Valentine Slash Presidents LARZ featuring Abstract Heartthrob Joshua Aster

Our Valentine Slash Presidents weekend edition of Doug Harvey's Less Art Radio Zine welcomes LA-based abstract painter and experimental musician Joshua Aster, whose reliably powerful and sumptuous new paintings (alongside those by under-recognized idiosyncratic paint genius Spencer Lewis) are on view at Edward Cella Gallery through March 1st.

Josh is a founding member of the post-rock jam band OJO -- whose diverse catalog we'll be dipping into -- and he'll also be performing some live solo acoustic guitar on the show. 

Hopefully Josh won't be all talked out by his and informal exhibition tour and Spenser's walkthrough
conversation on Saturday afternoon at 5. But you might want to show up to that as well, just in case.

Joshua Aster and Spencer Lewis in Conversation
Saturday, February 15th, 2014 | 5 pm
Edward Cella Art + Architecture
6018 Wilshire Blvd.,
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Doug Harvey's Less Art Radio Zine

Sunday Feb 16th, 12 Noon

www.kchungradio.org

Images: Contentcontainer, Oil on linen, polyester, or canvas/linen over panel 18 x 18 ins; Shifting Gears, Oil on linen 30 x 24 ins; OJO in alphabetical order: Aster, Avitabile, Cole, Medina, Ore-Giron & Youngblood; Avatar, oil on linen, 50 x 42 ins; Thru a Net, Oil on linen 30 x 24 ins; Wistful Thinking, 2014, Oil on linen 78 x 82 ins. All paintings by Joshua Aster 2013, except that last one.

Where's LaBeouf?

Chinese New Year meant that the L.A. Printed Matter Art Book Fair at the MOCA Geffen Contemporary on Saturday was chaos - it took me 40 minutes to find a parking space, and all my collaborators on rADIO fREE 'pITA3 had to bail... except for Shia LaBeouf, who read his Meta//Modernist Manifesto, thanked his supporters, and apologized again to Daniel Clowes. Did you ever notice that his last name is one letter "shy" of being an anagram for the name of another hero, Beowulf?

If anyone needs to get up to speed on Mr. LaBeouf's trajectory to art world legitimacy, here's a nice precis. We're not sure if anyone got video, but we're hoping to get further documentation of this magical event uploaded ASAP!