LOVE ANGELES PROJECT®

Leigh McCloskey: Inside the Codex (Video)

One of Leigh McCloskey's masterpieces features throughout a new album by Flying Lotus. Check out Leigh sharing from his home in Malibu! 

ICON Apparel Launch (Video)

Source: JeremyCorbell.com - ICON APPAREL is a limited edition clothing line by artist Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell inspired by his mixed-media artwork. Each piece is a one of a kind, hand-touched and autographed work of art. Corbell's series includes a creative collaboration with Five Four and is currently being held at Fred Segal in Santa Monica. Enjoy the clip below!

Ariston made a pretty cool AD didn't they?

Tracy Chapman: Talking About a Revolution (Video)

Gracias DJ Jose Spinnin Remix (Video)

Twin Flames in a music video intended to paint the different sides of Love including sensuality - I don't know if it's been done before??? It was the most magical day in Malibu with my beloved, all of nature was out and celebrating including Whales, Dolphins, Seals, Eagles, Hawks, Rabbits, Ladybugs!! Early in our relationship, I told Patty one day that if she ever wanted to do to do a music video that was as sexy as Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" I would be there:) Enjoy and feel free to leave a comment on Youtube if you can!!!

Filmed in Malibu, CA 2010
Production: Bamba Films & Menta TV
Starring: Patricia Manterola & Forrest Kolb
Directed by: Isi Sarfati (www.dpisi.com)
Produced by: Jonathan Venguer
Edited by: Camilo Abadia & Isi Sarfati
Ⓡ&Ⓒ 2010 Patricia Manterola Todos los derechos reservados
www.patriciamanterola.com twitter: @pattymanterola

Fashion is Art #1 (Video)

Source: www.gasd-love.com - Love Angeles makes and appearance in the clip below! Check it out!!!

FASHION IS ART #1 from GAS'D LOVE on Vimeo.

Tom Petty's Got His 'Mojo' working

By Randy Lewis - The 59-year-old rocker's first album with the Heartbreakers since 2002 has him so pleased that he's taking the boys on tour too. But they won't reach L.A. until the fall.

Tom Petty casually rolled back the sliding glass door at his rustic beach house in Malibu and stepped out onto the deck for a clear look at the waves crashing on the sand a dozen yards away. Surveying the picture-perfect blue sky and sparkling water to match, the 59-year-old rocker took in the view surrounding him and couldn't help noticing two young women sunbathing topless in front of the house next to his.

The record business may be in disarray, but on days like this, it's still good to be a rock star — a job Petty has fulfilled admirably for more than 30 years now.

A couple of decades earlier things might have transpired differently, but on this day, Petty simply cracked a wry smile at the scene next door and stepped back inside. He had other things on his mind, chiefly his new album, "Mojo," which hits stores Tuesday. He left the beach in the care of his wife of nearly a decade, Dana, who pulled up a chair to soak up some sun while her husband turned his attention to his first love, music.

Atop a coffee table near the living room window was a copy of Greil Marcus' new book about Van Morrison, one of Petty's musical heroes.

"I haven't got around to it yet," he said, adding with a laugh: "I haven't had a lot of time to read." That's because he's been busy finishing "Mojo," his first album with the Heartbreakers since 2002's "The Last DJ," and gearing up for a tour that commenced last week. (It doesn't reach the Southland until fall.)

"I always thought that when I got around to the Heartbreakers making another record, that I'd like it really to represent the band that they've grown into," said Petty, his dirty-blond hair a bit shorter than usual, barely reaching the collar of the white Oxford shirt under a black vest that's part of his signature look.

"The band has kind of matured into something else," he said, more with the air of an impartial observer than you might expect of the man who has fronted that band on (mostly) and off (periodically) for 35 years. "This is more the way we play for ourselves when the heat's off; this is what it sounds like. And I thought, number one, it would be more fun, and, number two, it would just be truer to what we really are at the moment. They're a ridiculously good band. I'm still sometimes awed by them."

And why not? The Heartbreakers have emerged over time as arguably the quintessential American rock band, more endearingly human than the studio-perfect Eagles, more consistently in touch with the fundamentals of rock 'n' roll than the musically expansive E Street Band.

"They are the definition of what a real rock 'n' roll band is supposed to be," said Jim Ladd, the veteran rock radio DJ, who will host Petty on his KLOS-FM (95.5) show Monday night. "[They] started in a garage in Gainesville, Fla., and stuck it out through all the hard times, and they never lost sight of their goal, which was, I think for them, not to be celebrities but to be great musicians."

"Mojo" offers a showcase for the empathetic interplay among Petty and fellow guitarists Mike Campbell and Scott Thurston, keyboardist Benmont Tench, bassist Ron Blair and drummer Steve Ferrone. It's a rootsy, blues-drenched outing for the singer-songwriter and his longtime partners.

"I had this picture in my mind of making a record that had something in common spiritually with the Chess blues records, even the English blues bands of the late-'60s: [ John] Mayall, Peter Green," he said. "That's the stuff that really just kills me."

It's apparent in "Candy," a grizzled, back-porch blues that John Lee Hooker might have tackled, and in the haunting, "Hellhound on My Trail"-inspired "Takin' My Time."

"I love that [old blues] stuff because they're really strong songs, but it doesn't sound like they're trying really hard," he said.

"Everyone thinks they can knock off a 12-bar [blues], but to do it right takes a little time and you have to mature a little bit. I don't think we could have made this record in the '80s. I don't think our heads were in that spot.

"This is something that happened now, and I'm glad," he said. "I don't think I could have hired the best studio guys and thrown this stuff at them. … I think only a band could have done this."

Except for Thurston, who came aboard in 1991, and Ferrone, who took over from Stan Lynch three years later, the Heartbreakers have known one another and played together since they were teenagers in Gainesville.

The many ups and downs they've weathered together — famously suing their record company while working on "Damn the Torpedoes"; a 1987 arson fire that destroyed Petty's Encino home; Petty's loyalty-testing recordings apart from the band; the 2003 death of bassist Howie Epstein — have forged a band-of-brothers bond that Petty clearly prizes.

"You just can't buy that for any amount of money — it's something you've got to cultivate over a period of time, and in this case, a long period of time," he said. Working with the band once again on "Mojo," he added, "was a satisfying trip. It was, to me, similar to the Mudcrutch thing, in that I was really happy to listen to it after it was over…. I hated to stop [writing and recording] really, because I felt like we were really on a roll there."

So why did it take eight years between Heartbreakers albums?

"I don't even know how that happened really," he said, sounding genuinely perplexed. Then he started to recount the various projects that gobbled up those years: his third solo album, 2006's "Highway Companion"; the band's collaboration with director Peter Bogdanovich on the four-hour "Runnin' Down a Dream" film documentary; his decision to regroup for an album and tour with Mudcrutch, the Florida band that preceded the Heartbreakers.

Additionally, Petty said, "For a while there I didn't feel like I had the material for them. I didn't want to do a Heartbreakers record unless it was going to be kind of special and good. I think we all just had an understanding about it. No one ever complained about it. We just knew that when the time was right, we'd do it again."

That may be the real mojo that is the Heartbreakers.

"I think we all respect the band maybe in a way that's bigger than our individual selves," Petty said. "We really respect the trip and we want to mine it for all it's worth. It's a good little band."

Arj Barker is the Sickest Buddhist (Video)

TV review: 'Work of Art: The Next Great Artist' on Bravo

Source: Culture Monster - Can a television series jump the shark in the first episode? Bravo's new, awkwardly titled reality-contest show "Work of Art: The Next Great Artist," which debuts Wednesday at 11 p.m., doesn't merely argue in the affirmative. The plot also gives new meaning to avant-garde, spinning off its axis before getting to the 10-minute mark.

The crucial moment goes like this. Fourteen artist-contestants were chosen after submitting self-portraits to producers, who include actress Sarah Jessica Parker. In the season opener, the artists are randomly paired off to make portraits of each other. Mostly young and unknown, they face their first challenge in a 10-week competition for the ultimate prize: $100,000, plus a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, the New York art-world's equivalent of an out-of-town tryout.

Series host China Chow stares down the nervous cast, who anxiously await details of how they will be judged on their portrait assignment.

"A successful portrait," Chow proclaims, "is one that shows a viewer the inner essence of your subject, and not just their likeness." The artists collectively gulp.

I did too. Fifty years of marvelous, disruptive paintings and photographs by Alex Katz, Chuck Close, Dan McCleary, Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, John Sonsini, Rineke Dijkstra and countless other first-rate artists, internationally known and not, and we're still trotting out the wheezing cliche about portraiture's required significance being bound up with the revelation of the sitter's inner essence?

Really? The 17th century lives on.

Equally disturbing: Not a single artist challenges this antique idea. These eager puppies are instead ready to hunker down and try their best to satisfy the demand of their TV patron, visions of Brooklyn dancing in their heads.

A virtual knockoff of "Project Runway," with silk-screens replacing sewing machines and paintbrushes subbing for scissors and straight pins, "Work of Art" shares that hit's production company (Magical Elves, Inc.) But it suffers from comparison to the schmatta show's glory days a few seasons back, when "Project Runway" garnered its own cult-like art-world following.

One reason "P.R." worked so well is that it juxtaposed creativity's yearning for worldly acknowledgment with fashion's magnificent frivolousness, which is central to its appeal. A viewer could watch TV, which has honed frivolousness to its own shiny art form, secure in the knowledge that none of it much mattered, except to the scheming players.

Not so with "Work of Art," which isn't as much bad as merely dull. Bad we could love; dull just sends us wandering off to the fridge, where inner essence consists of leftover meat loaf.

Chow, a model and sometimes actress, plays model and sometimes actress Heidi Klum, the show's combination host and judge. The role of Tim Gunn, kindly father figure and helpful mentor to contestants, is handled by the avuncular Simon de Pury, the Swiss-born auction-house executive.

New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz plays tough-love fashion magazine editor Nina Garcia. (You can practically hear the aspiring artists thinking to themselves: "Don't. Bore. Jerry.") Uptown Manhattan gallerist Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn and downtown Manhattan gallerist Bill Powers round out the jury, taking turns evoking opinionated if slightly daffy designer Michael Kors, who knows what he likes when he sees it but can't explain quite why.

Guest-jurors are promised as the season proceeds. The regulars, however, who guide and judge what matters in art as it comes piping hot from the work-room studio, mostly occupy culture's business end. "Work of Art" is based in New York, epicenter of the contemporary art market, and hews close to the trading-house floor.

Episode One is the necessary getting-to-know-you show, both for the audience and the cast. The contestants range in age from 23 to 62, but most are in their 20s and 30s. As personalities, they embody familiar, consumable profiles. There's the slacker, the pretty girl, the geek, the shrew, the neurotic, the late-bloomer, the amateur, the kook, the hipster, etc. Read more at Culture Monster.

Andy Warhol's Liz Taylor Portrait To Sell BIG

Source: Perez Hilton - The big seller at the Christie's auction in London on June 30th is said to be Andy Warhol's portrait of Elizabeth Taylor entitled Silver Liz. It is estimated to be worth $9-12 million and the two auctions that make up the series are expected to garner $78 - $111 million. The portrait, which has been unseen in public for the last two decades, will be among favorites from Jeff Koons, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andreas Gursky.

Jack is Back and Doing Great Things

Source: Dosomethinggood.org - Environmental advocate Jack Johnson is about to set out on a world tour... and eco-friendly world tour! Like his last tour, Johnson will donate 100 percent of his profits to charities that support the environment, arts education, and music education. And of course, the tour buses will run on biodiesel fuel! Profits from his 2008 tour created the Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation, which currently matches donations made to organizations partnered with All At Once.

Iranian-Americans in L.A.

Source: UCLA - June 6, 2010 to August 22, 2010 -- From October 2009 through January 2010, four documentary photographers—Farhad Parsa, Arash Saedinia, Parisa Taghizadeh, and Ramin Talaie—focused their lenses on second-generation Iranian-Americans of Los Angeles, the world’s largest population of expatriate Iranians. Document: Iranian-Americans in Los Angeles—on view at the Fowler Museum from June 6–Aug. 22, 2010—offers a selection of images by each of these photographers which consider the everyday lives of their subjects. The exhibition also addresses the processes of documentation and how they relate to the photographers’ understandings of their own hyphenated Iranian identities.

The photographs capture the varied lives and interests of LA’s Iranian-American community—from toddlers at play to an acupuncturist in the office of her Los Feliz practice, from a young man break dancing to a young woman at prayer. There are also a few recognizable figures such as public intellectual Reza Aslan and comedian Maz Jobrani.

"In cultivating this collaborative project, I wanted to examine documentation as a representational process by offering four Iranian-American photographers' perspectives on who we are, stressing the importance of including multiple voices in documenting our own Los Angeles communities," says guest curator Amy Malek.

About the Photographers:

Farhad Parsa received a BFA in Photography and Film Production from the California College of Art in 2000. In 2007 he released his first photography book, Cue the Strings, filled with ten years of photographs exploring the people and events that shaped his life. Also in 2007, he began 1234 NYC, a ten-year project focusing on forty New Yorkers, including students, small business owners, and workers in creative industries.

Arash Saedinia was born in Esfahan and raised in Los Angeles. He earned a bachelor's degree in Peace and Conflict Studies and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, a master's degree in English at California State University, Northridge, and a law degree from Harvard University. He is an artist and educator.

Parisa Taghizadeh is a freelance photographer based in Los Angeles. She grew up in London where she completed a BA Hons degree in Fine Art and went on to work in film and television. She has worked as a photographer for arts organizations such as Artangel and the Serpentine Gallery, as well as on numerous films and documentaries including Michael Winterbottom's, In this World. Taghizadeh’s work deals with personal and cultural identity, such as in Make-Up, Iran, a long-term project dealing with women living in Iran and their relationship to make-up and its rituals. She is also working on Mother, a series of portraits of mothers without their children.

Ramin Talaie is a documentary photojournalist whose work ranges from everyday portraiture in the streets of New York to AIDS-infected and chemical-dependant prisoners in a dilapidated treatment facility in Tehran. Talaie has covered various presidential campaigns including the 2008 presidential election of Barack Obama and the 2009 contested elections in Iran, which precipitated deadly protests and demonstrations. He is the founding editor of Document Iran Images, a news and stock photo agency based in New York City.

More Information: Document: Iranian-Americans in Los Angeles has been organized by Amy Malek, UCLA Anthropology Ph.D candidate, with Susan Slyomovics, faculty advisor, under the auspices of the G.E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES) at UCLA and through generous funding from the UCLA Council on Research (COR), UCLA Center for Community Partnerships (CCP), the Farhang Foundation, and CNES. The exhibition will be on view in the Goldenberg Galleria.

The Fowler Museum at UCLA is one of the country’s most respected institutions devoted to exploring the arts and cultures of Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and the Americas. The Fowler is open Wednesdays through Sundays, from noon to 5 p.m.; and on Thursdays, from noon until 8 p.m. The museum is closed Mondays and Tuesdays. The Fowler Museum, part of UCLA Arts, is located in the north part of the UCLA campus. Admission is free. Parking is available for a maximum of $10 in Lot 4. For more information, the public may call 310/825-4361 or visit fowler.ucla.edu.

Related Program:
Sunday, June 6, 12–6 pm
Opening Day Programs
Document: Iranian Americans in Los Angeles
A panel of scholars will discuss issues relating to the Iranian diaspora and visual anthropology. Next, exhibition curator Amy Malek is joined by the four documentary photographers whose work is featured in the exhibition—Farhad Parsa, Arash Saedinia, Parisa Taghizadeh, and Ramin Talaie—who will discuss their experiences documenting the everyday lives of second-generation Iranian Americans in Los Angeles. A gallery tour with Malek and a reception follow. Please check fowler.ucla.edu for a detailed schedule. 

The Dude of LA

By: Mark Swed - Let’s see. There was the buildup. There was “¡Bienvenido Dudamel!” at the Bowl and an opening night on global TV. And the media feeding frenzy. And Drubbing Dudamel, The Tour.

He’s the future of classical music. He’s not the future of classical music. He’s the new Leonard Bernstein. He’s the old Zubin Mehta. He’s the hot Venezuelan. He’s the scary other. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is re-inventing the symphony orchestra. No, it isn't. The Los Angeles Times doesn't get it.

City noir, indeed

Perhaps what Gustavo Dudamel really is is a mirror. In youth-oriented, increasingly Latin Los Angeles, a city of adventure and celebrity, he is, well, the ultimate celebrity conductor. Consider the reviews on the Phil's eight-city national tour: In the home of orchestral dysfunction, Dudamel’s L.A. Phil poses no threat to the leaderless Fabulous Philadelphians. In status quo D.C, Dudamel is understood as fabulous but status quo. In sophisticated San Francisco, Dudamel is no Michael Tilson Thomas Mahlerian. In soon-to-be Muti’s Chicago, we are barbarians at the gate. In New York, nothing’s ever simple.

So what did Dudamel really do in his first season as music director of the L.A. Philharmonic (besides, of course, attract huge admiring crowds and hoards of journalists)? A lot of new music, for one thing. He also tirelessly proselytized for music education. Mainly, though, he kept audiences, musicians and exhausted administrators never knowing what to expect next.

Photo: Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Youth Orchestra of L.A. at his season-opening Hollywood Bowl Concert in October. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times.

Jens Gad: Vivir (video)

Enjoy the sounds of Jens Gad, let yourself Go with the flow!

Jens Gad: Aureole (Video)

Another beautiful tune by Jens Gad. Enjoy!