AT JANM - GR BIENNALE 4 INSTALLATION EXPLAINED - WHAT'S IN THE CASE? PART 2
Case 2 is a smaller one that's near the entrance of the Giant Robot Installation at the Japanese American National Museum Biennale 4. I'll try and explain what everything is.
From upper left:
1. Yoskay Yamamoto made a pewter version of his Astroboy head. It's super heavy and limited. It's a great piece. I have a red one as well which has a different shape. When I got burglarized at home, the thief took the red Astroboy out of the velvet bag and left it. I wonder what he thought it was.
2. Black and white photo is of myself and Martin Wong at a zine fest in Seattle in the 90s.
3. Souther Salazar Post it Show art piece. The circles were made from him tracing a penny, or was it a dime?
4. Small sketchbook is a sketch by Os Gemeos from 2006 New Castle, England. Nice folks.
5. Banksy Money. I think this might be illegal or contraband. I'm not sure.
6. An old photo of myself and Martin Wong at Ruckus store in West LA. We did many Giant Robot release events there. The shop featured Kung Fu stuff and surf stuff.
7. Black and White photo of my father. I shot that and printed it in the late 80s when I wanted to be a photographer.
8. Man with gun. Cousin Mike holds the Chinese MAK90 Assault rifle. We shot this on an apartment rooftop in Hollywood. I think it would raise serious red flags today. It was used in Giant Robot issue 3.
9. Small sketchbook has a sketch by Mark Ryden. Perhaps from the mid 90s. I got it done at Comic-Con. I wonder what he'd do today.
10. Merzbow photo. Great noise band from Japan. Legends.
11. Solmania photo. Great noise band from Japan. Not sure if they get "legend" status, but they were cool.
12. Devil Robots drew an entire book by hand and sent that in to display for our 10th anniversary of the mag. They were cover artists for issue 35 (I think).
13. Paper bag art by David Choe from 2003.
Starting from the middle left:
14. Sketchbook opened to a drawing I made of the billboard above GR2 with graffiti by David Choe, London Police, and Shepard Fairey. Underneath the vinyl there today, is this graffiti.
15. David Choe Skateboard deck with his actual blood splattered. The bright red is paint, but there are some darker spots that contains his DNA.
16. Cometbus zines. The best around.
17. Small painting by Masakatsu Sashie.
18. James Jean drawing focusing on the Tsunami in Japan. He wrote a nice message to the people.
19. kozyndan hand drawn postcard they mailed my way. They still use snail mail!
20. Martin Wong photo holding a box of zines in Seattle. 90s.
21. Andrew Schoultz small painting from a show at GR2.
22. Photo of a pile of Giant Robot issue 4. 4000 copies? That's what it looked like before it went out.
23. Photo of myself and musician Lois Maffeo at the zine fest in Seattle.
Bottom left:
24. Sketchbook opened to questions for Daniel Dae Kim for our live presentation interview. It went super well including surprise video messages I shot from JJ Abrams, Bryan Burk, and Damon Lindelof, and then photos of his kids whom he has shielded from the net. He was shocked, but his wife gave me approval to use it.
25. David Choe skatedeck featuring the artwork cover from Giant Robot issue 50.
26. Scion booklet for one of the exhibitions I curated at their gallery in Culver City. I forgot he was in an exhibition there!
27. Sketchbook featuring the rough design for Giant Robot New York Store.
28. Winney figures by Sony Creative. It was part of the first wave of Gacha figures (capsule) that were done with great artists around the world.