CURRENT EXHIBITS

Pushing the Illusion: The Art of Jose A. Guzman-Colon

 Los Angeles based drag performer and Pop tART Gallery owner, Phyllis Navidad and photographer Jose A. Guzman-Colon are pleased to present Pushing the Illusion: The Art of Jose A. Guzman-Colon.

In 2010, art director turned photographer Guzman-Colon successfully co-published a pictorial exploration of trans-gender glamour with Marianne Larochelle entitled “Glam Gender.” In his first ever solo exhibition, Guzman-Colon explores his keen and poignant work by capturing one of the largest collection of television drag stars, club personalities, and trans-culture based artists in moments of “realness.” This photographic experiment will take the subject beyond their comfort zone by challenging them to question the safety of previous photographic experiences and their own persona as it stands in popular culture today. The outcome of such an exploration yields to the observer a deconstruction of the subject’s persona and a transformation of the traditional portrait.

Each subject has been carefully chosen as a paradigm of queer pop culture perhaps constructed more by media than themselves. It is through the decomposition that Guzman-Colon intends to reconstruct the subject and create a new sense of identity stronger than they originally had anticipated. It is throughout the subject’s own vulnerability that Guzman-Colon creates an undiscovered portrait of an already extended version of the subject as a drag queen, club or flamboyant personality. Hence, pushing the illusion of their own idea of themselves as a performance artist.

style=”text-align: center;”>Jose A Guzman-Colon (Bio)

Photographer Jose A. Guzman-Colon has successfully photographed some of the most legendary drag personalities of our time including, Heklina, Raja, the Lady Bunny and Peaches Christ to name a few. His own drag persona Putanesca, is a founding member of Trannyshack, one of the longest running drag events to date. Guzman-Colon has had the opportunity to meet and work with such cult movies stars and pop idols such as Pink, Tura Satana, Angie Bowie, Elvira, Jane Wiedlin of the Go-go’s, Charo and Lady Gaga. His book “Glam Gender” is a coffee table style pictorial into the world of gender illusion that was completely styled under his distinct style of fantasy and fashion. He lives and works in San Francisco and is extremely excited to produce new work for this upcoming show under the curatorial help of long time friend Los Angeles based drag queen, Phyllis Navidad.

style=”text-align: center;”>Diana Coney (Bio)

With a background deeply rooted in the business of photography,  Talent Manager Diana Coney joins forces with Phyllis Navidad and Jose Guzman Colon to curate Pushing the Illusion.  With a degree in Media Arts from Texas State University, Diana made her way to Los Angeles to work with famed photographer David LaChapelle. Diana went on to produce shoots  for photographers including Warwick Saint, Marc Baptiste, Davis Factor, Brian Bowen Smoth, Daniela Federici, Gavin Bond and many more.  In 2010, she created Moniker MGMT, an LGBT focused management company that represents drag performers, cabaret artists, comedians, photographers, makeup artists and stylists.  Diana is thrilled to be a part of this project and is consistently inspired by the work of Jose and Phyllis.

ONLINE GALLERY – Additional works for purchase,payment plans available upon request

David Tamargo & Lindsey Scoggins

Select Image

Image 1 $250.00 USD Image 2 $250.00 USD Image 3 $250.00 USD Image 4 $250.00 USD Set $900.00 USD

Juggalos of Alaska: In 2008, David traveled to Wasilla, Alaska, to visit a group of ne’er-do-wells that self identify as Juggalos. This trip (prior to Sarah Palin’s nomination as Vice Presidential candidate) was pure leisure’ its sole purpose was to reconnect with lost friends who shared a common taste in music. Upon arrival, I was introduced to, and subsequently spent two weeks with the young men depicted in these photographs. The climate of these young men’s lives can be summed up in an ICP song, aptly titled “Clown Luv”. “Too busy doing other things like hanging with my mob crew got my neck when push comes to shove, never sell out yourself, and keep that clown luv” Young native Alaskans are dealt a strange hand– they must forge strong bonds with neighbors all the while keeping up with traditional male behavior. Inclement weather for months on end can only be endured with the help of close friends (“Juggalo Family”) In society where men outnumber women 7 to 1, wanton displays of alpha male behavior are to be expected. The strangeness in these pictures is the record of brief moments of repose of young men in an oft-lush landscape. In the spirit of Bruce Bellas, male subjects are found dropping their macho exterior when a camera (wielded by a comrade) is present. These narrative images allude to a deceptively simple existence in America’s largest state. Provincial young men who want more from life but are without the means to attain it can escape into music with a sympathetic message

   

David Tamargo is a Cuban-American visual artist working in Miami, Florida, whose artwork serves as a visual journey into situational fantasy. using landscapes to focus on the formation of identity, Tamargo works in various mediums such as photography, installation, sculpture, performance, and video. He has received numerous international honors and awards for photography throughout his career as well as exhibited nationally in museums such as the Corcoran Museum, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Patricia & Philip Frost Art Museum, Miami Science Museum, the Miami Art Museum, the Wolfsonian, and FIU and Bass Museum. In 2005 while attending Florida International University he co-founded the Borscht Film Festival alongside friends as a semi-annual film festival held in Miami. He curates and exhibits his work internationally in exhibitions of emerging contemporary art from from Miami as director of The CCCV. In 2011 he co-curated PARTY ANIMALS with Miami-based video artist Lindsay Scoggins at the Royal/T Gallery in Culver City which featured prominent artist such as Jillian Mayer, Friends With You, Francesco Lo Castro and others alongside the like of Takeshi Murakami, Jeff Koons, Yoko Ono, George Condo and more. Since 2009 he is the assistant art director and curator of the world’s largest collection of erotic art, The World Erotic Art Museum in Miami Beach.

   

Lindsay Scoggins cultivated her love for electronic media as a fine arts student at the University of South Florida. At the age of 15, she began learning non-linear video editing and electronic music composition and during college, began working with video installation and using YouTube as an online gallery. As one of 25 selected artists featured in the 2010 Guggenheim’s YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video, Scoggins’ work was displayed at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy; Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain; and Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, Germany.

     

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Portrait of Danni Daniels

Austin Young -2011

36×44

giclée print on matte paper

an edition of 6

$1000.00

   

Photographer and filmmaker Austin Young has been documenting pop, sub, and trans culture since 1985 through portraiture. True to the portraiture genre, Young’s images capture the essential nature of the sitter; however, this fundamental quality in Young’s work is delicately crafted through a sensitive eye and seemingly minimal artifice that serve, not to mask, but to crystallize the essence of the sitter in a manner that is unique to Young’s vision. The resulting photographs stand as non-complacent representations, as well as beautiful objects in their own right.Young’s portraits have been featured in major publications such as Interview magazine, Rolling Stone, and Flaunt; and his work has been exhibited at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (Los Angeles, CA) ; Machine Project (Los Angeles, CA); Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, CA); Pop tARt Gallery (Los Angeles CA); Art Murmer Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); and . In addition to photography and film making, Young is one of the founders of Fallen Fruit, a collective whose work has been shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Machine Project (Los Angeles, CA); Matadero (Madrid) and ARS Electronic (Austria).

     

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“I Have a Pimple”

John Arsenault

30 x 30 in.

C-print, framed

Edition: 2/5

$2,975

   

John Arsenault’s current solo show “A Ghost is Occupying My Heart” is on view at ClampArt Gallery NYC, through February 5th 2011. While many of the works in the new exhibition are self-portraits, Arsenault is now incorporating evocative and emotional landscapes and still-life imagery, punctuating his vision with views outward, no longer solely presenting the viewer with photographs only of himself. Since first picking up a camera, John Arsenault has routinely turned his lens upon himself, producing an outlandish and absurd, wild and erotic account of his life as a gay artist. Exploring facets of his personal relationships, his sexuality and his identity, Arsenault constructs scenarios that not only tell the story of his experiences, but also comment on society at large. With a distinctive eye for the strange, the unexpected and the laugh-out-loud ridiculous, he is not afraid to poke fun at himself, and thus is able to comment on matters of broad cultural importance without seeming shrill or pedantic. The artist says about his new series of images: “Inspired by a desire to heal a broken heart and to find myself, I decided to strip myself down emotionally, often literally nude, in order to create a body of work that revealed my search and my pain as honestly as I could.” Raised in a small town in northern Massachusetts, John Arsenault moved to New York City in 1997 to pursue a degree in photography at the School of Visual Arts. He now resides in Los Angeles. Arsenault’s photographs are represented in the permanent collections of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, Kansas and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

 

 

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“Kenny Showing Off” from the series “Boy’s Showing Off”

Jesse Finley Reed

22.25 x 28.5 in.

Digital offset print, cork board, thumbtacks, framed

1 of 2- APs

$2,500.00

   

Jesse Finley Reed (b.1974) is a Los Angeles, CA based artist. A graduate of the Yale University School of Art’s photography program, Reed was selected as a recipient of a Larry Kramer Initiative Grant for his work involving gay and lesbian families. Following graduate study, Reed was awarded a prestigious DAAD stipendium to produce a body of work in Berlin Germany, exploring the evolution and transformation of space in Berlin. Reed works in a variety of media including installation, photography and video. Using temporal materials, including lighting, makeup, and decoration, he transforms bodies, hallways and nightclubs into something strange and uncanny. The goal of his work is to create a visual image or object in disjunction with everyday representations of a subject: nightclubs are brightly lit, rather than dark and sexy; soap is wet and dirty, rather than fresh and clean; unremarkable male bodies are superficially transformed into hyper-masculine models. There is an implication of queerness that plays an important role throughout the reading of his work, not only in the work’s relationship to sexual orientation, but also as a suggestion of strangeness or difference. Reed has presented solo exhibitions in Berlin at the Arratiabeer Gallery, and in Los Angeles at Kaycee Olsen Gallery. In addition, he has participated in international group exhibitions at The Hamish McKay Gallery in Wellington, NZ, Galeria de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City, and The Breeder in Athens, Greece., as well as in the US at Murray and Guy, PS122, and Freight and Volume in New York; Marc Selwyn Fine Art and Mark Moore Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. In 2005, The Yale University Art Gallery commissioned him to complete a work for their on-going Collaborations Project.

   

 

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“The Male Gaze”

Ariel Dunitz-Johnson

16 x 20 in.

Single edition giclée print

$750.00

   

Ariel Dunitz-Johnson (b. 1980) is a visual artist based in San Francisco. She honed her craft while studying illustration at Parsons School of Design in New York City. She has shown her work in both group and solo shows at numerous galleries and artistic venues. Her work specializes in pen and ink portraiture, using high contrast graphics and intricate details to capture intimate moments.

   

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“The Girls In Their Summer Dresses”

Jonny Coleman

8 x 8 in.

Mixed media on wood panel

$200.00

   

   

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“Whip it Good“

Ellen Schinderman

10 x 10 in.

Hand embroidered pillow

Edition of 15

$200.00

   

“Do Ask Do Tell”

Ellen Schinderman

15 x 15 in.

Hand embroidered pillow

Edition of 25

$250.00

   

“Broke Back Pussy”

Ellen Schinderman

12 x 12 in.

Hand embroidered, one of a kind

$300.00

   

Ellen Schinderman was raised and educated on the mean streets of New York City (okay, the street she was raised on wasn’t that mean, but it was sometimes a bit of a bully). She spent her twenties performing comedy in New York and San Francisco. She is an autodidactic fiber artist, whose interests include, in no particular order: unicorns, carbonara, animated films, music of the 40’s, sequins, coffee, and playing too much online scrabble. Ellen currently lives and works in Hollywood, CA.

 

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“Monotropa Uniflora – Indian Pipe Plant”

Ian O’Phelan

Custom Fabric

Price per commission, contact gallery for details

 

“Pink Narcissus”

Ian O’Phelan

Custom Fabric

Price per commission, contact gallery for details

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“Skeletor”

Ian O’Phelan

Digital Drawing / Collage on Commemorative Plate 10.5″

$85.00

   

“Mer-Man”

Ian O’Phelan

Digital Drawing / Collage on Commemorative Plate 8

$65.00

   

Ian O’Phelan (b. 1982, a Pisces) hails from Toledo, OH. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati, where he pursued a Frankenstein curriculum of fine art and graphic design classes. Mr. O’Phelan currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

 

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“Marilyn”

Juanita More!

12 x 12 in.

Archival inkjet on paper

$675.00

 

San Francisco drag legend, Juanita MORE! has worked 20 years in the performance and visual arts community. Her works encompasses all mediums from couture, photography, mixed media, painting, print making, found objects, etc. Juanita’s resume of performances goes back some twenty-years with many notable and prominent appearances including the groundbreaking Wigstock West in 1996.

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Untitled    SOLD

Leo Herrera

6 x 14 in.

Archival inkjet on paper

$250.00

 

 

As a founding member of the Homochic art collective based out of San Francisco. Herrera has produced work for Amanda Lepore, Susanne Bartsch, Thierry Mugler, Joey Arias and Paul Oakenfold just to name a few. His work has been featured in the Frameline Film Festival, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the De Young Museum. The goal of Herrera’s affordable art initiative is just that; to make art affordable to the public without ego driven pricing concepts. The idea of this initiative is far from over, however, as a special gift to the gallery, Herrera has signed and printed the final archival versions of the piece below is for our current show associated with Pacific Standard Time. These pieces will include a letter of authenticity and will never be sold again in this archival format and are both housed in UV protected frames with a stunning silver border. They are still quite affordable at $250 each or $450 for the set.

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UPCOMING SHOWS

About POP tART

Mission:

Pop tART is a gallery with a dream: to get people excited about art again. More than a mere gallery, it is an experimental arts venue where just about anything can happen. Pop tART recognizes the infinite possibilities of the creative process and intends to instigate opportunities for the creative community and to engage audiences with dialogue, art, ideas, and complete self-expression. It supports risk takers, boundary breakers, and a new generation of artists whose work challenges the concept of art. Pop tART celebrates the power of contemporary art to enhance the experience of the individual and contribute to the diversity and cultural landscape of Los Angeles and the world.

       

 

Phyliss Navidad: Owner

Recently named “one of the 25 most inspiring people in Los Angeles” by Frontiers Magazine; Phillip Bandel or as he is more widely known as drag performer and performance artist Phyliss Navidad has entertained audiences across California. As host and stage manager of legendary local nightspots Shits & Giggles and A Club Called Rhonda, Navidad is as comfortable wearing many hats as she is wearing many wigs. Navidad currently holds a Fashion Design Degree from the Los Angeles Trade Tech College and plans to pursue a Bachelors of Fine Arts at Otis Contemporary Arts College in Los Angeles. An Angeleno native, Navidad is thrilled to make the pop tART gallery the next step in her drag career and a thriving institution for contemporary expression.

     

Chad Clark: Director of Design

Architect, Interior Designer, Exhibit Designer and founder of Defying Gravity Studio, Chad Clark has established a career within the art world as a designer of all things gallery related from the space itself to the exhibits within.  The focus for Chad is maintaining individual self-expression for himself as well as his clients.  Chad has a Masters of Advanced Design from Columbia University and his broad and varied experience was developed from working in New York City, Vienna, and now Los Angeles.  Chad bolsters Phyliss’ and Lenora’s projects by creating with them designs that not only succinctly express their artistic intentions,  but also their personalities and the nature of artists with whom they work.

     

Contributing Curator Lenora Claire

Described by the LA Weekly as a “real life Jessica Rabbit” Lenora Claire is a Los Angeles based multiple career juggling glamour gal who takes all of her absurd projects very seriously. After appearing on TMZ, NPR, LA Times, National Enquirer, LA Bizarro and various other media, Lenora is perhaps best known as a national news making art curator following the success of her Golden Gals Gone Wild art show, featuring erotic depictions of the Golden Girls. The show first debuted at the World of Wonder gallery in Los Angeles in 2007 and has since appeared at the World Erotic Art Museum in Miami. Lenora followed with several headline grabbing shows including Bettie Page: Heaven Bound featuring the art of legendary pin-up artist Olivia whom Lenora has also had the honor of modeling for. Lenora is thrilled to team up with Phyliss Navidad on Pop tART as the head curator of LA’s most exciting gallery. For more information on Lenora and her various other careers and accomplishments please visit www.LenoraClaire.com

 

Contributing Curator Jimmy the Zine

Contributing Curator GGeisha

   

 

PRESS

BEEFCAKE & BOUNDARIES

NBC

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/From-Grannies-to-Trannies-117553519.html

LA WEEKLY articles

http://www.laweekly.com/2011-02-03/columns/your-face-becomes-the-art-show/

LAIST articles

http://laist.com/2011/01/27/lenora_claire_wants_you_to_put_your.php

FLAVORPILL EDITORS PICK

http://flavorpill.com/losangeles/events/2011/1/29/your-face-here-portraits-by-austin-young

FLAVORWIRE

http://flavorwire.com/148020/daily-dose-pick-austin-young#more-148020

ADVOCATE

http://www.advocate.com/Arts_and_Entertainment/Features/Hot_Sheet_Gregg_Araki_Michael_Urie/

DANGEROUS MINDS

http://www.dangerousminds.net/site/comments/your_face_here_pop_tart_gallery_opens_in_la_with_unusual_austin_young_exhib/

WORLD OF WONDER

CALENDAR

PAST SHOWS

Archival Jello: A Club Called Rhonda Retrospective: 2008-2012 

 Pop tART Gallery and the producers of A Club Called Rhonda in association withDJCN are pleased to present “Archival Jello: A Club Called Rhonda Retrospective: 2008-2012.” A Club Called Rhonda is a Los Angeles based club night that has become a haven for self-expression amongst revelers of dance music. In only 4 short years the club has become legendary in its own right and has helped to garner attention for the burgeoning Los Angeles underground dance music scene. To celebrate Rhonda’s journey thus far Pop tART Gallery will exhibit imagery of the club that have led it to become a luminary in the Los Angeles nightlife scene – including pop culture inspired graphic design by art director Trevor Tarczynski alongside creative directors/club promoters Loren Granic and Gregory Alexander, vivid stills from Rhonda photographer’s Meredith Jenks and Michael Mendoza, and video installations from Rhonda’s ambiance technician Ryan Granic.   The bold imagery and phrasing that comprise the club’s visual and textual voice have defined a style born from epic evenings of glamour, debauchery, and hope all through the politics of dancing. The gallery’s interior will become home to all things Rhonda, displaying a selection of graphics, flyers, photographs, and videos which have all contributed to Rhonda’s “street cred” and reputation as one of LA’s hottest clubs.   But you may be asking yourself, who is this Rhonda? The creative brains behind the club have created a fictional demigod of nightlife. Rhonda is a virtual club diva who speaks in all capital letters and is far too busy jet-setting around the world looking for the hottest DJs and most inspiring acts to ever attend her own club. It is the dichotomy of condescension and love that makes these evenings so special. The absentee diva remotely updates her fans from an undisclosed location about the uber cutting edge acts she has booked for the night. Despite her absence, she still manages to fascinate and keep her fans coming back for more.   The concept for the exhibit originated from the observation that the graphics that have accompanied some of these nights are consistently pulled down off the walls as memorabilia by club goers. They seem to represent a zeitgeist whose temporality is as illusive as Rhonda herself. Now, with this display, all of the work will be printed in archival format in the caliber of art that it should be sold and collected in. This exhibit offers a rare glimpse into LA’s underground club culture, its creative force and all the amazing people who come together to create A Club Called Rhonda.   This exhibition of work was made possible in part by the upcoming on-line programming network, DJCN. DJ Club Network is a fast-growing start-up building a new kind of program network from the Internet out to broadcast, rather than in reverse. Set to launch in 2012, DJCN captures the best in nightlife entertainment. On any given night, in every major city, the hottest place to be is at an exclusive nightclub with a legendary DJ. From New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, London, Paris, and Ibiza, DJCN has secured the rights to film, produce and distribute exclusive events from the largest roster of top DJs and clubs around the world. The Retrospective of graphic artwork from A Club Called Rhonda is the first collaboration between the two entities – with more to come – under the creative direction of the producers of A Club Called Rhonda.

Bruce of Los Angeles: Beefcakes and Boundaries

October 29 thru December 31

As part of Pacific Standard Time, Pop tART Gallery is pleased to present Bruce of Los Angeles: Beefcakes and Boundaries. In the same pioneering spirit as many others who have packed their bags and headed west, Photographer Bruce Bellas, or Bruce of Los Angeles as he came to be known, arrived in California in 1946 and immediately began challenging the norms of acceptable society. With post-war conservatism growing, Bruce of Los Angeles photographed Muscle Beach’s most beautiful male bodies and published an extensive body of homoerotic work during a time when institutionalized homophobia was the norm. His pin-up images of the male physique pressed the boundaries between art and obscenity. Having influenced contemporary photographers such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Bruce Weber, and Herb Ritts, Bruce of Los Angeles is regarded as a “creative force in the establishment of the modern American homosexual identity”. This exhibition will showcase original prints of the photographers extensive body of work as well as exhibit the work of contemporary artists who’ve found inspiration in the classic style and boundary breaking approach that mark the contribution Bruce of Los Angeles made to art as we know it today.

Curated by: Jimmy the Zine

About Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980:

Pacific Standard Time is a collaboration of more than sixty cultural institutions across Southern California, coming together for six months beginning in October 2011 to tell the story of the birth of the Los Angeles art scene and how it became a major new force in the art world. Each institution will make its own contribution to this grand-scale story of artistic innovation and social change, told through a multitude of simultaneous exhibitions and programs. Exploring and celebrating the significance of the crucial post-World War II years through the tumultuous period of the 1960s and 70s, Pacific Standard Time encompasses developments from L.A. Pop to post-minimalism; from modernist architecture and design to multi-media installations; from the films of the African American L.A. Rebellion to the feminist activities of the Woman’s Building” from ceramics to Chicano performance art; and from Japanese American design to the pioneering work of artists’ collectives. Initiated through $10 million in grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time involves cultural institutions of every size and character across Southern California, from Greater Los Angeles to San Diego and Santa Barbara to Palm Springs.

ALL THE KICKS, an installation and expression of artistic anarchy by multi-media artist and musician Cole Whittle.

Saturday March 26th opening reception 8pm – midnight

http://www.all-the-kicks.blogspot.com/

Curated by Lenora Claire

YOUR FACE HERE by Austin Young

The Unveiling – March 12th, 2011

CLICK HERE TO READ ARTIST’S BIO

Above is a sneak peek at some of the images Austin shot to jump-start the project. The rest of the show will be filled with images of YOU! We are now offering framing for your Austin Young portrait! Please select the appropriate size below, check out securely using PayPal, and we’ll do the rest!

[Show as slideshow]