Great recap over at Hypebeast of the opening of “Low Fidelity” at Lazarides Gallery in London last week for the very sneaky French artist Invader. The show runs through September 17th, check it out if you’re in the UK!

Lazarides Gallery
11 Rathbone Place
London, W1T 1HR
+ 44 (0) 207 636 5443

I’ve been a Parla collector and fan for years– since he came on to the mainstream art buying radar in a big way at the Art Basel Cityscapes exhibition in Miami a few years ago, his work (and the prices) have just skyrocketed, and for good reason. He’s one talented dude.

His latest show is at the Elms Lester Painting Rooms in London, and it once again raises the bar in a huge way. More detail, more pieces, more powerful images, large scale canvases, and a world view from his travels he didn’t have a few years ago. Words can not describe the work– so I won’t even really bother. On with the pictures.

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A Los Angeles Chinese antique store turned art exhibition space will play host to an ink drawing and sculpture show that conjures up memories of MC Escher’s layered drawings (if Escher used color and submarine themes). Kiel Johnson’s solo show The Awesomist Tomorrow opens on Satuday, September 6, and will remain in POVevolving’s Chung King Road space throughout September. The artist, who has collaborated on collections for designer Todd Oldham, has shown his wood and painted paper creations at myriad contemporary museums in L.A. and New York. Angelinos are in for some imaginative eye candy in Johnson’s cardboard radios and 3D survival vest. The show’s location is similarly multifaceted: when it’s not showing up-and-coming artists’ work, POVevolving also serves as a figure drawing class space and studio for yoga studio and archival printing. But of course.

Graphic Design is most often used in support of relaying the importance of or attracting people to take notice on a particular subject, but there certain instances when design stands alone, free to be just what it is. Art. The Complément d’objet indirect exhibition presented by Designed in Brussels and featuring the works of six recent graphic designer graduates of Belgium’s Echole De Recherche Graphique, trumpets those rare instances where the graphic object’s relation to it’s surroundings is brought to the forefront instead of focusing on a purposeful functionality. If you find yourself in Brussels on September 13th, we recommend swinging by the opening of this fascinating display.

There are people in the paintings of Joe Sorren, but they’re not quite human. We have ways to relate — they hold instruments, they take pictures, they build sand castles by the sea — but there is something in them that is not like us.

I have always felt that the occupants of the world of Joe Sorren are more innocent than those in mine. Their hands may be the size of heads, their heads the shape of balloons, but in all of their twists and distortions, their eyes are sources of infectious calm.

Sorren’s work has appeared in publications as varied as Rolling Stone, Print and The L.A. Times, and is a part of many significant collections worldwide. Universally loved and lauded, you’d do well to be aware of the work of this Arizona-based artist.

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Living in New York is more or less a tale of two cities. It’s either a center-of-the-universe tourist trap or the place that millions of us call home. For city dwellers there are certain unspoken truths that are common knowledge, yet remain less apparent to those visiting. You can’t read about them on any “I Love New York” T-shirt or learn about them on any Grey Line tour bus. However, if you find yourself in town from May 30th from June 15th you might just gain some insight into the five boroughs from Chris Rubino’s The Center of Something Exhibit at Chashama on West 44th Street. The Brooklyn-based artist/designer (read more about him here) has created an installation highlighting an assortment of “souvenirs” that combine the fantasy of tourism with the realism of actually living here. In addition to souvenirs, Rubino also uses hand drawn screenprints of maps, advertisements, and signage to create a strange melding of both worlds. Catch the opening night reception on May 30th from 6 to 9 p.m, to get a first hand look … before the tourist throngs.

Whenever one of our Spear Collective artists, like Dan Funderburgh and his off-the-wallpaper designs (we’ve been sitting on that pun for a while now) is in a show like Fellow Traveler, we have to share. Not doing so would be a huge disservice to those who appreciate things that are awesome. Dan is jointed by two other talented Midwestern printmakers — Justin Fines and Kevin Devine — who, from May 8 – May 31 are going to engage in a “trilateral conversation on poetry, conspiracy theories, ergonomics, and mortality” at Riviera Gallery in Williamsburg. Be there, or be culturally ill-informed.

We blog every day. But, sometimes working up the motivation to put fingers to keyboard is difficult. For starters Grand Theft Auto IV ain’t gonna play itself. Oh, and we can always find an extra hour or two in the day to sleep. British artist Rob Pepper has somehow found a way to combine his work and his passion into a productive habit. His once-a-day sketch work on Daily Drawing Diary has been going strong for three years, with successful solo gallery shows in both the U.S. and Australia. Pepper’s latest collection — “To There & Back Again” — is a collection of still life sketches that juxtapose middle America and the middle of England, rendering pencil forms of the people, places and farm animals that make these two disparate countries great. If you’re in London in the near future, stop by SW1 Gallery for a sample.

Factory Records played an integral role in the proliferation of the Madchester Music scene of the mid/late eighties and early nineties, releasing albums from seminal acts such as The Happy Mondays and James. However important their musical output was, one vital element of those influential releases that often gets overlooked is the album artwork. Design collective Central Station was responsible for some of Factory’s more iconic record sleeves. The team consisting of brothers Matt and Pat Carroll and Karen Johnson created images that helped define an era, and the area. Fortunately, their impressive work is no longer being overlooked, as it’s the focal point in an exhibit being held in its native Manchester. The Richard Goodall gallery is hosting the Faç Off exhibition from May 16th to June 21st. The exhibit, named after a promotional T-shirt design created for Factory Records head Tony Wilson, is a retrospective of a quarter of a century’s worth of the trio’s creative output, including a selection of limited edition fine art prints of some of their most iconic work.

Via Creative Review.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye. The time has come for gamers to gather around. Mavens of Metroid, Guitar Heroes, and Big Game Buck Hunters, we are talking to you. You are charged with making a pilgrimage to San Francisco for the 4th Annual Into The Pixel Exhibition at the Art Hotel on February 20th. It's time you finally showed your appreciation for the creators of the characters who keep you glued to your game console for hours on end so that you may once in your life taste the thrill of victory and not the agony of defeat associated with the outside world.

Alas, this exhibition is not only for the dedicated gamers. We'd be remiss to not mention that this is the only juried event that invites enthusiasts from both the “fine art world and interactive entertainment industry to show their appreciation for the art of the video game”; the upcoming exhibition will also feature collection from the previous two years. If you haven't booked your flights to San Francisco while reading this post…we don't know what you're waiting for. However, if you must wait to ask your mom in you can go, the exhibition is displayed through March.

While your wall is no doubt adorned with many posters boasting all of the experiences you've held to be sonically pleasurable, we know they've been enjoyable to your auditory senses in different ways. However you could probably sum them up their representative artwork in one unifying exclamation…SWEET! The folks at the University of Maryland agree with your rock poster sentiments and thus are running an exhibit called Sweet: The Graphic Beauty of the Contemporary Rock Poster. The exhibition commences today and runs through March 29th. As a special opening day bonus the Sweet Booth, will feature several of the participating artists such as 33RPM Design, Patent Pending, Mike King, Strawberryluna, doing a meet and greet, displaying a mini-Flatstock, as well as selling rock posters, unique works of art, and clothing. If you do swing by, say hi to our friends at Hero Design Studio, printers of some of the sweetest posters around.