at glorious excess...

after friends who were supposed to come with or meet me at the Mike Shinoda's art show had more important things come up, i thought i'd just be skipping the show and watching netflix with my boyfriend. but he's a wonderful guy that took me to the Japanese American National Museum even though he abhors driving downtown and long lines.
we got there about 7pm, an hour before the doors opened, and there was already an intimidating line outside the museum. once they started letting people in, the museum had the foot traffic pretty well organized. first stop was the lobby to buy the art show memoribilia...i bought the book that chronicles the process and concept of Glorious Excess (Born) and Glorious Excess (Dies) art shows. then there was the line to see Mike Shinoda and get the merchandise signed. standing in line i saw Gary Baseman come up to greet Shinoda. he must have missed the VIP opening earlier in the day. When it was our turn, we saw that there were two big scary looking body guards at the table moving things along. the scary body guards were actually very nice and Shinoda was very gracious during the minute were with him. after seeing him, we were routed through the museum's current exhibit to get to the actual art show. i was probably overly excited that i got to see the Kokeshi exhibit as a bonus for the night.

my boyfriend was looking at me like i was a little kid while i was naming off all the artists i recognized. he has no idea who caia koopman is, haha. the kokeshi dolls above are by: caia koopman, tara mcpherson, amy sol, kelly vivanco, and stella im hultberg.
so finally we make our way to the art gallery and shinoda has impressive murals in and around the gallery in addition to the 17 showcased pieces. seriously, you cannot walk into this show without saying, "wowww..."
below is my favorite piece. it's oil on canvas...
apparently, kogi catered the event, but we missed that part of the set up. that's alright though, i ate at the alibi room friday night and delivered some tacos to boyfriend too. even though it took an hour and a half to navigate though all the lines, it was a great show with a really good concept and inspiration galore all night.
pictures were not allowed at the museum, so none of the pictures in this post are mine. clicking on the images should link you to the source.

Mike Shinoda listed links to articles and pictures of his show on his blog: hundreds; known gallery; notcot; gluttony