Mark ye olde calendars! Santa Monica College’s Annual Holiday Student Art Sale is almost here!
Each year, a group of well-meaning shoppers amble off to the sale with altruistic intentions of buying gifts for friends and loved ones. But without fail, most of the purchases end up in the buyers’ homes because they are simply too exquisite to part with. Forget the insanity, expense and banalities of mall shopping; the SMC Student Art Sale is the best place to pick up unique, inexpensive holiday gifts.

TWO DAYS ONLY!
Tuesday & Wednesday December 14th & 15th
11:00am – 9:00pm

Blown glass, ceramics, jewelry and more by SMC’s talented art students.

LOCATION:
Pete & Susan Barrett Gallery
Madison Campus (past the Broad Stage)
11th and Santa Monica Blvd.

FREE PARKING – 310-434-3434

Okay, this is kinda funny brilliant! DARE, A UK app development company has recreated Andy Warhol’s hamburger eating performance and this time, instead of making a trip to a burger joint, Mr Warhol created a digital one using his iPad as the canvas and his iPhone as his remote palette. ketchup.

The original:

Artist Spotlight: Andy Warhol Eats a Hamburger

The appropriated version:
Warhol uses iPad

The Remote Palette itunes page

Watch for a new series – Music Inspired – images spontaneously sparked by music. Music can lead down unexpected paths with therapeutic and magical results — at least for this artist. The payoff isn’t necessarily the product, but the meditative process of giving in to the sound and following its flow through mind and body where one might experience peaks and valleys, as well as lights and darks similar to the structure of the particular song.

The experimental piece, Filter Taps by Juana Molina inspired these images. I was already working in Illustrator when the song came up and enjoyed it so much that I put it on repeat. It’s still playing!

Van Gogh has the last laugh.

I saw Waste Land on Tuesday night at the Nuart and thought it was well done. This Lucy Walker directed documentary, follows New York based Brazilian artist, Vik Muniz to his birth country in his quest to create art out of waste. In the process, he connects with an unlikely crew of intriguing trash collectors – who transform into collaborators and subjects for Muniz’s huge pieces. This movie will make you laugh, cry and marvel at the persistence and triumph of the human spirit. The understated music score by Moby was quite wonderful.

WASTE LAND Official Trailer from Emily Rothschild on Vimeo.

“The moment when one thing turns into another is the most beautiful moment. A combination of sounds turns into music. And that applies to everything.”
–Vik Muniz, WASTE LAND

‘What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.’
–T.S. Eliot, ‘The Waste Land’

Filmed over nearly three years, WASTE LAND follows renowned artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world’s largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. There he photographs an eclectic band of “catadores”—self-designated pickers of recyclable materials. Muniz’s initial objective was to “paint” the catadores with garbage. However, his collaboration with these inspiring characters as they recreate photographic images of themselves out of garbage reveals both the dignity and despair of the catadores as they begin to re-imagine their lives. Director Lucy Walker (DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND, BLINDSIGHT, COUNTDOWN TO ZERO) has great access to the entire process and, in the end, offers stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the alchemy of the human spirit.

Waste Land Website

“Hear rare footage of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s last televised interview, juxtaposed with contemporary footage from Channel 4′s Unreported World from the Niger Delta and the creation of a memorial to Saro-Wiwa in London.
Also featuring a photomontage of the remember saro-wiwa project and music by Nigerian-European artist and spectacular singer, Nneka.
Learn more & get active at http://www.remembersarowiwa.com.“