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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Mark Ryden
(Mixed media on paper, 13.5” x 10.75”)
An exhibition currently running at National Portrait Gallery features Michael Jackson-inspired art, with Mark Ryden's cover for the 1991 record "Dangerous" prominently featured. But it’s not just the original painting: Ryden crafted an entirely new work, “The King of Pop,” to house the piece.
We've just restocked Mark Ryden's Gay 90s Postcard Set in our store. This set of 24 oversized postcards includes paintings and drawings from "The Gay 90's Olde Tyme Art Show" and "The Gay Nineties West," two celebrated shows/collections from the beloved pop artist. Ryden was last mentioned on cctvta.com here.
Over the past year, pop surrealist Mark Ryden has tackled an unlikely new medium: ballet. Ryden designed the sets and costumes for the new American Ballet Theatre production "Whipped Cream." The so-called "two-act confection" is based off the Richard Strauss-penned libretto "Schlagobers," which was first performed in 1924 by the Vienna State Opera.The show kicks off on March 15 at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa.
Turn the Page: The First Ten Years of Hi-Fructose was born as a bi-coastal collaboration between contemporary art magazine Hi-Fructose based in San Francisco and the Virginia MOCA. Several years in the making, this exhibition celebrated the magazine's first ten years on Saturday night by bringing highlights of some of today's foremost contemporary artists who have appeared in its pages to Virginia Beach.
Tickets are now available for the Turn the Page: The First Ten Years of Hi-Fructose opening night celebration, coming to Virginia MOCA this May! Turn the Page will be inaugurated with a premiere extravaganza shrouded in mystery and inspiring wonder. Cocktails, dinner, and entertainment begin the evening in an edgy, but sophisticated surreal forest. Emerging from the surreal forest, guests will enjoy the first private curatorial tours of the awaited exhibition: Turn the Page, featuring 51 of the foremost artists of our time from the ten year history of Hi-Fructose Magazine.
There are many great artists whose primary medium include pencil and paper, but the artist's sketch is not always intended as a finished work. A sketch may serve a number of purposes: it might record something that the artist sees, it might develop an idea for later use or it might be used as a quick way of graphically demonstrating an image. For those who refer to drawing to work out their ideas, a sketch becomes a rare piece seldom shared with their audience. As such, there is a special air of mystery that is associated with drawings. We've featured artists' drawings in our Sketchbook Series on our blog, and in our print issues, where we've shone a light on scarcely shown sketch work by artists like Marco Mazzoni, and Femke Hiemstra, and Mark Ryden, to name a few. A new group exhibition "Lápiz, Papel o Tijera" (Pencil, Paper, Scissors) at Plastic Murs gallery in Spain aims to do the same for 30 artists.
Our next print issue of Hi-Fructose Magazine arrives in stores Jan. 1st, 2016! Featured in this issue is: A glaringly awesome cover by Japanese art icon Keiichi Tanaami. Tanaami’s history and story is amazing, and the result of which is a unique eye-splitting body of work we’re happy to bring to you in print. Plus Riikka Hyvönen’s “Derby Kisses”, Tip Toland’s meaningful hyper-real sculptures, Yellena James’ beautiful painted floral explosions, Mark Ryden’s latest show Dodecahedron, and the mighty ink pen of Kim Jung Gi. We follow this with extensive features on Eric White’s paintings of a Hollywood-gone-bizarro, Chris Mars’ frighteningly beautiful world, Yoshitoshi Kanemaki’s amazing multi-expressional sculptures, and painter Margaret Bowland’s immersive work about power and identity. Also in this issue, punk rock historian and RE/Search founder V.Vale delves into the new photography book Shot in the Dark: Collected Photography by David Arnoff, plus much more! Pre-order copies direct from us here!
The works of Italian artist Paolo Pedroni capture a whimsical and dark world populated by child-like maidens with an aristocratic flair. Though his art is often compared to a cross between Pop Surrealist, Mannerist and Baroque painting, it wasn't until very recently that Pedroni discovered the Pop Surrealism genre, and he especially gravitated towards the works of Mark Ryden. More than than anything, Pedroni sees his work as a combination of two worlds- the real world in which we live and the fantasy of his own imagination. At first working in street art and graffiti, he eventually ventured into digital art, and most recently, oil painting. With each piece, Pedroni balances elements that are sweet, strange, and decidedly unnerving.
Pop Surrealist Mark Ryden (Hi-Fructose Vol. 18) has long incorporated alchemy and numerology in his fairytale-like world, filled with symbols and strange letters. The Los Angeles based artist once said that if he hadn't pursued art, his next choice would have been math or science. For his upcoming exhibition "Dodecahedron", opening December 10th at Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York, Ryden looked to geometry for inspiration. His exhibition is so named after the "dodecahedron", a 12-sided geometric shape of perfect symmetry and mystery.
This last Friday, the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, California (MOAH) celebrated over twenty years of toy art with their retrospective exhibition, "The Art of Toys". The exhibit is the first of its kind for the west coast, featuring some of the movement's most memorable pieces by artists and their manufacturers. The first modern designer toys hit the market in the 1990s, with many of their creators originating in the Lowbrow, New Contemporary, and even graffiti scenes. Recognizing the potential for the collectibility of their characters, participating artists like Tim Biskup, Mark Ryden, Nathan Jurevicius, and even Hi-Fructose's own Attaboy, began marketing their designs to collectors as limited editions.
On Saturday night, Heart N Soul Gallery in Culver City joined forces with some all-star New Contemporary artists to raise funds for the Aurelia Foundation. The foundation was created to provide funding and support for programs like "Step by Step", enriching the lives of disabled adults. The charity is very close to home for the gallerist, whose daughter is one of the many young adults that receive assistance from these programs. Among the artists who have contributed both original, new and previous works to the cause include AJ Fosick, Ana Bagayan, Bob Doucette, Clayton Bros, James Jean, Lola, Marion Peck, Mark Ryden, Martin Witfooth, Naoto Hattori, Nate Frizzell, Shepard Fairey, Steven Daily, and more.
No more than a few inches high, these tiny paintings by Indiana-based artist Mab Graves are very much in the spirit of the winter season. In the slightly off-putting style of Big Eyes' Margaret Keane (Vol 34), her dolly-eyed misfits adventure through haunting wintery landscapes and county fairs. Inspired by fairytales and classic literature, along the way they make friends with characters like dachshunds and the Dish who ran away with the Spoon. They always seem to be fleeing- emancipated from the bleakness of reality into Graves' dream world.
What a special gift for someone special, including yourself! This brooch features Mark Ryden's "Daisy" drawing from "The Gay 90s: West" exhibition (see our coverage here) and is now available in the Hi-Fructose online store. The brooch features a mineral crystal dome and a solid metal back custom stamped with Mark's logo and a safety pin style attachment. It comes in a black velvet pouch and box with a certificate of authenticity. Check it out in our shop.
For nearly a decade, Copro Gallery has fused emerging talents with established names in the New contemporary art game in their annual "BLAB!" show. The show is the brainchild of Blab World creator and art director, Monte Beauchamp, representative of his eclectic taste in artists of varying aesthetics and a penchant for the unusual. Many of them have appeared in most, if not all, of the annual shows and developed together with the event. Last Saturday, "BLAB!" celebrated it's ninth year as an exhibition with the announcement of the upcoming BLAB World 3 anthology.
A collaboration between curators Alix Sloan of Sloan Fine Art and Noah Antieau of Red Truck Gallery, "Small Indignities" is an upcoming group show that features new works from a diverse crop of established and noteworthy emerging artists — and even some Pop Surrealist royalty. The exhibition will open at Red Truck Gallery in New Orleans on September 13. Influential painters Mark Ryden (HF Vol. 28 cover artist) and Marion Peck will be exhibiting alongside the likes of painter and illustrator Camille Rose Garcia (recently featured in HF Vol. 30), digital artists Ransom & Mitchell, heavy metal quilter Ben Venom, assemblagist Brian Cunningham and many others. With so many artists working in a variety of disciplines, the exhibition is an interesting look at how the spirit of low brow has influenced artists of various styles and generations. Get an early peek of "Small Indignities" here before it opens next week.
Last Friday, Kohn Gallery celebrated the opening of its new space in Hollywood with Mark Ryden's highly anticipated exhibition, “The Gay 90s: West”. The gallery walls were painted pale pink for the occasion, complimenting Ryden’s softly colored paintings that glamorize 19th century nostalgia and old time kitsch. Ryden’s latest neoclassical and pop surrealistic works are populated by young girls, religious icons, and street peddling Abraham Lincoln in 1890s America. Each piece is framed in Japanese wood, an art in its own right, ornately carved in bas-relief with motifs like birds, leafy branches, and the faces of his characters. Read more after the jump.