If It's Hip, It's Here (Archives): los angeles

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A Look At Carmageddon - 20 Awesome Photos.

The Los Angeles Times has done a great job of keeping us Los Angelenos up to date on the dreaded "Carmageddon" (also referred to at Carpocalypse and Autopalypse) with photos and updates by many of their staff members.

If It's Hip It's Here, along with other Los Angeles area bloggers and companies, has the honor of being one of the co-hosts of The Art of Design event with EFFEN Vodka that takes place tomorrow night. The event, open to anyone over 21 years of age, will feature local mixologists competing to design the most Provocatively Premium™ EFFEN® Vodka martini.

Sample cocktails, vote on your favorites and watch a local artist and fashion designer reveal pieces inspired by EFFEN Vodka. Complimentary Happy Hour, too.

I hope to see you there!

When:
March 16, 2011 8:00 PM - 10:30 PM

Where:
William Turner Gallery at Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Ave
Santa Monica CA 90404

How:
Only those 21 years of age and older can attend.
Please click here to get on the guest list

RSVP

Modern Highlights From The Los Angeles Art Show - Part II

above: Halim Al Karim, Hidden Love 3, 2009, Lambda print on aluminum, 67 x 47 inches (170 x 120 cm)

Yesterday I shared with you some of the more modern highlights from the Los Angeles Art Show in Part I and now the eye candy continues with Part II.

Joshua Suda:

Claudia Parducci:

Gerd Leider:

Irene Presnner:

Harry Holland:

Troels Worsel:

Lin Quinyan:

Margit J. Fureder:

Ronald Kulla-Kinzie:

Peter Clark:

Shen Jingdong:

Patrick Duegaw:

Ilona Zaremba:

Sara Friedlander:

Jean Wells:

Will Kissmer:

David Bromley:

Sebastian Artz:

all photos taken by laura sweet for if it's hip, it's here
See Part I here
The 2011 Los Angeles Art Show
Links to all the participating galleries

Modern Art Highlights From The Los Angeles Art Show - Part I

The 16th annual Los Angeles Art Show took place in the city's Convention Center this past Thursday, January 19th through Sunday, January 23rd. I attended with my friend and fellow art-lover/collector Betsy Wills, who flew out from Nashville for the event and who is the author of an enjoyable art blog named Artstormer.

Gourmet cookies, ice cream and take-home dough are for the dogs. At least these particular ones are. And delivered in a gourmet food truck, no less.

above: Truck graphics designed by Coolhaus

PhyDough is the brainchild of Patrick Guilfoyle, self-proclaimed dog lover, food snob and Francophile. Owner of Burbank's Double Dog Dare Ya, Patrick originally began by creating preservative-free cookie dough for dog owners to bake the treats for their canines at home. Upon recognizing the growing popularity of gourmet food trucks, he teamed up with Natasha Case of Coolhaus Ice Cream Truck fame who heped him to bring the PhyDough Truck to reality.

above: a fan photo from Facebook shows ZuZu, a fan of the peanut butter and bacon ice cream sandwich

above: (another fan photo) Che loooved his peanut butter bacon ice cream and peanut butter cookies :)

Made with organic and human grade ingredients, the treats do not use processed sugar though some contain syrup) and Coolhaus makes the soy or yougurt based ice cream treats for the dogs. The PhyDough itself is available for take-home and bake yourself usage. The products need to be kept in the freezer because they are preservative-free.

Note: these are only for canine consumption, not for children or adults.

Interested in hiring the truck for your next Pawty? Contact them here

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Great Media Buy? Or Poor Taste? Mad Hatter takes Over L.A. Times

The Los Angeles Times broke new ground yesterday, translating the "homepage" take-over concept from the Web to print and delivering Disney's Mad Hatter to readers' doorsteps, driveways and city street corners.

Timed to coincide with the release of the highly-anticipated "Alice in Wonderland," starring Johnny Depp, The Times is the only major newspaper in the country to carry the innovative ad unit, conceived to launch the film in the most creative and unexpected manner to Southern California's key movie-going audiences and creative community. The cover-wrap art successfully coveys Depp's Mad Hatter visage as a 3D image in a 2D format and creates a powerful opening day impression.

But not everyone thinks this was a good idea.

(Reuters) - The Los Angeles Times' critic may have panned the film, but that didn't stop Disney from paying top dollar to turn the newspaper's front page into a special advertisement on Friday for the new movie, "Alice in Wonderland."

The ad, believed to be the first of its kind among America's leading big-city dailies, dismayed some readers and was lamented by media scholars as the latest troubling sign of difficult times at the newspaper and for journalism generally.

The ad features a full-color photo of actor Johnny Depp in gaudy makeup, wig and costume as the film's Mad Hatter character, superimposed across an authentic-looking front page mock-up, topped by the Times' traditional masthead.

Depp's image -- emblazoned with the phrase, "Johnny Depp is the Mad Hatter" -- overlaps an old weather photo and two columns of reprinted stories about healthcare and Afghanistan, minus bylines and other names. The word "Advertisement" appears in smaller type just below the masthead.

To get to Friday's real news, readers had to open the so-called cover wrap, which was folded around the Times' entire A section as a two-page, front-to-back promotional spread.

A Times spokesman, John Conroy, declined to discuss the cost of the ad, but said, "The Times' front section is our most valuable real estate, so the ad unit was priced accordingly."

Hollywood blogger Sharon Waxman cited one "media buyer insider" as saying the Walt Disney Co, the studio behind the film, paid $700,000 for the space.

"That's a low price to sell your soul," said Roy Peter Clark, senior scholar at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, who expressed sympathy for the paper and discomfort at the blurring of commercial and editorial interests.

SAD DAY FOR GREAT PAPER?

"I want the Los Angeles Times to make a lot of money, and I want them to do use that money to do some of the best journalism they've ever done," he said. "But I think that this strategy is deceptive, and that my old school ulcer is starting to burn a little a bit."

Others were more blunt.

"It's a sad day in the history of a great newspaper, and my impression is they have received a lot of calls from people who are incensed by it, loyal readers," said Bryce Nelson, a former Times correspondent who teaches journalism at the University of Southern California.

The Times promotion apparently held little or no sway for the newspaper's main film critic, Kenneth Turan, whose review on Thursday called Tim Burton's take on the Lewis Carroll classic "middling" and "surprisingly inert." The film has drawn mixed reviews overall.

Conroy disputed the notion that the ad undermines the paper's editorial integrity.

"We made it clear that this was a depiction of the front page, rather than a real front page of the newspaper," he said. "We had an unusual opportunity here to stretch the traditional boundaries and deliver an innovative ad unit that was designed to create buzz."

But Nelson said the ad would prove a turnoff to many subscribers, some of whom he knows had called him to protest.

"What this demonstrates is the newspaper's seeming willingness to put revenues over news coverage," he said.

Conroy said the editorial staff was informed in advance of the Depp ad, but he did not know if it elicited the kind of grumbling that occurred when the paper ran a cover-wrap in June promoting the new HBO television series "True Blood." That wrap was not presented as a faux front page.

The Times, which began selling display ads on its front page in 2007, also raised eyebrows last year when it ran a front-page TV advertisement that resembled a news story.

The nationally circulated USA Today drew criticism for a pseudo edition of its newspaper distributed at an AIDS conference in Geneva as a promotion for a pharmaceutical company. The Wall Street Journal and other dailies have run partial wrap sleeves around the outsides of their papers.

Like many newspapers, the Times has been hit hard by declining circulation and shrinking ad revenues, forcing the paper to scale back coverage and lay off hundreds of employees in recent years. The paper's corporate parent, the Tribune Co, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December 2008.

Los Angeles Gathers Moss

It's been with eager anticipation that trendsetters have looked forward to the inevitable expansion of Moss, Murray Moss and Franklin Getchell's New York-based design store and gallery.

And appeared it certainly has, in the shape of a minimalist, open-plan 3,500 square foot gallery on LA's Melrose Avenue. The venue was designed by Murray Moss himself to be the ultimate exhibition space, though Moss is keen to stress that the new venue is a development, not simply a replica: 'We're very excited about the ability to create a new environment, not a duplicate one, expanding our presentation in ways unique to Los Angeles. We want Moss to grow, to reach further and at the same time, we want it to be local.'

Moss

August 2007: the first Moss store outside of New York's Soho district opens its big glass door, on Melrose Avenue near the mouth of Melrose Place. 3500 square feet of cool optic white space bifurcated by a ten ton steel beam running straight from the door to the sales station. Paul Smith Big Pink to right of us, the Pacific Design Center Blue Whale to the left, and Marc Jacobs across the street. We got Maharam down the street and APC so close we can bang on the wall.

The opening exhibition, 'Glitter and Smoke' is the first of several installations featuring chandeliers from the Swarovski Crystal Palace collection. Up first is Georg Baldele's Vertical Glitterbox, comprising 18 eight-foot crystal pillars, together giving a hanging garden effect. The chandelier surrounds a unique 1938 Steinway Baby Grand Piano, fire-sculpted by Maarten Baas, which forms part of Baas' ongoing 'Where there's Smoke' collection for Moss.