Jesse Hazelip is an artist firmly rooted in the now. Equal parts street and fine artist, the Oakland-based Hazelip has crafted an iconographic language based on global headlines, warfare, and the political monotony of repeated mistakes. His upcoming solo show, Belle of the Brawl, centers on the recent discovery of lithium in Afghanistan and our ongoing occupation of the country. It also demonstrates Hazelip’s ability to infuse the Middle East conflict with a contemporary angle — rare amongst artists of his generation. His work is a provocative, yet painterly call for intellect and revolution, created out of a deep inner need for resolution. Mingling his telltale herons and buffalo with Islamic geometry and scientific renderings, Hazelip’s new paintings reveal a primal relevance rooted in history, politics, and the latent desire to be better human beings. With this show, it’s clear that he’s moving beyond the substrata of modern-day street art, revealing a heightened focus and sharpened point of view that repeatedly begs the question: how are we going to change these patterns? Jesse Hazelip spoke candidly with PLANET about some possible answers to that very question.

Artist, curator, entrepreneur, and observer of Japanese society, Takashi Murakami is, without hesitation, one of the most respected contemporary artists today. His solo show will be on display at Gagosian Gallery in Rome from until January 15, 2011. The exhibit consists two epic paintings: ”Dragon in Clouds – Red Mutation” and “Dragon in Clouds – Indigo Blue.” The paintings are each comprised nine panels and measure an awe inspiring eighteen meters long. These enormous red and blue monochromatic paintings are a step in a new direction from Murakami’s usual techno inspired, color saturated work. Rendered in the artist’s distinct style “Superflat,” Murakami employs classical Japanese painting techniques to depict anime and pop culture. For the purpose of this exhibition, Murakami’s draws inspiration from inventive 18th century Japanese artist, Soga Shōhaku. Shōhaku‘s cloud and dragon paintings, called “Unryūzu” were hung in Japanese Buddhist temples, embedding a sense of strength in the culture of the Japanese people. Murakami’s giant re imaginings of these rich iconic images of dragons underscore the same sense of strength only this time in mammoth proportions.

When the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art chose the Oslo-based architecture office Snohetta to design its addition this summer, it heralded the arrival of a great new wave of Nordic design. Not since the 1960’s, when Americans were lounging around in Verner Panton chairs and Marimekko dresses, has the voice of designers in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden been so prominent internationally.
    An exhibit at Scandinavia House in New York, “Nordic Models + Common Ground: Art and Design Unfolded,” presents a small, intriguing selection of art and design projects. The unique character of modern Nordic design, a formal purity enlivened by gentle eccentricities, has often been attributed to the region’s isolating, rugged geography. Yet even in our present age of global connectedness these qualities remain evident. Each project on display combines forms and materials in unlikely ways. Yet even the strangest of them — like a rap song that outlines urban planning strategies, and light fixtures crafted from the dried skins of codfish — have a palpable warmth: they aren’t ironic.
    In addition, each work on display has a startling formal simplicity, which owes less to a minimalist aesthetic than to the designer’s clarity in concept and economy in execution. This is especially remarkable in the architecture projects. A basic triangular tent module is arrayed to shape an exhibition pavilion. Another, spherical pavilion is clad entirely with flat, scale-like, composite wood shingles.

Salad Days, a group show comprising 49 emerging and established contemporary artists, opens tonight at The Journal Gallery in Williamsburg. Featured artists include Tim Barber of tinyvices.com, Agathe Snow, Lizzi Bougatsos, Jack Pierson, Kathy Lo, Carlos Valencia, and many more. Details of the show are sparse, but the laundry list of participating en vogue downtown artists seems to indicate a show worth seeing. The opening, from 6-9pm tonight, should shed some light on the mystery — be sure to check it out.

The Journal Gallery: 168 North 1st Street, Brooklyn. The gallery is open from 12 p.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday – Sunday.

Imagine you are in Paris, in 1981, a fashion editor sitting in the front row. You are subjected to a sex, drugs, and rock and roll diet of Mugler and Gaultier on one side and the bourgeois propriety of Yves Saint-Laurent and Chanel on the other. Fashion is a luxury and looks it. But the clothes that you are seeing right now, by designers from Japan (where you’ve probably never been) Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo (whose names you probably can’t pronounce) are so radically different — black, tattered, oversized, pointedly inelegant — that you are subjected to a dose of cultural insta-shock. Fast-forward to today: walk into any chain store and you see the signs of these designers’ heritage, unfinished seams, holes, distressing. These are now as familiar, acceptable, and safe for mass consumption as Barney is for children.
    But you are no longer in 1981, Dorothy, and Japanese fashion has moved on. A new generation of fashion designers and fashion subcultures has sprung up, no less exciting than the legendary Yamamoto and Kawakubo. Japan Fashion Now, a new exhibit at the Museum at FIT explores the links between the old and new generations.
    The exhibition, featuring more than 100 garments, is organized in two parts. Upon entering you are greeted with a display of the work by the holy trinity of Japanese fashion — Miyake, Yamamoto, and Kawakubo — flanked by the less known names like Matsuda. These garments are from the ’70s and ’80s.

A group show featuring photographs by Ari Marcopoulos, Hisham Bharoocha, and Ports Bishop, among others, opens tonight at Mountain Fold.
     In an era in which anyone with a cell phone can snap a photograph of his or her daily life and then instantly publish it for the world to see, it’s easy to grow numb to the bombardment of images, personal or otherwise. In Life, contemporary artists engage, rather then distance themselves from, our contemporary impulse to document all aspects of our daily routines. Through capturing such banal (and beautiful) subjects as a knife slicing through a stream of tap water, a still-life of a plastic bust, plastic flowers, burned CDs, and flowers, these photographers explore what lies behind the impulse to document one’s life, and the ways in which photographs create a reality separate from the one they capture.

The opening reception for Life is tonight from 7-9pm at Mountain Fold, 55 Fifth Avenue, 18th Floor, New York.

In the midst of the star-studded turmoil of Fashion Week, Dazed & Confused magazine has created a series of events aimed at bringing the fashion-adoring public to meet directly some of the world’s most well-regarded fashion designers. Following the fashion week schedule in New York, London, and Paris, Jefferson Hack (the Editorial Director and co-founder of Dazed & Confused magazine) will speak with one designer in each fashion capital.
     Kicking off with Adam Kimmel in New York tonight, London’s event will host Jonny Johansson (co-founder of Acne) and Gareth Pugh will speak in Paris. The events will be recorded and made available to download as a podcast from the iTunes store. Check here for more details.

Tonight sees the opening of BOY, an exhibit by Cody Critcheloe and his band SSION (think “percu-ssion”) at The Hole — the gallery run by former Deitch Projects directors Kathy Grayson and Meghan Coleman. SSION, a self-described “queer punk performance art band” comprised of artists and musicians from Kansas City, has just released BOY — a feature-length film documenting Critcheloe’s “life as a small-town punk kid addicted to junk food, dreaming of stardom, who becomes a glamorous pop star with the help and hindrance of a gaggle of crazy dames”.
     And if that hasn’t piqued your interest, perhaps the “shitty green screen and handmade cardboard props” will, or the added bonus of “outrageous spandex conconctions” by fashion designer Peggy Noland. Noland will have a fashion boutique installed, and Critcheloe’s contribution to the show will be “like a sweet hangout zone”, plus video lounge. Be sure to come back for Nolan’s runway show on September 10 — maybe even stay for SSION’s one-night-only performance on September 11.

CODY CRITCHELOE & SSION – BOY opens tonight, 6-9pm, at The Hole, 104 Greene St., New York.

American comedy writer/director Tom Schiller is known for his distinct style and offbeat humor. Notable for his eleven-year stint writing and directing short films on Saturday Night Live, Schiller’s impressive oeuvre of work also includes the 1984 unreleased classic feature, Nothing Lasts Forever, and over 300 comedic TV commercials. Schiller may not be as prominent as his SNL cohorts Lorne Michaels or Bill Murray but he has certainly been as pivotal in shaping the landscape of comedy. With the recent revival of Nothing Lasts Forever, Schiller has achieved a cult status. In preparation for his upcoming screening at The Cinefamily in Los Angeles, Schiller spoke with PLANET° about growing up on the set of I Love Lucy, why Nothing Lasts Forever was never released, and how Fellini got him out of a ticket.

Your father was a staff writer on I Love Lucy. Did that have any influence on your interest in comedy?
Yes, well I had it by osmosis…you know what I mean? You can’t say it about yourself, but others told me I was funny. My filmmaking techniques would have translated fine into comedy. I was able to do it. And also, growing up being on the set of I Love Lucy, I certainly learned a few things from that….

Paula Parrish, one of our favorite photographers, is the first featured artist at an event by Palatte, a place whose mission “is to strike a delicate balance between palate and palette by serving fine Belgian style gourmet dishes, artfully layered in glasses, in a comfortably romantic and visually stimulating décor”. Located just off of Madison Square Park, Palatte offers up all its walls and floors to New York-based artists to give them much-deserved exposure to a more mainstream sector of the city.
     Those interested can take part in a “night of toasts and tapas” this Thursday while surrounded by Paula Parrish’s gorgeous works. Steven, the organizer, tells us, “I was introduced to Paula’s work by a mutual friend and even though our initial intention was to do a painting opening exhibit, I liked her work so much we really wanted Paula to do it. And luckily she agreed.”

The event will take place this Thursday, August 12 at 7:30 p.m at 66 Madison Avenue. RSVP to andrea@palattenyc.com.