DANIEL NEWMAN at EIGHTH VEILOpening Friday, April 10

A few weeks ago Eighth Veil held a delirious party to celebrate their new gallery in the heart of Hollywood. Next door to the notoriously dry Seventh Veil, Eighth Veil is bringing high art back to seedy Sunset Boulevard from the outskirts of Chinatown and Culver City. The inaugural show is Daniel Newman's Charlie Foxtrot, a fascinating series of layered photographs, montages, and drawings that make up Newman's first exhibition in Los Angeles. Housed in a building that was originally home for a lithography press, Eighth Veil promises to add new dimension to L.A.'s art scene by not only hosting exhibits and events but also publishing fine books. And I love the animation on their webpage.

Daniel Newman
CHARLIE FOXTROT
10 April 2009 - 12 May 2009
Opening reception on 10 April from 6-9pm.

Eighth Veil
7174 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90046

Tonite: Happy Birthday Arturo Bandini

Newspaper Pic of young John Fante working as a waiter in Downtown Los Angeles

Arturo', she said. 'Why do we fight all the time?'
I didn't know. I said something about temperaments, but she shook her head and crossed her knees, and a sense of her fine thighs being lifted lay heavily in my mind, thick suffocating sensation, warm lush desire to take them in my hands. Every move she made, the soft turn of her neck, the large breasts swelling under the smock, her fine hands upon the bed, the fingers spread out, these things disturbed me, a sweet painful heaviness dragging me into stupor. Then the sound of her voice, restrained, hinting of mockery, a voice that talked to my blood and bones.

Ask the dust, 1939

Celebrate John Fante's Birthday Tonight at Zocalo's

Quizas, Quizas, Quizas: Lila Downs @ Royce Hall

Thursday, April 9th at 8pm | Royce Hall

Described by the New York Times as “a mezzo-soprano with a three-octave range, a hungry mind, and an arresting stage presence,” Mexican American singer Lila Downs creates a strongly layered music in which blues and jazz cohabitate with rap and ranchera, and honky-tonk swings alongside romantic boleros.

“At a time when Mexico’s rich native styles are being shunned as old-fashioned or irrelevant, Downs offers a fresh, modern document that joyfully reveals the rich well of inspiration” [Los Angeles Times]. Following sold-out Royce Hall appearances in 2004 and 2007, Downs returns to UCLA Live to perform her electrifying, cross-cultural blend of Mexican roots music.

Tickets Here.

Caden Manson/Big Art Group SOS West Coast Premiere

April 8-12 | REDCAT

Caden Manson / Big Art Group SOS

The always-provocative New York ensemble has won an international reputation for pushing the limits of performance and video art by lacing its original hall-of-mirrors multimedia stagecraft with flurries of livewire choreographed action. Its latest opus, SOS, employs nine performers, two musicians, a half-dozen projection surfaces and 22 live-edit cameras to mix the worlds of surveillance, cinema and live performance.

Perfectly timed for Easter weekend, the production confronts themes of rebirth, sacrifice and ritual in a supersaturated, hyper-acquisitive society. Collaborators Caden Manson and Jemma Nelson draw on the primal themes of The Rite of Spring--the paradigm-shattering collaboration between Stravinsky and Nijinsky--to stage their own contemporary rite of rebirth through a panoptic "Real Time Film" technique, first seen at REDCAT in their acclaimed piece Flicker.

Everyday rituals of renewal are abstracted and refracted in video, morphed into metaphors of war and environmental degradation--and set into a meditation on sustainability, survivalism, immolation and revolution.

In a nutshell, people in rabbit costumes doing high budget performance art!

LA ART WEEKEND! Culver City Gallery Walk

6:00-8:00pm

Culver City Gallery Walk
Hosted by ForYourArt, LAXART Regroup, X-Tra and Yelp on the occasion of Los Angeles Art Weekend. Participants include Blum & Poe, David Kordansky, Honor Fraser, Kim Light, LAXART, Susanne Vielmetter, Taylor de Cordoba and Western Project
6:30pm: Exhibition walkthrough with Dave Muller at Blum & Poe
7:30pm: Exhibition walkthrough with Walead Beshty at LAXART
Food trucks include Green Truck, Kogi BBQ and Tacos Bevida

9:00pm
Los Angeles Art Weekend After Party
Music by Artist/DJ Dave Muller
RSVP: royalt@laartweekend.com
Royal/T
8910 Washington Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232

Sandow Birk's DANTE'S INFERNO Screening at Farmlab: FREE

Farmlab Public Salon
Friday, April 3, 2009 @ Noon

Free Admission Screening of the film, "Dante's Inferno" -- With a discussion with artist, art director, writer, and producer Sandow Birk

Raised on the beaches of Southern California and currently living and working in Los Angeles, Sandow Birk is a product of California culture. With an emphasis on social issues, frequent themes of his past work have included daily life in L.A.’s barrios, inner city violence, graffiti, various political issues, surfing, and skateboarding. His work has been shown extensively throughout the U.S. He was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996, and a Fulbright Fellow to Rio de Janeiro for 1997.

Melding the seemingly disparate traditions of apocalyptic live-action graphic novel and charming Victoria-era toy theater, Dante’s Inferno is a subversive, darkly satirical update of the original 14th century literary classic. Retold with the use of intricately hand-drawn paper puppets and miniature sets, and without the use of CGI effects, this unusual travelogue takes viewers on a tour of hell. And what we find there, looks a lot like the modern world.

Deadline: Noir City at the Egyptian | April 2-11

Opening Night Noir: OUT OF THE PAST with Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer | Thursday, April 2nd at 7:30pm

The streets and alleys keep getting darker, the tough guys tougher and the femmes more fatale. So to prepare you for dealing with the nocturnal netherworld out there (and hold you over till you can glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel), we’ll be screening more grand forays into the heart of darkness.

We kick off with a Jane Greer double bill (the classic OUT OF THE PAST co-starring Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas, and the rare THE COMPANY SHE KEEPS), followed by Robert Siodmak’s impossibly hard-to-see FLY-BY-NIGHT, Fritz Lang’s WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS, an Anthony Mann double feature (the rare TWO O’CLOCK COURAGE and DESPERATE), a Newspaper Noir double bill of DEADLINE U.S.A. and ultra-rare CHICAGO DEADLINE, plus THE RACKET, THE ENFORCER, WALK SOFTLY STRANGER, Joseph Losey’s impossible-to-find CHANCE MEETING, NOCTURNE and scarce and forgotten B Noirs SMOOTH AS SILKROSES ARE RED!

There’ll also be new prints of rarities like John Farrow’s Faustian fable ALIAS NICK BEAL, Joseph Losey’s sin-in-the-suburbs masterpiece THE PROWLER (newly restored by UCLA!), heist saga SIX BRIDGES TO CROSS, the delirious Commie-witchhunt classic WOMAN ON PIER 13 and the "Am-I-going-crazy?" gem THE OCTOBER MAN.

Also on the last day of the series, Sunday, April 19, there’ll be a special afternoon memorial tribute to actress Ann Savage with testimonial panels and screenings.

Full schedule, tickets, and info here.