Shelley Leopold

Gajin Fujita

Shelley Leopold
You could say that Gajin Fujita found his calling at Kyoto’s “Golden Temple,” Kinkaku-ji. But it wasn’t a religious calling. The street kid in Fujita, a Boyle Heights native, wondered what it would look like if someone threw up a mural on the beloved Japanese landmark. Instead of defacing the......
(Photo by Kevin Scanlon)

Henry Rollins

Shelley Leopold
Henry Rollins supports the troops. Yeah, that’s right, the virulently anti-Iraq-war, anti-Bush-administration flame thrower has been quietly putting serious time in with the USO. Not the Bob Hope organization of yesteryear, but a modern-day nonprofit that takes its military morale-boosting duties seriously. “The USO approached me a few years ago......
(Photo by Meeno Peluce)

Jason Lee

Shelley Leopold
{mosimage} Some years ago, before the lucky lotto-winning guy named Earl Hickey came along, Jason Lee was a professional skateboarder from Huntington Beach. Pictured shredding on the covers of magazines like Thrasher and the now-defunct Power Edge, he made his first memorable film debut in an epic 1991 flick for......
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Tiffany Bozic, American Gothic

Shelley Leopold
Tiffany Bozic is a new traditionalist informed by Audubon and Rousseau. What Nick Cave is to lyrics, she is to paint. Hailing from a small town in Arkansas, Bozic has built her young career on surrealist, anatomical/botanical fantasies; beautifully rendered yet sometimes haunting and gruesome, void of irony and absolute......
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Freight Train Graffiti

Shelley Leopold
For some 20 years, filmmaker Bill Daniel has been researching and documenting the culture and art “monikers” of hobos riding the rails. The result is the graffiti-art-history documentary Who Is Bozo Textino? This rarely seen gem is excerpted in a brand-new book, Freight Train Graffiti, by local street-art impresario Roger......

Factory of Talent

Shelley Leopold
(Photo by Michael Lavine)Shepard Fairey. You knew him before you knew him. If you lived in a major city, or just one where he had friends, he silently infiltrated your existence with a sticker slapped on the back of a no-parking sign, or a 10-foot, wheat-pasted face on the side......
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The Expressionist

Shelley Leopold
The great thing about Mario Ybarra Jr.’s art is its obvious but subtle political stance — not reactionary, but pointedly aware in the way he positions objects, visuals and history together. This brings about a perspective that doesn’t confront, but forces audiences to find something new in the situations he......
Photo by Kevin Scanlon

The Contemporizer

Shelley Leopold
In these days of prolific advertising, clever product placements, and buzzwords like “interactivity” and “branding,” did you know that even museums have a research-and-development department? Not exactly, but LACMALab, the County Museum of Art’s experimental satellite program, which is celebrating its fifth and final show with “Consider This,” is as......

Oil On Concrete

Shelley Leopold
Photos by Shelley Leopold In the next month or so, Los Angeles will lose perhaps it greatest (sanctioned) ode to public art: LACMA’s parking garage, which is to be torn down to make room for the Eli Broad collection’s new home. If you’ve never paid close attention — or the......
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Rocking the Cradle

Shelley Leopold
Photo by Manuel Vason In his first comprehensive L.A. performance in 11 years, performance-artist extraordinaire Ron Athey provokes new audiences with The Judas Cradle. This sophisticated, multilayered theatrical piece, centering on the barbaric torture device of the same name, challenges traditional opera formulas using elaborate costumes, video and intricate sound......