LA culture vultures, here’s an opening you might want to add to your dance card tonight: After thirteen years in Chicago, Century Guild, the leading Art Nouveau and Symbolist gallery in the world (specializing in works dating from 1880 through 1920), is opening a West Coast location in Los Angeles tonight with a show by manically intricate artist Jeremy Bastian displaying some of his amazingly detailed pieces. 

Jeremy Bastian (b.1978) uses an ink well and brush to create works that reveal the influence of early American comic art and classical engravings (Winsor McCay, Albrecht Dürer, and Piranesi are all present) while ending in a place that is absolutely contemporary, brilliantly sensitive, and wholly unique.  Like something from a cabinet of curiosities, Bastian’s artworks are only inches in size; the figures and nautical scenarios contain details only visible with a magnifying glass.  For example, one artwork—“The Sacking of the Royal CIty of Cub”—is the artist’s largest work to date at only 13.5 x 19 inches and took over 500 hours of brush work. 

For the very first time, work from the artist’s graphic novel Cursed Pirate Girl will be on display, and 100 advance copies of the new hardcover collected edition customized with an event bookplate will be available at the reception.  The exhibition will be up for viewing for two weekends, then the gallery will be rehung for a special Holiday Sale featuring period works on paper by Gustav Klimt, Alphonse Mucha, Egon Schiele, and styles from Arts & Crafts through Expressionism.

Century Guild, 6150 Washington Blvd. Culver City, CA. Open by appointment, exhibition or by chance.
 

Above, Dean Karr’s “Prague Twins”
 
Ack! I missed out on posting about the opening of this incredible looking art show currently hanging in the Windy City, but it’s still up for a few more days should you live or find yourself in Chicago this week:

Century Guild invites you to investigate the dark and sensual wilderness of two of history’s most vilified figures: THE WITCH and her dark master, SATAN.  “Grand Guignol II: HÄXAN – Satan + The Women who love Him” explores not only turn-of-the-century artists’ fascination with these embodiments of evil, but also brings together a roster of acclaimed contemporary artists who’ve rendered their dark visions for a one night only special exhibition.  This event marks the one-year anniversary of Century Guild’s showroom, which opened its doors in Chicago’s industrial Kinzie District last October for the beyond capacity show, “Grand Guignol: An Exhibition Celebrating the Legendary Parisian Theater of Terror.”

Artworks include original historical posters from the French theater of terror Le Théâtre du Grand Guignol, antique works on paper by Gustav Klimt and Alphonse Mucha, a selection of 19th century Devil imagery, and modern contributions from contemporary painters Dave McKean (cover illustrator of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman), Michael Hussar, Gail Potocki, and Chris Mars; photographers Dean Karr (video director for Marilyn Manson), Austin Young, and Steve Diet Goedde; Italian poster art collective Malleus, and more.

You can email Century Guild curator Thomas Negovan for a private appointment to see “Grand Guignol II: HÄXAN – Satan + The Women who love Him”

Below, Dangerous Minds pal Austin Young’s fab portrait of infernal opera diva, Diamanda Galas:
 

 
“Unkept and Whispered,” a triptych by the extremely talented Gail Potocki, below:
 

 

Dangerous Minds friends Century Guild announce the release of “The Fracture of the Universal Boy,” a new graphic novel by Michael Zulli, years in the making. Zulli was a regular artist on Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comic and is well-known to the 4-color literati. Century Guild proprieter Thomas Negovan blogs about the new book here:

Speaking of focus, the kind of focus that makes electrons shudder, imagine being at the top of your game for decades.  Say, being one of the go-to artists on something as seminal and powerful as Neil Gaiman?