Nike just launched NSW, a clothing line of sportswear and technical apparel.  

Based on the concept of the "playmaker".    The playmaker is basically the player that controls the game.   Art critic Neville Wakefield wrote one of the essays along with other conceptual writers and contributors.    This campaign was executed perfectly based on contemporary art inspirations.   The visual imagery was to capture speed, action, sports and futuristic technology components.    I did the photography and the Design was by DUALFORCES. who designed Lipsticktracez as well.
  check it.

TMobile, Tony Hawk and Mr. Brainwash throw a dam good party.........

The stars of skateboarding were out last night as Tmobile launched their Tony Hawk sidekick.    Haven't seen a party like this in a while.  PS- Did I mention that skateboarders are the coolest nicest athletes in the world.
  Christian Hasoi, Tony Hawk and Tony Alva all under the same roof was a treat.    The ginormous ramp was the main attraction as skaters strutted their stuff all night.  
  The supreme crew was in the house, Stone Temple Pilots performed forEVA (can we discuss the "droogs" like Clockwork Orange  styling?).  
Also in attendance were musicians Incubus's Brandon Boyd and foxy Brett  Anderson from the Donna's.     


check out the Donna's site.  Not only have they been making hard rockin head bangin tracks  for the last ten years, they are hotter than ever.   Brett loves art and we love her for that.

The Donna's site

Anyone there knows there were a few ce-webrities and publicity hounding reality stars from the Hills (that were friend-less) that really aren't even worth mentioning.


The history of skateboarding rooms were so fun, all the vintage boards a treat to oogle..The fashion statement for the evening was captured best by Cory and Abraham with their  overly large Stash facial hair.    Cory even has a comb for his.


Mr. Brainwash did a great job designing the space with his Banksy like-pop art.     My favorite piece was the Fahrenheit 451 like installation at the opening of the event.   25 feet high and over thousands of books piled up with a small laptop on top. 
Made an important statement about the web generation.


Needless to say it was a cool shindig.   .

NYC based art icon Marilyn Minter  collaborates with edgy skate brand Supreme to create limited edition skate decks. 
 

Marilyn has been a part of the New York art scene since the 1970s, though her career has been anything but a smooth ride. She made a series of now-celebrated photographic studies of her drug-addicted mother while still a student in Florida, and in the early '80s she explored Pop-derived images that often had a sexual undercurrent. Then, at the end of that decade she painted herself straight into fevered and often bitter controversy when she began using imagery taken from porn magazines. Her infamy was exacerbated in 1990 when she produced her own TV ad, 100 Food Porn, which ran during late-night mainstream television shows. The 1990s and the early years of this decade saw her gradually refining her style and imagery so that, while still suggesting pornography, her photographs and paintings seem equally to breathe the atmosphere of high fashion (a world that she claims to know nothing about) and glamour. Her painting technique is equally startling, employing many layers of translucent enamel paint on metal to produce an incandescent, almost hallucinatory finish. Her work came to the attention of entirely new audiences last year, when Creative Time commissioned a series of giant billboards from her that were hung in Chelsea and, a few months later, she was included in the Whitney Biennial. Now, in the summer of 2007, she's suddenly everywhere. She is guest designer for the current issue of Francis Ford Coppola's magazine Zoetrope All-Story, and her work is featured on the cover and in the centerfold of the current issue of the art publication Parkett, for whom she produced an editioned photograph of Pamela Anderson that immediately sold out. She shot the campaign images for Tom Ford's new fragrance, Tom Ford for Men, which will be launched in September, and Gregory R. Miller & Co. has just published a lavish $60 monograph of her work.  Marilyn was also part of the artist Tshirt series for The Gap that launched this spring along with Jeff Koons.    Source:  Article by Robert Ayers. 
Artinfo.
Robert Ayers interview with Minter

All paintings by Marilyn Minter, photograph of woman in mirror is her mother from her controversial series.       below Portrait of Marilyn by Evan Kafka

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  Back in the day, Kaws would break into bus shelters steal the ads, paint on them and put them back before anyone knew what had hit them.    It was his gorilla tactics and fine art application to street marketing that got him where he is today.    Beautiful collectible toys, clothing, limited edition fine art and edgy collaborations are all in a days work for this talented young artist.     When I found out KAWS had customized my Stussy ad I was stoked.  Kaws works in so many mediums, has stayed true to his vision and just happens to be a very nice guy.   Stussy lovely is the gorgeous Denise.   All other images courtesy of Kaws.   

Thanks babe.
Kaws website

The Boneyards launch party was Friday night in LA.   The clothing and stores collaboration launched June 21.   Punk rock music, smoke machines, hot dog stands and carnival prizes accompanied the launch to showcase the sneakers.     The exhibition-installation upped the ante for product launch parties.    Much of the inspiration for the installation came from 80's NYC art legend and underground conceptual sculpturer Cady Noland.   (more about Cady later)    In New York, Kids were waiting in line overnight to see the new line.   A mixture of biker, flannel, motorcycle high and low art, tattoos and San Pedro chic .    I am proud to say I worked on some of the images in the Boneyards newspaper launch.    Location images were shot by art director Rob Abeyta, then converted to analog slides that I projected over the models like tattoo artist, John Hall.    Pretty cool.   Here are some pics.    Official Boneyards site

Danielle Decker and Undefeated's Jupiter, FUCT's Erik Brunetti and myself, Rob and Christina Abeyta with daughter Engracia, a carnival worker from the launch and Skate photographer and Tokyo pal Rip Zinger.

They have been here off and on for twenty years.   Taking over Yoyogi park on Sunday afternoons to dance, posture and have fun.    How can you not love them.  Rock and roll baby.

Laforet in Harajuko is a shoppers paradise.    If anyone is old enough they may remember the legendary Hyper Hyper in London.    In the eighties I would head over there and check out Pam Hogg and the other cool designers like Body Map and whatever else appeared in the Face magazine.    Laforet isnt quite as cool as that, but it is one stop shopping if you are heading to Tokyo and only have one day.   Hundreds of designers under one roof including book stores and accessories.   I love it.    It's also a youth-street culture paradise.    The cutest little fashionista kids all work there redefining and creating new trends daily.

You will notice "Sars chic" all over Tokyo as well. People get totally dressed up and do full hair and makeup and then throw a mask over their face.    After being sick 3 times this winter I'm doing the same.


   


Just ignore that the Gap flagship Tokyo store is accross the street.    There goes the neighborhood.    I think that's exactly what I thought when the Gap appeared on St Marks place and 2nd Ave.   There went the East village.    Well, Harajuko was the east village of Tokyo.   (read Tiffany Godoy's Style Deficit Disorder for a complete guide.)  In the Gap's defense though, they have set up a high end salon in the store for a more upscale collection.   Its beautifully designed and features dense wooden planks on the floor and a zebra rug with knoll seating. very elegant.   Patrick Robinson is the creative director there now and he is actually doing nice stuff, affordable too. 

Anyway,   I love the kids there, I love the choices and the local japanese designers you can buy here.    Unfortunately, most pieces are one size only, so if you aren't small, things wont fit.   However, the accessories are amazing and the jewelry is fab.     I love walking around the "goth-lolita" floor. 

Kiddyland is another must see.    Thousands of toys and licensed items, things you haven't seen in years in America.    Millions of lunch boxes, pokemons, snoopys, barbies.   If it is licensed and based on a cartoon and cute-they sell it here.    It's insane, and packed all the time.

It was one of those gorgeous spring days in Tokyo.   The cherry blossums were starting to come out, and so were the kids. I headed over to Yoyogi Park to take some photos. Yoyogi is one of the largest parks in Tokyo, located adjacent to Harajuku Station and Meiji Shrine in Shibuya. It is peaceful, beautiful and on a sunday afternoon,  the place to see young Tokyo.

What I love about Japan is that the people are so refined and regal, they care about their cities and the elegance of nature. Notice these teens brought an ashtray to the park instead of using the ground. They also sell ashtray necklaces that people use to stub out their butts so they dont have to litter the streets. It's sad that teens smoke--yes, but at least they don't litter and smoke.

This gentleman didn't quite get the "youth culture" thing but you gotta love that he's out there just reliving it.

Tastemaker, stone cold fox and rock royalty Jade Jagger starts her new company Jezebel.     Jade is involved in promoting her events, clothing and jewelry lines.

Luckily this hottie can back it up with really great taste and some cool products.

Was in NYC this week and had a minute of free time to check out the The New Museum.    I loved this show, it was edgy, contemporary, rock and roll and had a global vibe.   Oh, and an amazing KISS sculpture.  check it out.   New Museum NYC website

First images are of Daniel Guzman's work, bottom images of Steven Shearer

Double Album: Daniel Guzman and Steven Shearer

This exhibition brings together two artists - Daniel Guzmán (born 1964, lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico) and Steven Shearer (born 1968, lives and works in Vancouver, BC, Canada). Both artists work in a variety of mediums exploring issues of male identity, extended adolescence, rock culture, death, and the seductive ambiguity of self-portraiture. Experiencing their work, one immediately sees a parallel adoption of 1970s and 1980s pop icons and bands as surrogates and personal avatars.

Daniel Guzmán draws. His work is a tidal wave of drawing that also becomes a dynamic inventory of drawing styles. His myriad influences range from Aztec codices, Haight-Ashbury psychedelia, comic books from his youth, and Mexican muralists, particularly José Clemente Orozco. The topics of Guzmán's drawings fuse old gods with current events, cultural idols, inventories of deadly sins, and cardinal virtues.

Guzmán's sculpture is a natural extension of his drawing techniques. He uses the simplest of materials to sketch a three-dimensional incident and establish encounters with the magic realism of the everyday. In much of his work there are two levels of interpretation - what it is (the sum of its parts) and what it signifies (the poetry of its allusions).

While it is impossible to think of Guzmán's art outside of the context of Mexico, it is equally impossible to ignore the wider cultural context provided by the United States and the world beyond. It is the ease of his citations (be it William Burroughs or Roberto Bolaño, Bruce Nauman or Kiss) that creates a floating universe of sublimely mismatched equivalencies.

Steven Shearer curates collections. He maintains thousands of digital files from which his art is evolved and created. In service to his work, Shearer harvests the aspirations of those souls wandering on the Web, riffing on air guitars, catching their zzz's, selling their stuff on eBay, or posing as the stars they yearn to be. From these enormous files, Shearer creates collage accumulations that are epic documentaries of the possessions and the poses of a slacker paradise.

Shearer also paints the ghosts of the Web. His portraits of anonymous adolescents and fallen teen idols are replete with the keyed-up color of the Symbolists whom the artist admires, but they also come with the subjects sheathed in a psychedelic aura that has vibrated around metal bands for decades. It is, in fact, the names and lyrics of metal bands from which Shearer derives the acid-etched poems that are reminiscent of William Burroughs' cut-up techniques.

Shearer's sculpture has grown to be an increasingly important part of his work. It comes with narratives that imply design as a tool for character reformation and psychic healing. Like the music Shearer references, his sculpture is both a narcotic promise and a harmonic convergence.

The exhibition is organized by Richard Flood, Chief Curator.