opening Thursday October 30, 2008, starts at 6:30pm
“Obama and The New International Perspective”
organized by the Italian Democratic Party (Partito Democratico)
Theatre Ambra Jovinelli, via Guglilmo Pepe 43/47. Rome, Italy
email questions to: vittorio.occorsio@hotmail.it
telephone: +39 329 3738041
ambrajovinelli.com

NOTE: The Galleria 12-13 “U Nite Us” Obama show has been moved into the event described above. I apologize for any inconvenience or confusion. This page reflects the most current event information, as immediately as I can confirm it. Please feel free to write me with the message form below with any questions.

Just in time for the last days before election day the buyer, Mr. Francesco D’Alessandris, of my piece in MoveOn/ObeyGiant’s Obama art contest is organizing more Obama artworks to show in Rome. Many Obama artworks will be hung including work by other MoveOn/Obey finalists KC Willis and Nick Rock, to benefit the Obama election campaign from abroad. Both Nick Rock and I will be attending the event in person, and are scheduled for a public discussion. The “Obama and The New International Perspective” event at Theatre Ambra Jovinelli is very large umbrella event to celebrate the Obama campaign abroad. An enormous crowd is anticipated.

This will also be the public debut of the 12-inch tall, polymer clay Barack Obama Art Army action figure. Along with the figure and “grassroots” piece of mine, I’ll be porting several other works to show and sell for fund-raising, mostly made from two different stencils I made (samples below). The first was very simple and made in 2006 to get Obama off the ground, the second I made more recently to do t-shirts and such. To my utterly ecstatic surprise, the Italians are in love with Obama. Not only is it a testament to the intelligent, informed, and progressive nature of Europeans, it’s just another sign that the fractured world-wide perception of the U.S. will literally change overnight when Obama is elected.

I’ll be showing work with “The Babylon Academy”, via Seditionaries Ltd., at a big group show opening in London November 29, 2008, with such luminaries as Goldie, Inkie, and Pez.

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“The Babylon Academy”
opens November 29, 7pm till late
runs December 1 - 14
20 Denham Street (Picadilly Circus)
London, W1D 7HR
babylonacademy.com/
info@babylonacademy.com

I’ll be showing new work at Stolen Space in December.
X-Mas 2008 Group Show
opens December 3, 2008. runs until December 21, 2008.
more info at-
www.stolenspace.com
Stolen Space Gallery
Dray Walk, The Old Truman Brewery
91 Brick Lane
London E1 6QL
United Kingdom
P: +44 (0) 207 247 2684
info@stolenspace.com
hours- Wed - Sunday 11:00am - 7:00pm

The Art Army will return to New York City, to Erik Foss’ lower east side Fuse Gallery. Just down the street from The Showroom NYC, the site of The Art Army’s New York debut, Fuse will host a triumphant return to Manhattan’s best neighborhood. More wood Art Army figures will show, new editions of New York art stars will be made, and a site-specific installation will tie it all together. New editions of the cardboard shoes may also show.

Mike Leavitt solo show
opens Saturday March 14, 2009 7-10pm
runs until April 11, 2009
Fuse Gallery: 93 2nd Avenue (between 5th & 6th Streets); NYC, NY 10003
subway: F train to 2nd Avenue
212-777-7988
fusegallerynyc.com

This will be my debut in Palm Springs, and at M Modern Gallery. New cardboard “hip hopjects”, black velvet & touristy wood panel paintings, action figure editions, large-scale works, and other wood sculpture and kitsch paintings will be a part of the show. More info on the event and art in the show will be posted here as it becomes available. Feel free to drop any questions and write me.

mmodern.com

Charlie Krafft & I will be bombarding London in 2010 with some beef from the Seattle underground. New cardboard “hip hopjects” and Art Army action figure editions, with a U.K. flair, will be shown at the Stolen Space Gallery. Proprietors at Stolen Space were fortunate and kind enough to have purchased the first Banksy Art Army figure, and Stolen Space has shown a few of my pieces in their group shows, so my work has seen the light of day in the U.K. before. But this will be my first real London debut.
March 2010 show w/ Charlie Krafft
more info at-
www.stolenspace.com
Stolen Space Gallery
Dray Walk, The Old Truman Brewery
91 Brick Lane
London E1 6QL
United Kingdom
P: +44 (0) 207 247 2684
info@stolenspace.com
hours- Wed - Sunday 11:00am - 7:00pm

Greg Lundgren’s new gallery devoted to “boutique deathcare” is now open in Seattle. The gallery is located 2 doors North of Lundgren’s “5-year performance art installation”, The Hideout, which is actually just an awesome bar and funky art gallery. Feel free to write me with inquiries using the message form at the bottom of this page.

The below action figure depicts the father of Greg Lundgren, is a sample piece at Lundgren’s ’boutique deathcare’ gallery. My action figures is one of several means with which to memorialize lost loved ones via Lundgren’s enterprise. Instead of the standard urn and tombstone fair, Lundgren’s gallery offers several new means of immortilization. The new ‘deathcare’ gallery brings in other work by several of Seattle’s absolute best artists, to compliment Lundgren’s own monuments, including paintings, urns, and other objects crafted by Charles Krafft, Roy McMakin, and Jesse Edwards. Lundgren himself has made exquisite innovations in the art of tombstones, and the rest of us are only trying to offer something beautiful and meaningful as well.

Lundgren Memorials online

Seattle P-I article on Lundgren’s deathcare boutique online

The wonderful Seattle VR photographer Bradford Bohonus has a lock on a great niche in 3-D technology, and paid me a visit this week to shoot the studio. the result is a blast. it’s especially gratifying to see the construction i did to build the studio into the carport. now you all can see where i spend all my time, in every last detail.

The Intuition Kitchen interactive 3-D studio tour

NOTE: “Myscapes” was a solo show of mostly paintings and landscapes, centered around a set of new ‘Penny Places’ editions, in Seattle. No “Art Army” action figures were on display, though the ongoing series will continue to some degree in the future.

“MYSCAPES” Mike Leavitt solo show
February 9- March 5, 2008
Gallery 6311
6311 24th NW
Seattle, WA 98107
206-478-2238
www.gallery63eleven.com/

For his “Myscapes” solo show at Ballard’s Gallery 6311, local artist Mike Leavitt is reviving Seattle’s boring conceptual art and landscaping painting. Known for his wedding cake topper and “Art Army” figurines, Leavitt’s new small-scale landscapes are another curio oddity. Tiny painted scenes are cramped into the odd-sized surfaces of guitar picks, bowling pins, windshield scrapers, copper pennies, and other objects. Though more traditional than “The Art Army”, “Myscapes” is about as “normal” as a young conceptual artist can get.

Many of Seattle’s recently departed landmarks are recorded, including The Crocodile Café, Sunset Bowl, The Fun Forest, and the Sit & Spin. Leavitt’s new “Penny Places” also capture local icons, such as Dick’s Drive-In, The Nitelite, Scarecrow Video, Georgetown’s Hat & Boots, and the Olympic Sculpture Park. Miniscule, 3/4” round landscapes depict the actual location where he finds the “lucky” pennies. The exclusive series sold out of Leavitt’s 2007 New York City debut. The new 2008 editions take it up a notch, as the painted penny is now embedded within a larger, acrylic, “real” painting of the same location.

Leavitt’s action figures and “ArtCard” artist trading cards followed recurring concepts. With the new landscapes, Leavitt is still obsessed with documenting important cultural icons. He is also once again walking the line between the campy fodder of tourist kitsch and the corny humor of pop art. The ugly middle ground is Leavitt’s warm fuzzy comfort zone, where politics and cultural values are hotly contested. This time it’s personal, as a native tightly tuned to a gentrifying Seattle landscape. Lost landmarks are documented alongside quirky geographic treasures. Nostalgia, serendipity, and fleeting memories are chained to real estate development. What isn’t grounded is brought back down to earth by Leavitt’s landscapes. What’s lost in Seattle is found in Mike Leavitt’s new art.

The show’s centerpiece is an interactive, motorized, continuous scene of Seattle’s development, here on YouTube.

December 8, 2007. 6-10pm, ON DISPLAY UNTIL DECEMBER 29, 2007.
Copro/Nason Gallery
Bergamot Station, building T5
2525 Michigan Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90404
310-829-2156

The Art Army returns to L.A! with all-new renditions of low-brow superstars, underground heavyweights, and some L.A. art darlings. being the 3rd show at Copro/Nason in as many years, The Art Army is in metamorphosis. New 10″ editions of artists such as Audrey Kawasaki, Travis Louie, Jeremy Fish, CRAOLA, Chet Zar, Kathy Olivas, Sam Flores and Amy Sol take on new the forms of cyclops, mermaids, centaurs, minotaurs, cyborgs, and sirens. The artists’ human form morph with their painted surrealities into mythical hybrids of figurative form. The small, circus creature sculptures will be installed in a carnival-curio-shop-like atmosphere in the gallery. As a bonus, an over-sized, 20-inch tall, hand-carved, fully-posable wood figure of Mark Ryden will centerpiece the show.

for more gallery info- www.copronason.com