This month in New York's Soho, art lovers can catch a glimpse of forgotten cowboys, embroidered chimpanzees and jackalopes that shoot laser beams, all in a pop-up art exhibition known as the Hard Time Mini Mall. Curated by the Red Truck Gallery, the show features artwork by eight internationally recognized folk, lowbrow and self-taught artists all working in a variety of different mediums. Aside from the art, the exhibitions also hosts an amazing selection of truck stop collectibles, including wolf paintings, light-up Jesus decorations and some kind of mounted dead bobcat. “We just love them and have to get them,” organizer Noah Antieau says of the kitschy souvenirs, and apparently art buyers are allowed to take one truck stop piece home with them as a sort of buy-one-get-one-free bonus. The Hard Time Mini Mall can be visited at 368 Broome St. in NYC until November 30th.

Related Links:
Red Truck Gallery : http://www.redtruckgallery.com/

Art Mail
Posted 03 November 2009 | by Ian Collins  

We Are Fucking Awesome is an appropriately named globe-spanning collective of a dozen or so artists. They specialize in collaborative projects like this one of postcards that have been arted on and sent through the mail to be further arted on by the next arter. Awesome.

Related Links:
Mail Art : http://main.wearefuckingawesome.org/#109614/Mail-Art

Beyond 1984, Beyond 2001
Posted 30 October 2009 | by Justin Solitrin  

It's 1974 (or rather, it's AD 2293) and Sean Connery is gearing up to take on the role of Zed, Tokion's 2009 Halloween Costume of the Year. Maybe it was the knee-high boots, maybe it was the red-suspendered loincloth, perhaps the ponytail, or even the mustache... Whatever it was it work. With such memorable quotes as "The gun is good. The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life to poison the Earth with a plague of men, as once it was, but the gun shoots death, and purifies the Earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth...and kill!" How could one ask for a better role to play?

In the John Boorman–written, John Boorman–produced, and John Boorman–directed masterpiece "Zardoz," Connery fights against the Eternals in an effort to find, well, something, only to discover that Zardoz is really just a copy of the Wizard of Oz. Brilliant.

Learn the nature of the Vortex. Dress like Zed this Halloween. Make us proud. Send us photos.
Best Zed costume gets a free subscription to Tokion.

Related Links:
Zardoz : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbGVIdA3dx0

Cruising For A Breuning
Posted 29 October 2009 | by Justin Solitrin  

For the sake of all things childlike and oversized, we made our way out to Metro Pictures to peep the opening of Olaf Breuning's "Small Brain Big Stomach." Olaf's work is typically produced in wild spurts during periods of self-imposed isolation; prior to this exhibition Breuning spent five days alone drawing in his room aboard the Queen Mary II. Being locked away aboard a luxury liner with nothing to do but draw sure beats being locked away in front of a computer with too much to do and too little time.
If you find yourself in Chelsea check out how Olaf's drawings are brought to 3-dimensional reality.

Related Links:
Metro Pictures Gallery : http://www.metropicturesgallery.com/
Olaf Breuning : http://www.olafbreuning.com/

Stare Into the Sun
Posted 29 October 2009 | by Ian Collins  

I'm not sure what this animated video from Ian Stevenson is about and I don't think it matters much, because it's got eye lasers, rainbows, unicorns, gnomes, bizarro woodland creatures and a groovy jam. That should be enough for anybody. If you need more convincing, here's Stevenson's description: “Revealing the world of a strange small man, who spends his days away from the world. While divulging in strange pleasures he is suddenly thrown into a fantastical journey.” Click below for the youtubes.

Related Links:
Video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kndl5XHVqk8