423 red: the shows

redd cor­duroy overalls
sam­my hag­gar slacks
and underoos
on sale at the gapp
those who leead may yet be ledd
(ex­cept for chica­go redd)
got to get the colour redd
thor­ough­ly into my headd
crawl­ing out from un­der bedd
lis­ten­ing to the grate­ful deadd
what was it mehal­lo saidd?
do not be so full of dreadd,
la­m­on­nt!
—Rob­bie Ed­monds, some redd poetry

Yes, we’ll have an Open (and Closed Mic) this week­end. Maybe we’ll get Redd poetry. 

One of the coolest things be­ing in­volved in the arts is be­ing able to cu­rate gallery exhibitions. 

I’ve done a hand­ful of shows over the past cou­ple decades (and as a graph­ic de­sign­er it’s also re­al­ly cool to ac­tu­al­ly de­sign the space it­self; cause I usu­al­ly only work in the 2D world) – and these three shows I’m cu­rat­ing for 423 RED have a lot of mean­ing for me:
 

jay vigon: marks
Back in the 1980s, I bought a book on logo de­sign that changed my view of logo design. 

It was play­ful, fun, be­yond the Swiss ‘Use Hel­veti­ca for every­thing’ man­date that seemed to nag at graph­ic de­sign­ers as the ul­ti­mate so­lu­tion for everydamnthing. 

The book con­tained works that JUST HAP­PENED to be­long to my favourite bands from high school. Van Halen, Prince, David Bowie, Bon Jovi (that was af­ter high school) – those that fre­quent­ed MTV when MTV was re­al­ly fuck­ing cool. Yes, DAVID LEE ROTH was one of my favourite pas­sion­ate about life goof­balls, and a cou­ple years ago the au­thor (and sub­ject) of this book walked into my ex­per­i­men­tal type class. 

Jay Vigon was in Sacra­men­to at the time (a wow mo­ment for me) and is now else­where. But he de­signed a big chunk of the 1980s. Be­yond Mem­phis.

I have se­lec­tions of his work from the 80s – and re­cent. They’ll be up in the CLARA au­di­to­ri­um lobby.
 

la ré­sis­tance
I’ve been pour­ing through rev­o­lu­tion­ary art­work from the past and the present. I’m ho­n­oured to say that our cur­rent troupe of FLOM­MISTS have been on the ground with pro­pa­gan­da and art: 

From An­oth­er Poster for Peace (in 2003)
to Oc­cu­py Wall Street (FLOM­MIST Raina Dayne was the first de­sign­er for OCCUPY)
to the Women’s March (That’s FLOM­MIST Nicole LaRue’s now icon­ic logo).

ART is about chal­leng­ing the sta­tus quo. 

We’ll have a bunch of re­volt­ing things on hand, PLUS an ex­per­i­men­tal homage to Mar­cel Duchamp (1887–1968) in a way only FLOMM would ac­tu­al­ly try (be up on your art his­to­ry, or you may not ‘get it’).
 

new wave: na­tive to the web
I first met Bill Mead af­ter he wrote a re­view of a show I co-cu­rat­ed back in 2006.

Since Jes’ poem on Mon­day, Bill’s been push­ing his pro­gram­ming skills even far­ther – see­ing where he could take things by Sat­ur­day afternoon.

BACK IN 1990 I re­mem­ber stand­ing in a pile of dig­i­tal flames at wat was a NEW ME­DIA (which was coined as a new term for the time) art show at SF­MO­MA. Video cam­era + chro­ma key put the view­er in the art it­self. Some­thing to­tal­ly nü, for then. 

A pile of com­put­er mon­i­tors with ab­stract things on them start­ed show­ing up at a lot of gal­leries as elec­tron­ic and dig­i­tal be­came the buzz word/next tech­nol­o­gy that (I’d find) tra­di­tion­al artists used to com­plain about.

When I start­ed teach­ing in the Art New Me­dia De­part­ment at Amer­i­can Riv­er Col­lege (in 2003) I re­mem­ber a dis­tinct di­vide be­tween the Art De­part­ment and us trub­ble­mak­ers. The ‘that’s not art!’ chants I found were sim­i­lar to when Pho­tog­ra­phy was first pre­sent­ed as an art form.

To­day, there’s still a lot of re­sent­ment to­wards new takes on art.

And wat we have FOR SAT­UR­DAY – lit­er­al­ly – is be­ing in­vent­ed by Bill as I write this.
 

The
im­por­tant ques­tions now are:

How long will these art shows be up?
I do not know. Re­al­ly. There’s an email trail go­ing back and forth. So they may be up ONLY ON SATURDAY.
So
if you want to see them, this is IT. (We’ll take some fo­tos, but SAT­UR­DAY AF­TER­NOON is pret­ty much it.)

Is the art for sale?
Yes. Find me and let’s talk. Some things have prices. Some things are ne­go­tiable (When­ev­er FLOMM sells art, we only take 10% by the way. One of the best deals for artists ever). Some things are N.F.S.

WHERE is this?
Any­time we have a FLOMM event, I get this ques­tion. Usu­al­ly in texts while the event is go­ing on. We are not at MYR­TLE this time (that was YEL­LOW) we are at CLARA in Sacramento.
This is the IN­VITE.
This is a MAP.
This is our MI­CROSITE for all this.

WAT is this?
If you have to ask, you’re miss­ing the point. We’re putting on a big art event un­like any­thing that hap­pens round heres. It’ll be hands on, un­usu­al and this time – MOR dadaist than ever be­fore. AND it will be LOUD. Be­cause Nor­cal NOISE­FEST is in­volved. (have you been to Au­dio Waf­fle yet? Next one hap­pens Sun­day 17 June. GO!)

It will also be in­clu­sive. That’s part of the SALTY edict: 

NO SEX­ISM. NO RACISM. NO VI­O­LENCE. NO AGEISM. NO HO­MO­PHO­BIA. NO ABLEISM. NO TRANS­PHO­BIA. NO HATE­FUL­NESS. YOU WILL BE ASKED TO LEAVE.

It will be in­ter­na­tion­al (with LIVE re­ports from the FLOM­MISTS in PARIS). 

It won’t be the same ol’ thing that usu­al­ly hap­pens in Sacramento.

And it will only hap­pen ONCE. 

We hope 423 RED will have some­thing for you. Please join us Sat­ur­day afternoon.

 
 

—steve mehal­lo

Flom­mist Steve Mehal­lo is a graph­ic de­sign­er, il­lus­tra­tor, font de­sign­er, ed­u­ca­tor, food­ie and gad­fly. He is the cre­ator and founder of FLOMM! Also pic­tured: Adri­an Piper, Out of the Cor­ner, 1990, source. And Redd ‘dodged the draft by eat­ing half a bar of soap be­fore his phys­i­cal, a trick that re­sult­ed in heart pal­pi­ta­tions.’ Don’t try this at home!

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