GRNY's own Mark G. is featured in the new Hayaino Daisuke release and Martin's blog!

Opening March 27th at GRNY, Small Favors is a big (close to 70 artists) group show of small scale artworks. It's going to be an absolutely fantastic show, the artists list alone guarantees that. I've only seen a fraction of the work that will be in the show so far, and it's all looking great. Take a look for yourself, and stay tuned for more updates.


Created with flickr slideshow.

Labels: Giant Robot, Giant Robot Magazine, Giant Robot New York, GRNY, Small Favors

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Prints and Pieces at GRNY

Saturday, March 6, 2010 - Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Giant Robot Gallery
437 East 9th Street Between 1st Ave. & Ave. A, in the East Village
New York, New York 10009
(212) 674-GRNY (4769) | grny.net

GRNY is proud to present a showing of prints and pieces from its collection for sale by artists who are sure to be familiar to readers of Giant Robot magazine: Takashi Murakami, Chiho Aoshima, David Choe, Ai Yamaguchi, David Horvath, Dehara, and Le Merde, When Takashi Murakami coined the phrase "Superflat," he transformed a generation of popular culture-influenced fine artists in Japan into a movement. His own iconic artworks exemplify the concept's bridging of traditional Japanese panel art and modern manga and anime, old art and new pop culture, and high art and low art. The Tokyo-based artist has been compared to Andy Warhol, collaborated with Louis Vuitton, and had his retrospective shown at MOCA in L.A. and The Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain.

Chiho Aoshima is one of the primary artists under Murakami's Kaikai Kiki management group. Her digital work has been known to cover entire walls and stairways with an impossibly detailed, richly colored, dystopic, and feminine view of the future. Aoshima's most recent solo shows have taken place at the Joan Miro Foundation in Barcelona, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the Baltic Center for Contemporary Art in Gateshead (UK).

When David Choe first approached Giant Robot, he had dropped out of art school and was looking for gigs. Since his first contribution, a portrait of the buck-toothed cook Martin Yan that reveals an equal influence of both comic books and graffiti, Choe has gone on to become a celebrated artists whose loose, dirty, and effortless style has been spotlighted in London and Beijing. Ai Yamaguchi began her career working for Murakami, but has gone on to forge her own place in the world of art via her hyper stylized depictions of Edo-period courtesans. In addition to regularly showing in museum and galleries, Yamaguchi’s work has been featured by a line of Shu Uemura products as well as murals in the upscale cosmetics company’s boutiques.

Finally, in tribute to the roots of Asian popular culture (the kaiju scene introduced by Godzilla, Gamera, other giant monsters, and the toy industry they spawned) Japanese indie sculptor and artist Yukinori Dehara, UglyDolls co-creator David Horvath, and Portland, OR-based underground toy legend LeMerde joined forces to create a short run of handmade, hand-painted figures to commemorate the recently concluded Giant Robot Biennale 2 in Los Angeles. This show will be their East Coast debut. Giant Robot was born as a Los Angeles-based magazine about Asian, Asian-American, and new hybrid culture in 1994, but has evolved into a full-service pop culture provider with shops and galleries in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City, as well as an online equivalent.

The prints by Murakami, Aoshima, Choe, and Yamaguchi, as well as the pieces by Dehara, Horvath, and Le Merde, will be shown from Saturday, March 6 through Wednesday, March 24. For more information about the artists, GR2, or Giant Robot magazine, please contact:

Eric Nakamura
Giant Robot Owner/Publisher
eric@giantrobot.com
(310) 479-7311

Labels: Ai Yamaguchi, Chiho Aoshima, David Choe, David Horvath, Dehara, Giant Robot, Giant Robot Biennale, Giant Robot Magazine, Giant Robot New York, GRNY, Le Merde, Takashi Murakami

Hey GR fans and followers, got a question for you. What does GRNY get that GRLA and GRSF never do? The answer....SNOW. The city has been hit with yet another winter storm, this one started this morning, and is supposed to let up sometime Friday night. Right now it's just big wet flakes but they say we'll get some accumulation.

I'm appreciating this storm as hopefully the last snow of the winter. NYC really does kind of transform when it's snowing. Everything is forced to move just a little bit slower, and for a while we're all just people versus the snow. All the news tonight is going to be people talking about the snow, and how the storm has affected their commute or whatever. But if you ask me, for a little while snow in the city is a beautiful thing.



Snowy branches outside the front door of GRNY.



View of Tompkins Square Park looking down 9th Street



Frozen vandalism, or home team spirit?

Labels: Giant Robot, Giant Robot Magazine, Giant Robot New York, GRNY, snow

It's shaping up to be a really great weekend at all the Giant Robot stores. GRNY's Metal Mad show is open to online sales with loads of amazing pieces available.

For you Bay Area people, GRSF is having the opening reception for Rob Sato's new gallery show, Junk History. The preview images are gorgeous, kind of make me think of Kong's Skull Island and Laputa. This looks like it will be a hell of a show. Not to be missed!

Then at GR homebase in LA is the fantastic group show Year of the Tiger and pet adoption event. GRLA's Michelle Borok is an animal lover of the highest order, so I know that this event is near and dear to her heart. In fact, GR's own Eric Nakamura adopted his cat Kika at the last adoption event. We just took in the orange stray cat that's been living on our porch at the beginning of this year, so it's a little bit Year of the Tiger for me in NYC as well.

And of course, there is no better place than Giant Robot for you to find that last minute, unique and wonderful Valentine's Day gift. As always, we appreciate your support. Get out there and support metal madness, junk history, the year of the tiger and animals who will love you unconditionally if you take them home.

Labels: Giant Robot, Giant Robot Magazine, Giant Robot New York, Giant Robot San Francisco, GR2, GRNY, GRSF, Junk History, Metal Mad, Pet Adoption, Rob Sato, Year of the Tiger

With all signs pointing to a major influx of snow in our fair city tomorrow, GRNY will be closing for the day. We'll be back open on Thursday the 11th. Enjoy some hot cocoa, a snowball fight, watch TV news about those poor people who live in Rochester or Buffalo where it's probably going to look like Hoth tomorrow. Stay warm and be safe, I'll be expecting you on Thursday.

Labels: closing, GRNY, snow day

So anybody who knows me, or follows this blog knows that I love heavy metal. Sure I've had my little flings with old school rap, and electronic music, but my heart belongs to metal music. It's my comfort food of music. When things are looking bad, or I just need to psyche myself up, metal always does it. That's the idea behind the Metal Mad opening this weekend. A hell yes, get psyched, fists in the air creative celebration of the power of this style of music. Art openings are always exciting. It's fun to see the work as it comes in, get it up on the walls and looking great, and share it with everybody else. This one is particularly exciting though. As a good friend once put it "metal recognizes metal", meaning that metalheads share a certain bond over this music. That bond was evident in the excited responses we received from artists who were invited to be in the show, and their love for metal is shining through in some really spectacular artwork. The talent pool involved is incredible, and I am finding myself seriously amped up. Do yourselves a favor, and come check the show out when it opens this Saturday, February 6th at 6:30. No emos, wimps, or posers.

Labels: Giant Robot, Giant Robot Magazine, Giant Robot New York, GRNY, group show, Metal Mad

16 years ago, Eric Nakamura and Martin Wong joined forces in Los Angeles and created the little 'zine that could, Giant Robot. To say that a lot has changed since then is the understatement of the century. GR went from being a fanzine to a magazine to a successful small business, and is currently recognized as a driving force in the art world. It's an amazing success story, one totally based on a DIY ethic, and doing what you believe in with people you believe in. But the simple fact is that print as a business is hurting as more and more printed matter goes online instead of to press, and Giant Robot is no exception to the rule. It was our fans who helped build GR into what it is today, and will no doubt help us take us to the next level. Right now, we need your support. Eric explains it all very nicely in his most recent blog entry. Take a minute to check it out. Giant Robot is lucky to have a most devoted fanbase, and we're grateful for all your support over the years and into the future. Thanks.

Labels: Giant Robot, Giant Robot Magazine, Giant Robot New York, Giant Robot San Francisco, GRLA, GRNY, GRSF

Giant Robot has been included in the voting for Juxtapoz magazine's Top 100 Galleries and Museums. We're currently in the top 50, at #45 alongside some real heavy hitters. It's a big accomplishment for us to be viewed on the same playing field as some major art institutions, and even cooler that we were voted there by readers. Thanks to our fans and supporters for getting us there. Voting is still open. Let's see if we can't rise in the ranks! Thanks again for all your support!

Labels: Giant Robot, Giant Robot New York, Giant Robot San Francisco, GRNY, GRSF, Juxtapoz