So, Alex McLeod has popped up all over the Earth lately, from NY, to Spain to his upcoming Solo show on the West Coast. Today, his new show is even listed as one of the top 3 things to do today in Toronto.
Alex's new show opens tonight at Angell Gallery and runs through September 25, 2010.
Alex's candy coated landscapes are worth seeing. Big.
From the minds of the collective known as FriendsWithYou (Sam & Tury) comes the magic of FWY Studios. We at Lunch are thrilled to welcome the FWY family to our Lunch family.
We were lucky enough to spend some magical and fun days and evenings with the team while they were in town for Luminato Wish Come True Festival this summer and it was like, well, peas and carrots. It looked kind of like this,
As you can see FWY Studios creates some pretty amazing work, from installations, to broadcast, to character design, games, mobile, online experiences - to well, anything you can imagine. The team loves to collaborate and make new things. They've already been featured on Motionographer, have done work for N*E*R*D, Volkswagen, PopTarts, Match.com and more. Everything is executed by the FriendsWithYou team and who better to execute that vision than the artists themselves.
We are absolutely thrilled to have them as a part of the family.
Do you like Summer? Do you like Music? Do you like free music? Do you like Making your own album covers?
The answer is yes.
From Lunch comes the Dine Alone Summer Sampler. From the minds of STEM (aka Sajak&Farki) comes a way to make your own custom cover for our friends at Dine Alone Records. With Creative, Design and development coming from the men of STEM.
Featuring the music of: Hot Hot Heat, Moneen, Alexisonfire, Arkells, City and Colour, Attack in Black, Tokyo Police Club, Dinosaur Bones, Parlovr, Spencer Burton, Mockingbird Wish Me Luck and Walter Schreifels.
On Saturday June 19th from 7-10pm @ mocca 952 Queen Street West, Toronto Empire of Dreams - Phenomenology of the built environment will be opening.
The exhibit will feature contemporary artists from Toronto, including Lunch's own Alex McLeod. The evening will feature an outdoor BBQ and music and artists will be in attendance.
Hope to see you there!
Contemporary artists from Toronto
The things that we build embody our highest aspirations and our essential instincts to survive. They also express our will to find place, to establish dominion over territory, over our destiny. Empire of Dreams is an exhibition of recent work by artists that looks at ways in which we exist within our built environment – the phenomenon that is our experience and interaction with structures and architectures that shape complex sensory and cognitive relationships to our surroundings.
Empire is manifest through physical structure - the built environment - and also through intangible and arbitrary structures: economics, politics, and the social and cultural constructs that influence identity and our perception of our place in the world. The artworks selected and produced for Empire of Dreams convey the artists’ insightful and timely discourses around our ever-shifting relationships to architecture, urbanization, economic and cultural paradigms, utopianism, existing and imagined space; the physical and the fluid structures that characterize empire and define who we are.
The artists’ backgrounds are diverse yet are filtered through the common lens of living in Toronto, Canada in the year 2010. Though the exhibition and the artwork do not always reference Toronto specifically, this shared experience of living in a large urban centre inevitably reflects conditions of existence common to all of us in the age of globalisation, of an emerging global empire. Through a remarkable range of approaches, techniques and in various media, the works in Empire of Dreams awaken within us new understandings of our surroundings, of the worlds that we build and inhabit.
Empire of Dreams also includes a magazine-format publication documenting the exhibition, including text from the curator, interviews with participating artists, and contributions from prominent guest writers and theorists, produced in collaboration with new Toronto-based art journal One Hour Empire.
We're very pleased to announce the addition of Ben&Julia to the lunch network.
Ben&Julia are a French-Swiss duo of multidisciplinary talented
Directors and Art Directors.
We're thrilled to have them, from their art to their puppets, to their incredible sense of whimsy Ben&Julia join the team and are now available for work in Canada through lunch.
Julia graduated from Central Saint Martins and worked as an associate producer and graphic designer for MTV and as an art director for TV and press.
Ben studied editing at CLCF and 3D animation at Isart Digital and worked as a director, editor and VFX artist for various agencies in Paris.
In 2006, Ben & Julia decided to join their forces in order to create colorful and creative work, mixing animations, live footage, drawings, puppetry for commercials, virals, music videos and animations.
This year they've created Ben&Julia Studio in Berlin.
They work worldwide with clients such as: MTV, Swatch, St Michel, Tissot, RATP, Olympic Museum, Atari, Microsoft, Sega, EA.
Their work has been featured in books, magazines and websites such as Pictoplasma’s Characters in Motion vol.3, Digital Arts, Promo News, Motionographer, Videos Antville, Computer Arts, Computerlove and IdN.
Pictured: Special & Delicious FWY Chocolate bar from Magic Pony.
We at Lunch are very excited about the week to come. This week the opening of Daydreamers - the first solo exhibition of FriendsWithYou paintings in recent years, as a part of the Wish Come True Festival during Luminato.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Time: 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Location: Narwhal Art Projects
Street:680 Queen Street West
Narwhal Art Projects is pleased to present a FriendsWithYou solo exhibition, "Daydreamers". With their first exhibition of their painted works in recent years, FriendsWithYou artists Sam Borskon and Arturo Sandoval III draw on a personal mythology of magical themes and spirituality from their colourful universe. Much like the powerful enchantment and creative adventure they insert into all their projects, "Daydreamers" will be specifically dealing with the spirit of their experience with their "Wish Come True" installation for Luminato Festival in Toronto.
FriendsWithYou are globally-renowned for their vivid pop art aesthetic and brilliant character design. "Daydreamers" offers a rare look into the dense, delicate personal layers that take place behind the large-scale, physical presence of the artists' experimental installations. Exploring the more unseen dimensions of the FriendsWithYou psyche, "Daydreamers" presents a softer, more ephemeral portrait of their recent narratives, as Borkson and Sandoval put forward a deeply intimate glimpse into the representations of their transitory, dream-like states where the spirit of their expressive process is just coming into invention. Reflecting themes of metamorphosis, pleasure seeking and pure innocence in the portraiture of their fledgling subjects, Borkson and Sandoval present an unadulterated celebration of the imagination that defines their artistic practice and the visionary outlook that inspired their project for "Wish Come True". Much in the manner that Borkson and Sandoval aim to create immersive totalities for the playful environments of their installations, with "Daydreamers" the artists bring us into an inward realm unto themselves, creating heartfelt emotional space between the greater unknowns of their magical world.
In 2002, Miami-born artists Sam Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III began FriendsWithYou with the aim to promote a different kind of creative practice, and one that is fundamentally inspiring. Developing larger-than-life artistic environments to immerse patrons into their FriendsWithYou universe, the duo seeks to create common ground to give people the chance to believe in themselves and connect with one another. The imaginative world of FriendsWithYou has taken shape in the form of designer toys, large-scale installations, experimental gallery exhibitions, digital video, graphic design and other media—running the gamut of fine arts, public events, advertising and entertainment.
From the "Skywalkers Parade" with 60-foot tall characters for Art Basel Miami, to an inflatable fun house for 30,000 people at Scope Art Fair, to creating a permanent playground "Rainbow Valley" inside Miami's largest shopping mall, one can see why Borkson and Sandoval would describe their large-scale art projects as an "explosion". Creating modern-day sanctums, they curate wonderful performances that are part confessional and part mystical ceremony—furthering the artists' mandate to foster good wishes for luck, friendship and fortune. As a message that is invariably accessible and positive, FriendsWithYou believe in promoting a sense of exuberance against today's general attitude of detachment. As Borkson feels, "In the sterile settings of modern society, spiritual outlets have become a low priority within our daily routines".
With a strong emphasis on belief, FriendsWithYou maintain that the more you believe in their magic powers, the more they become a reality. FriendsWithYou truly believe that items can be enchanted totems and talismans can bring good fortune. And after having established their place in the art world, the group have expanded their reach with FWYstudios to create incredible and innovative products; a home for the characters and concepts that foster/bridge new territory between the fine art and the commercial realm.
I'm very excited about FriendsWithYou taking over Queen's Park. Very excited.
I'm even more excited to invite you to Narwhal Art Projects solo exhibition "DAYDREAMERS" by FriendsWIthYou artists Sam Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III, with an opening reception on June 10th, from 6-10pm.
But wait, there's more - Magic Pony's just announced FriendsWithYou pop-up shop!
Opening Reception:
Saturday, June 12th
5-8pm
Magic Pony is proud to present the "Wish Come True" Pop-Up Shop, a special collaboration with Miami pop artists FriendsWithYou. For a limited time, visitors will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in a world of luck, friendship and magic where the art wizardry of FriendsWithYou comes alive in a unique site specific retail installation showcasing a diverse range of creative multiplies within an enchanted space of dreamy wonder. The "Wish Come True" Pop-Up Shop marks the official launch of a brilliant new line of Magic Pony x FWY apparel and limited edition art prints, alongside favourite FriendsWithYou toys such as the "Wish Come True" mini figures, "Luckies" magical charms, and a showcase of early FWY product design including original plush and wood characters.
FriendsWithYou artists Sam Borkson and Tury Sandoval III will be participating in a special appearance and signing at Magic Pony on June 12 and from 5-8pm to officially launch the Wish Come True Pop up shop. All are welcome to join in celebrating this exciting new project and welcoming the artists for their first Canadian appearance. The "Wish Come True" Pop-Up Shop will be on exhibit until July 4, 2010.
Magic, luck, and friendship are the qualities that FriendsWithYou, a visual arts collective based in Miami Beach, seek to spread throughout the world. Now, in an unprecedented spectacle created just for Luminato, they invite Toronto to come out and play.
FriendsWithYou turns Toronto into Rainbow City, a delightful explosion of colour and jubilant energy. Led by the Rainbow King, Luminato 2010's Festival mascot, a host of celestial characters transform Queen's Park with larger-than-life dimensions of giant totems, bounce houses, and inflatable friends. Meanwhile, emissaries from this magical world fan out across Toronto to spread their universal message.
Inspired by the simple happiness of everyday life, the Wish Come True Festival is free. So come bounce, dance, and revel in the sounds of laughter and joy.
Queen's Park
Wed., June 16, From: 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM
Thu., June 17, From: 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM
Fri., June 18, From: 11:00 AM to 11:00 PM
Those of you who know Amy know, that she enjoys a good story. Lunch's founder Amy Miranda, has been confirmed to speak at NXNEi (June 14-16) and will be discussing The Lost Art of Storytelling. Amy believes that without a story, there's nothing to produce and on the heels of just wrapping up a semester teaching Interactive Storytelling @ Centennial College, she'll be discussing the lost art of Storytelling at NXNEi.
The Lost Art of Storytelling
Humans have been telling stories for thousands of years, but the earliest mode of communication was oral, supported by hand gestures and expressions. Over time visual mediums were introduced to help tell stories as well. While the art of the storyteller has persisted over generations, the interactive world is often quick to re-invent the wheel, or loses site of the fundamentals in the quest to develop new ways to make the consumer an active part of the story.
What can we learn from the people who carry on the basics of oral storytelling, be they radio hosts, comedians or anyone else who still relies on their words, sounds and movements to tell a tale? A mix of old and new will aim to take you back to the basics in an attempt to inform your visions for new narrative forms.
Lunch's newest partner Zeitguised will have their short film screened twice during the CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto from June 1-6 2010.
Peripetics, a short film created and directed by Jamie & Henrik of Zeitguised will be screened on Tuesday June 3rd at 2pm and again on Sunday June 6th at 1:45pm
