Monthly Archives: July 2017

Shocking: Street Art is Possibly Portrait of Late Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein

We recently stumbled upon some awesome street art work (see pic below) by the talented “Decisions and Review.” The work was wheatpasted in a back-alley (is there any other kind?) in the recently hip-ish Los Angeles suburb of El Segundo.

Never heard of El Segundo? Well, let us fill you in. It’s a respectable residential hamlet famous for being geographically surrounded by aerospace industry, oil fields, power plants, and LAX, as well as being the occasional location of ’90s-era rappers leaving behind their wallets.

There’s not a lot of street art in quiet, solidly middle-working-to-middle-hipster class “ELS,” or “the Gundo,” as some feral cafe-running locals like to call the place. So imagine our surprise to see some 100% Grade-A street art, the kind you see every five feet in NYC’s Lower East Side, in his staid LA burb.

But we’re burying the lede here: The street artwork in question, at first glance, looks like a colorful portrait of the late and notorious Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

“Now, why would anybody want to do that?” you ask, red-faced and exasperated. Well, chill your fucking jets, ok! It’s not a portrait of Saddam Hussein! It’s somebody else.

Who? Well, we don’t know. But it’s not Saddam! Look closely at the photo … The dude is playing an acoustic  guitar. Like when did you EVER see an Iraqi dictator strumming 12-bar blues on a six-string Gibson? You cool now? 

Anyway, massive shouts to Decisions and Review for all their beautiful work. Check ’em.

Bed, Bath & Beyond or Art Museum? You Decide.

Take a look at the photo below. Well, the answer is pretty fucking obvious, right? This colorful selection of curtains pictured below is at the Bed, Bath & Beyond on Pico Blvd. in West LA.

“No! I don’t believe you!” you exclaim with a healthy dose of culture-savvy skepticism tinged with seen-it-all world-weariness.

Ok! So we’re joking! You’re right. It’s NOT at BB&B, clearly. (And, take note, if it was it wouldn’t be at the one on Pico in West LA. We mean, c’mon … blech!) But, admit it, for a hot sec, we had you.

The curtain is in fact a sublime and subtly evocative site-specific installation artwork (<— BTW, that’s a bit of IAE … “International Art English”) at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. The work is titled “For Instance” and is by the artist Yunhee Min, and we love it. It’s the kind of contemporary art that not only invites contemplation but also searing, snarky jokes about how it could be on sale at Bed, Bath & Beyond.  

Breaking: Cats Like Espresso Too!

It’s all starting to make sense now. Upon seeing this cute stencil street art of a feline sipping from a coffee cup, a critical observation came sharply into focus: Cats drink coffee, too! Just like us humans!!! OMG! It explains sooooooo much about cats, doesn’t it?

And it may be that they just don’t merely drink coffee. They well may be discerning third-wave connoisseurs of the stuff, who if they had their say in the matter would order up a $16.00 cup of premium Yemeni Port of Mokha-branded coffee from the nearest Blue Bottle. Gee, that’s kind of awesome.

But we may be way overthinking this. Maybe it’s not about the coffee at all. Maybe it’s really about the the milk in the coffee. Uh … cats like milk, right? Ok, shit! Nothing makes sense anymore. Forget everything about cats liking coffee.

“Transparent Migrations”

The LACMA exhibition “Home – So Different, So Appealing” is turning into something of a landmark show with all the buzz from critics and patrons alike. The exhibition features a sprawling collection of artwork from Latin American and Latino artists since the 1950s to the present. As the shows title suggests, it explores themes of home, aspirations and identity,  as the collection reveals, it’s in the context of immigration, socio-economic hardship,  and the personal bi-cultural experiences that come with migration and transience. Contemporary art figures prominently. There are many art-installation pieces and many worthy of attention. One of the more striking and evocative works is “Transparent Migrations” (2001) by the American Latina and Californian artist Amalia Mesa-Bains, who is now in her seventies. The work is beautifully mysterious and sublime shrine.

Heyyyyyyyy … It’s Been Awhile

Hey, Everybody! Regular readers of GlobalGraphica (GG) will have noticed that we haven’t posted to this site in a few weeks. And if you sent us an email recently, you probably haven’t heard from us (as it was, we were already way behind on replying to readers’ emails — we suck at responding to email, and apologize for that).

So where have we been?

In mid-June, we got brought onto a cool new commercial project at the last minute for the Japanese car brand Acura. Working with the brand’s ad agency, Mullen Lowe and a couple of production companies, we helped produce the world first-ever live augmented reality (AR) race, as well as some commercial spots for it. You can see the live-event video below or read more about it on CNET or AdWeek or in a bunch of other publications.

The project required a ton of work to pull off and kept us ridiculously busy for the better part of a month. Finally, now that the project is wrapped up, we can catch our breath, relax and get back to our passion that is GG.