YouTube/DanceBistro

Dance Bistro 2013, to be held May 24-25, will feature 13 different dance companies performing.

See also:
*Our Calendar Section, Listing More Great Things to Do in L.A.

With Memorial Day weekend on the horizon, L.A. is giving you the opportunity to expect the unexpected. Save the burgers, fireworks and beer to fuel your patriotic fervor for the Fourth of July -- this week, Korean BBQ, knit graffiti and HempCon, among other endeavors, will help burst your celebrations out of the box.

5. Everybody Must Get Stoned
This year's HempCon features live actions by some of the controlled substance's most uncontrollable creative forces: EPMD, Cypress Hill's DJ Muggs, Cappadonna of Wu-Tang Clan and Redman, among many others. Lest you think this is one big, blacklight orgy of people flapping their arms like chickens on their way to score some M, there also are seminars on how to start a delivery service (just like Samson Simpson!), how to be compliant in California (whether that means being in line with California law or just acting nice when the cops bust down your door) and a lecture (but not a scolding) by keynote speaker and helpful attorney Freddy Sayegh. Yes, we can(nabis)! L.A. Convention Center, Hall B, 1201 S. Figueroa St., dwntwn.; Fri., May 24-Sun., May 26; $20 per day. (626) 961-6522, hempcon.com. -- David Cotner

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L.J. Williamson

Street art is a commentary on the nature of ownership, and the push-pull between public and private property. Using the city as a stolen canvas is in and of itself an artistic statement that art hemmed into the confines of a gallery or museum could never make.

The questions that street art raises -- "who does this city belong to?" and "who gets to decide what it looks like?" will always be a source of tension -- the sort of tension inherent in city life.

Pop star Chris Brown, of "F.A.M.E." fame, has placed himself at the center of that sort of tension in his Hollywood Dell neighborhood by painting a tableau of monster faces on his otherwise elegant home. The ensuing conflict with neighbors, which made front page news and which Brown plainly courted, can be framed a number of ways, but primarily it's an argument between "a man's home is his castle" versus community standards.

Like great architecture, great art installations seek harmony with the surrounding environment -- or if not harmony, then a pointed juxtaposition. Driving up Rinconia Drive in the lushly overgrown Hollywood Dell, when one happens upon the Brown home, the effect is neither. The curbside paintings stick out, to be sure, but in an opportunistic, rather than a deeply considered way. Round the corner and there they are, but the images aren't as glaring on the the approach as one would suspect from newspaper photos -- because of their orientation on the street, passersby view them from the side rather than head-on. In fact, most of Brown's paintings are tucked away into the recessed portions of the house's façade, seeming downright discreet.

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Photo by David Wing

Jef Raskin with building blocks he designed, on view at the MAK Center

This week, footage about a high-energy collaboration between artists, architects and Pepsi plays at the MAK Center, one artist leads people on a hunt for truth and other intangibles at the Getty and another turns cough syrup into something of a tribute.

5. Art, lies and hashtags
A green vinyl sign above the security desk at the Getty Center asks, "Is a museum for everyone?" Another sign affixed to the floor in the rotunda at the top of the main stairs asks, "Is a museum fun?" These and other questions are part of L.A. artist Sam Durant's #isamuseum project. The idea is that visitors will answer, either on Twitter on their phones, later on the website or by going up to the info desk. You see the question "Is a museum truthful?" while winding down the stairs from the painting galleries, and one visitor answered no because "Truth has nothing to do with art." 1200 Getty Center Drive, Brentwood; through July. (310) 440-7300, gettycenter.org.

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Hanksy

Weird Gal Yankovic

See also:
*5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week
*10 Best L.A. Art Galleries For Partying

Banksy is so 2010. Hanksy, the similarly secretive street artist and love child of Banksy and Tom Hanks, is reaching his own level of notoriety thanks to his celeb-inspired murals, the subject of Gallery 1988's upcoming exhibit, "How the West Was Pun," which opens May 24.

A couple of years ago, the Brooklyn-via-Midwest, 20-something law school dropout started spray painting Hanks' mug on stenciled images of Banksy in New York, which led to a couple of gallery shows. He's put up similar work in Chicago. (Dude even made it to the White House).

Earlier this year, Hanksy began lurking in our midst, creating street art inspired by Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Ellen DeGeneres, James Franco, Bradley Cooper and Christopher Walken, and accompanied by funny tag lines, in Hollywood along Melrose, Downtown and Culver City. You may have come across "Cage Against the Machine," "The Walken Dead" and our personal favorite, "Weird Gal Yankovic."

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Liz Ohanesian

HUSH presents "Unseen" at Corey Helford Gallery

There is no single process for HUSH. The U.K.-based artist mixes methods as he applies a combination of paint (acrylic and the spray can variety), screen print and ink techniques to his canvases. In the end, the results are exquisitely layered paintings that people sometimes confuse for collage work.

Saturday night, HUSH unveiled his latest show "Unseen" at Corey Helford Gallery. The effort involves 22 pieces, including large paintings and smaller studies. This was his first show with the Culver City gallery, which has come to prominence in the past few years for showcasing some of the brightest talents in the pop surrealism and street art world. HUSH himself falls into the latter camp, and he worked on a few street pieces while he in town.

HUSH's love of street art goes back to his youth. "I did a bit of graffiti," he says of his formative years. "I wasn't a big graffiti artist."

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Courtesy photo Venice Art Walk & Auctions

Google's Venice offices, in Frank Gehry's "binoculars" building

See also:
*5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week
*10 Best L.A. Art Galleries For Partying

(Correction: This post originally stated that Google reached out to the Venice Family Clinic about sponsoring the Venice Art Walk & Auctions. While Google did reach out to the VFC to invite its reps to a gathering for community groups and begin a relationship with VFC, it was the VFC that reached out to Google specifically about sponsoring the Venice Art Walk & Auctions.)

Google...It's everywhere. And in late 2010, Google set up camp in Frank Gehry's cherished "binoculars" building in Venice Beach amidst the marijuana clinics, fire-eaters, and snake charmers.

Last year, the Venice Family Clinic reached out to Google about sponsoring the annual Venice Art Walk & Auctions benefit and hosting the silent auction at the landmark building. Many Venetians were wary of the corporate presence and its involvement, while others welcomed the imminent nouveau regime.

At this year's 34th annual event, on Sunday, May 19, Google has taken center stage, providing not only the gallery for the auction but also hosting the "family fun day." "The Venice area is home to a lot of Google employees who are happy to be involved for the second year in a row," says Thomas Williams, engineering director and Google L.A. site lead.

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MAK Center

Curator Sylvia Lavin introduces her exhibition to a packed Schindler House

This is the third installment of our Pacific Standard Time Presents diary, tracking modern architecture happenings all over the city. Check out our previous entries:
*The Getty's Big, New Exploration of L.A. Architecture
*SCI-Arc's Gala and a Concert at Jackie Treehorn's House

High temperatures might be bad for art, but they're great for museums. The past week's blistering heat wave drove many an Angeleno into the air-conditioned respite of their local cultural institution -- I spotted Getty curator Christopher Alexander leading a particularly large tour through "Overdrive" on a steamy Saturday. Even when it's not serving as an escape from the heat, the show is an excellent destination, and a few hours wandering the exhibition filled me with a renewed sense of civic pride. In fact, I had a hard time seeing the "thoroughgoing urban mess" as described by one bitter East Coast reviewer in his description of the show (or maybe L.A. in general?) last week.

On another night, it was the promise of warm spring air -- and not a lick of air conditioning -- that packed the Schindler House for the MAK Center's "Everything Loose Will Land" opening. The al fresco vibe extended to the art: Sylvia Lavin -- in a snappy molecular-looking statement necklace -- admitted that she rather enjoyed curating an exhibition outside of a traditional museum, even though mounting a show in the drafty duplex is "pretty much like installing an exhibition outdoors."

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Courtesy Michael Benevento

A still from Wu Tsang and Alexandro Segade's Mishima in Mexico (2012)

This week, an artist makes deadpan jokes in vintage photographs, whistlers convene in Glendale and a Japanese novelist's tragedy of frustrated love is re-staged in Mexico.

5. Crowd of copycats
It's not yet certain how many people will participate in artist Sara Roberts' Clump and Whistle, a group performance at Glendale's Civic Center, but it shouldn't be more than 100, the number Roberts chose as her cut-off point. Clump and Whistle will work in the way the wave works at a football game, only with whistles. One person blows out a quick tune on one of the multitone whistles Roberts has provided, then the person next to him or her mimics the tune and so on until this tune has spread -- like a wave -- through the crowd. Two rehearsals precede this weekend's event, which means the effect will be at least slightly honed. Glendale Civic Center Plaza, Broadway and Glendale Boulevard; Sun., May 19, 1 p.m.; RSVP requested. machineproject.org.

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Kevin Scanlon

Heather Shaw

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2013 issue. Check out our entire People 2013 issue here.

Here's how Heather Shaw spent 2012: She was production designer on her first TV show, a little singing competition called American Idol. She had three installations on various stages at Coachella. She designed and fabricated a "water chandelier" for the poolside club at the Cosmopolitan in Vegas. She created and built an 80-foot-tall, 30,000-capacity "dance temple," graceful and neon-colored like a raver's Angkor Wat, for a music festival in Portugal. And she took her parents to their first Burning Man. ("They loved it," she's happy to report.)

So what does she do in her free time?

"I don't have any," the 35-year-old CEO of Vita Motus Design Studio admits with a laugh. It's early evening and she's sipping coffee at Swork near her home in Eagle Rock, fueling up for the latest in a never-ending series of late nights with her CAD software. "If something comes across my table, I want to do it."

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Kevin Scanlon

Rita Gonzalez

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2013 issue. Check out our entire People 2013 issue here.

Five months after a 340-ton rock officially became part of Michael Heizer's massive Levitated Mass sculpture on the grounds of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, curator Rita Gonzalez installed the much smaller Lost Line sculpture on the third floor of the museum's Broad Contemporary building.

Made by artist Gabriel Orozco out of string and Plasticine, a claylike material that never completely dries, the sculpture was a gray, small, imperfectly shaped ball set in a corner, an antidote to Heizer's boulder. Gonzalez also titled the exhibition it appeared in "Lost Line" and installed other artworks from LACMA's collection that made similarly modest gestures. In Analia Saban's painting Erosion, the canvas looks like it's delicately decaying. In Amalia Pica's photocopied self-portrait, the artist looks out at a landscape much bigger than herself.

"We were thinking, what's the opposite of monumentalism?" says Gonzalez, the only curator in LACMA's contemporary art department who worked at the museum prior to the 2006 appointment of game-changing director Michael Govan.

See also:
*5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week
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