I have a temporary answer for those of you concerned with the fact that I, a Seattle-lover and native of this fine city, do not often show in my hometown. I’ve arranged for a one-night-only viewing of the massive custom commission I’ve been dolling endless hours over in recent months…

Saturday February 13, 2010 6-9pm (2nd Annual “Georgetown Art Attack”)
Mike Leavitt’s R.Crumb 3ft. Action Figure on Display
at Fantagraphics Books: 1201 South Vale Street (at Airport Way S.); Seattle, WA 98108: ph. 206-658-0110

“February 13, 2010 is the date to see the colossal underground hero Robert Crumb reduced to a cigar store statue at Georgetown’s Fantagraphics Books. Mike Leavitt’s latest sculpture is an enormous “action figure” of the geeky outcast artist turned museum-star. It’s another high-low tight rope walk by Leavitt, infamous for both his highly conceptual and deviously low brow art. At over 40 inches tall, the cedar figure fully articulates with 28 moving parts, painstakingly finished with a durable hardshell. Crumb’s head opens up to reveal a hollow cavity inhabited by a secret “woman”. The entire piece sets up as an adorable art installation with a 16″ tall Fritz the Cat companion, sitting desk, and mini versions of Crumb’s iconic covers. Perpetually concerned with high craft and a personal touch to fine art, Leavitt executed all facets of the Crumb figure by hand. This is perhaps his most ambitious, detailed and intricately engineered piece to date. The event is a chance to meetLeavitt himself, an artist so consumed with exhibiting in L.A, New York, and London that he hardly shows in his beloved native city of Seattle. As a private commission for a rich and famous benefactor with a massive art collection, this event is also a unique opportunity to peek at the custom commission process and enjoy an important work that will be rarely be seen by the public eye.”

“The Making of the Frank Kozik Action Figure” is showing as part of San Francisco-based artist Sarah Klein’s Stop & Go Film Festival of stop-motion animated movies by a wide range of international artists. Klein’s project debuted in April 2008, and was enough of a success to launch a larger tour. The Kozik Making-Of movie might have 15K+ views on YouTube, but this will be a fabulous opportunity to see it on the big screen amidst a fantastic stop-motion extravaganza. The tour’s schedule will be posted here as the info becomes available.
Stop & Go info, including past screenings, list of artists, and descriptions of the movies- sarahklein.com/stop_go

2010 Stop & Go Screening Dates:

Jack Straw Foundation, Seattle, WA. February 5, 2010
jackstraw.org
Aarhus, Denmark February 2010 (exact date TBA)
aarhuskunstbygning.dk
Threewalls, Chicago, IL. March 5, 2010
three-walls.org
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR. March 15-19, 2010
A one-week gallery exhibition with a hosted screening.
art.uark.edu/fineartsgallery

Charlie Krafft & I will be bombarding London in 2010 with some beef from the Seattle underground.

Along with Charlie & I’s “Pitchfork Pals” collaborations, this Stolen Space Gallery show will include new editions of cardboard shoes (along w/ a DIY cardboard shoe print!) “Hip Hopjects”, the “Vita Vera” board game, action figures and much much more. This is my first real show in London, or all of Europe for that matter, so I’ll put all my eggs in this basket. More info on this show will be posted here as it becomes available.

May 2010 show w/ Charlie Krafft
opens May 13. runs until May 30, 2010
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

My work is included in a fun, important, and ambitious show of artist-made toys at the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, NC. Including world famous artists such as Yoshitomo Nara, the show is ongoing at the museum until March 28, 2010. Info is here- cameronartmuseum.com

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

October 30, 2008
“Obama and The New International Perspective”
organized by the Italian Democratic Party (Partito Democratico)
Theatre Ambra Jovinelli. Rome, Italy
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 organized more Obama artworks to show in Rome. Many Obama artworks were 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 attended the event in person, but time ran out for our scheduled public discussion. The “Obama and The New International Perspective” event at Theatre Ambra Jovinelli was a very large umbrella event to celebrate the Obama campaign abroad. Over 500 attended.

This was also 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 ported several other works for the show, 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. have changed literally overnight now that Obama is elected.

Mike Leavitt/Art Army New York City solo debut show, June 23-30, 2007
on display: hand-made action figures in dioramas and blister packages, hand-drawn trading cards and bubble gum packs, miniature landscape painting pennies, canvas landscape paintings, other mixed media sculpture, product-satire pricing labels, site-specific “building” installations, acrylic-painted street windows
contact ShowroomNYC/ToyTokyo

“Don’t Stop Object Shopping”
Mike Leavitt solo show
March 21 - April 18, 2009
INSTALLATION VIDEO

(PRESS STATEMENT)
Mike Leavitt’s March 2009 show at New York’s Fuse Gallery signals an art market shift. The Seattle artist has a nostalgic foot locker of shoes accurately replicated in cardboard, from ladies pumps to ’80’s sneakers. The cardboard shoe show will be installed like a thrift shop with Leavitt’s famous action figures, trading cards, Barack Obama pieces, wood carvings, and other small collectibles. Leavitt will also show two collaboration pieces with “bag painter” Chris Crites and the notorious counter-culture ceramicist Charles Krafft. Traditionally distasteful, modest and hokey objects consciously designed for sales are suddenly timely in the art world.

Mike Leavitt participates in an art movement that’s maturing with impeccable timing. Designer toys, hand-made prints, tattoo parlors, skate shops, street art, and hand-made kitsch are melting together to consume the art market from the bottom up. Inexpensive but technical works are being keenly tailored for broad appeal. The proverbial nose can no longer be thumbed at small art and affordable sales. Between high art and a crumbling economy, Leavitt finds common ground when he goes back to the basics. Wood shop, kitchen craft, and figurative representation produce his shoe culture milestones. Cheap, disposable material makes an expensive product, oddly resembling the manufacturing of boutique footwear. Yet the labor makes Leavitt’s shoes into art, not shoes. The cardboard shoes are built durable enough to wear, but even the rigid construction would succumb to a few drops of rain. They’re not competitive with the shoe market, but with a clientele that’s changing the way people buy art. Commercial viability is an urgent reality, not just satire or critique.

Leavitt’s debut in Palm Springs and at M Modern Gallery. The crux of this show is a series of celebrity wedding cake toppers, a la the custom cake toppers.

Mike Leavitt
“Real Love”
Gay Cake Topper Show
M Modern Gallery
Seattle-based sculptor Mike Leavitt discovered an ingenious side-business in creating custom wedding cake figurines. Hand-carved from photographs provided by the bride and groom, Leavitt would sculpt miniature versions of the couples, making a playful turn on tradition and immortalizing the partners as sculpture. Real Love, at M Modern Gallery, celebrates gay marriage in this collection of famous same-sex partnerships. In the midst of tense political discussion and equal rights struggles for gay couples, Mike Leavitt offers a notorious gay clientele an entertaining breather and fun reminder that art and love triumph biased politics.

Leavitt’s miniature clay figurines depict couples like Ellen DeGeneres & Portia DeRossi, Jack Twist & Ennis Del Mar (Brokeback Mountain), Siegfried & Roy, and Susan Sontag & Annie Liebovitz. Other famous pairs include John & Yoko, Barack & Michelle, and Brad & Angelina. Gay or straight, all of these cake topper couples have endured through the immaterial trials of the public eye. A big celebration of Real Love is packed into Leavitt’s little people paired in wedlock.