz
"The Jangs" photography by Michael Jang opening Thursday
British artist Ian Francis opened up the solo show Season 1 Episode 0 last night, April 25th at NYC's Joshua Liner. We've been fans of Ian's work for years. ~show details & works.
Although I missed the opening of Northern-California photographer Michael Garlington's newest show, Constructed Realities, I was fortunate enough to see the work still up during the Metaphysical fundraiser a couple weeks back at 111 Minna. Metaphysical fundraiser, an auction to benefit Wayne Ernzer. --- The ghoulish photographs in their heavy, hand-made frames are reminiscent of photos from the old west, and the glass crucifixes, complete with fetuses and guns, emphasize the accumulated time within the works themselves. Whether you're looking at the frames, the photos, or both, this show deserves a visit, and a walk through the golden archway Garlington constructed around the front door.
Fecal Face contributor Rachel Ralph (rachel(at)fecalface.com) has been profiling this Oakland based painter as he travels about Japan. In this segment, we feature some photos as he prepared for this show and residency at Spes-LaB in Tokyo which opened last weekend. Arnold will be featured in SFMoMA's Minna Street windows on June 8th.
Last Saturday, here in SF's Mission district, Guerrero Gallery opened two new shows with Philly based Alex Lukas and SF based Richard Colman respectively. Colman's work occupied the project space while Lukas' work and foliage was presented in the main space. Worth getting to if you haven't already.
Just got back to SF after a little trip south to Sayulita, Mexico. After 10 years without a vacation, me and the Mrs. headed south for some mental time off sitting in the sun, swimming and enjoying the watery Mexican beer. Here are some photos as we get back into the swing of things again.
Athens, Greece based designer, architect and artist Dimitris Polychroniadis emailed over more of his work which consists of mixed media, pop-humorous diorama sculptures that make a comment on the harsh realities my country and much of the world is facing at the moment.
FFDG will open a group show with the artists from the famed Skull & Sword Tattoo on Friday, May 17th (6-9pm). Artists: Grime, Henry Lewis, Yutaro, and Lango. Below are a series of videos on Grime for Vice's Tattoo Age produced in 2011. Fascinating look at one of the greatest tattoo artists alive today.
ARYZ (Spain) opened his newest gallery show at Fifty24SF last Friday and, if you live in the Bay Area, you need to go. This dude can obviously paint, and he doesn't need an entire building to show his impecable skill. The show has lots of small works on paper which contrast his highly-defined line work to his hard-edged painted objects. The contrast between the hard and soft was the most striking thing to me about his work, since I had never seen it in person before, and the washes blend with the thick paint seamlessly. The show also contains a larger work on canvas, a huge head suspended in the back of the room, and a big wood sculpture of a wolf figure. This diversity in such a small space was impressive, and those of us that went to the opening even got to meet the man in person. If you didn't make it out this weekend, check it out before May 31st when it closes and these works will be off to some very happy new homes.
Water McBeer is please to announce its latest exhibition "Precious" a solo exhibition by David Bayus (April 6 - May 4, 2013) -- David Bayus born 1982 holds his BFA from the Savannah College of Art and his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. David lives and works in San Francisco and is a founding member of the basement collective. This will be his first exhibition with the world renown Water McBeer Gallery highlighting his most recent achievements with paint and digital media. David Bayus will be exhibiting 5 relatively large-scale mixed media works along with a collaborative object featuring Hungarian sculptor H.R KOONS.
The Shooting Gallery handed over the reins to the Red Truck Gallery (a New Orleans based gallery) which curated their new show, Hard Time Mini Mall and opened the it on Saturday night. This is my favorite show (so far) in the Shooting Gallery's new space and was packed full of art, a mini bar, and cowhide rugs. The Red Truck Gallery chose works with clear craftsmanship and it was easy to see in Ian Berry's denim assemblages and Chris Roberts-Antieau's awesome quilts. The space was completely packed, making it hard to see each piece individually, but this show deserves a second trip anyway. I look forward to spending more time with the chandeliers, automatons, and paintings before the show comes down on May 4th.
Toronto based photographer Nathan Cyprys emailed to let us know about his newest series "Neighbour State", and we were about to post it when we spotted this series on his site entitled "Ayre (of Distances)" and had to post this one instead. After you view this one, view "Neighbour State" on his site. Both are visually enjoyable.
Working from found photographs, Lyle's paintings are created through a reductive painting process where each piece is rendered using only black paint and turpentine. Lyle begins this process by priming a panel with white gesso. He then paints a thin, rich, oily black veneer over the primed panel, slowly and systematically developing his images by removing some of the black paint with a cloth. In doing so, Lyle renders layer upon layer of various values of black paint resulting in his signature-style of luminescent works.
London based David Shillinglaw who's blogged it up for Fecal Face in the past recently completed this mural in London as he prepares for his solo show at Stolen Space opening on April 26th.
Our buddy Henrik Haven, who brings us some goodies from his native Copenhagen, has been shooting some of his city's graffiti and street art. Last week we brought you part one of his camera's explorations.
San Francisco based artists Raphael Villet and Sean Vranizan are currently showing Just the Two of Us at Adobe Books through April 21. Here are some photos from the opening and works.
Two twin brothers from Brooklyn, Skewville brought the fun to their opening at White Walls last Saturday night with their new show, Amusement. After all, you can't take a show that starts with a sign reading "Sucks either Way" too seriously. Besides the simplistic yet detailed paintings, visitors got to ride on a bike-powered merry-go-round and throw bean bags at bottles like a carnival game. Even the works made of found materials, like the Battleship boombox and the suitcase made of tin lunch pails, brought a sense of humor to the night. After seeing the work in the back of the gallery, which was much more crowded, Skewville provided a light-hearted atmosphere in which viewers could drink beer, play games, and see some really great artworks.
Brooklyn based artists Sheryo and The Yok recentely completed the mural "Pipe Dreams" in Long Island City at 5 pointz. The Yok also emailed over some photos fom a recent trip to Mexico for the Festival Anonymous held near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico from this past January... Awesome, we're heading to Mexico in a couple weeks.
In the ever-expanding genres of vinyl and resin based sculptural art, there are often players behind the scenes making some of the most impressive pieces come together. Whether you hang out at ComicCon or Art Basel Miami, you've seen sculptural works that PIP (Pretty in Plastic) literally had a hand (or several) in fabricating. Here, Fecal Face interviews PIP founder, owner and fabrication mastermind Julie B., to find out more about how their work all plays out.
I live in SF. I drove across the US last summer in a 30 ft. RV from SF to Brooklyn and did portrait series called Darth Across America, every day people in every day situations, wearing a Darth Vader mask. I raised $2600 through Kickstarter along the way, that paid for gas and beer. I was travelling with 2 other photographers who also did a series of portraits. Mine drew the most attention. It was an experiment in a way, to see if I could use a pop culture icon to unite people that had nothing in common. I was right. I created a community of people across the United States that continue to follow my project, which is soon to be a book. -Julie Schuchard
Our buddy Henrik Haven, who brings us some goodies from his native Copenhagen, has been shooting some of his city's graffiti and street art. Much to offer, we've broken the posts into 3 and will be posting more in the coming days.
Our friend Nicolas Le Borgne, who's shown with us for The Diamond Sea, emailed over some pics from his current show at Spacejunk Art Centers in Lyon, France. Incredible watercolor, pen & ink or acrylic works from this talented 28 year old Frenchman.
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xhamsterwarez
As cool as it is to be nostalgic about an artist's past, you don't have to hold onto it. Especially since there are people like 
