Leaping lizards! There are so many rad artists– luminaries, really– involved in the latest gallery show at L.A.’s primo promenade, Space 15 Twenty, I don’t even know where to start. Curated by Family founder David Kramer, Main Street is an exhibition of fresh video and animation from Miranda July, Jacob Ciocci, and Andrew Jeffrey Wright, to name just three. The exhibition, which opens Saturday, October 24th at 7pm, will also be released as a DVD designed by Grammy nominee Brian Roettinger. Always a perfectionist, Kramer tells us how he plans to transcend the confines of a gallery screening: “We’re building a giant box/cinema in the middle of the gallery with benches for viewing!”

The videos range from the psychedelically patterned color abstractions of Andrew Jeffrey Wright and Kris Moyes, to the documentary-style mountain biking travelogue of Andrew Sutherland. Miranda July’s meditation on tribal drumming, and Peter Sutherland’s re-enactment of a dream where teenagers wreak havoc on NYC, their minds controlled by a diabolical, smoking stone. Jacob Ciocci of Paper Rad defaces youtube videos of bedroom freak dancers with his brightly distinctive animations, while Melanie Bonajo records a deadpan conversation between two women with household items tied to their every limb. Lori D.’s cartoons focus on leering men, while Lucky Dragons focus on flower gardens.

Opening night features:
Dunes (Live show)
DJs: Rob Barber (High Places) and Brian Roettinger

Check it out this weekend if you’re in L.A., and keep your eyes peeled for more info on the DVD!

Art collective Paper Rad haven’t lost their touch. It’s been a while since we’ve heard their camp, but it seems like they’re everywhere you look, now. Jacob Ciocci is currently travelling the US on his 2 Blessed 2 B Stressed Tour in support of his solo music and a new 45-minute DVD-R containing the above video, Peace Tape. Paper Rad-adjacent band Extreme Animals, who recorded the soundtrack for Peace Tape, are touring this summer as well. Fecal Face has an interview with Ben Jones, another fantastic artist in the PR orbit, that’s as intense and brutally honest as it is absurdly comical:

After having been around the artworld for a hot minute, what are yours thoughts on it? You have made fun of it time and time again, and with just cause. Where is it right now, where do you think its going?

Any really good artist, or just any happy smart person can explain quickly and simply why things like fame, or the art world, or war are essentially meaningless and then also how these things attract young stupid white kids, or people with mental problems, or classic Americans as a result of the of these populations having low consciousness and/or intelligence. If you really are into the art world or TMZ or the Taliband it means you have a type of retardation.

But at the same time, since these populations have such a predictable and simplistic understanding of life, I think it is okay to inject good ideas and good energy into these retarded systems, so that we can help evolve the universe. And to do this you have to sometimes wear the right kind of shoes or try to think up clever answers to questions I guess. I don’t know, I think the next big thing in the art world is going to be The Beastie Boys.

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What has been greatly inspiring/uninspiring to you?

Love, jogging, Pantera, punching the air or bushes, yelling at a cat on the street “why are you looking me!” then coming home and cooking some baked beans and listening to the Adam Carolla podcast and then being like, hmmm, webmd.com…search…depression…hmmmmm oh look its 3 am, time to “go to bed”.