Mike D Curates the Los Angeles Debut of Transmission LA: AV CLUB in Affiliation With The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA)

LOS ANGELES, March 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

April 20th–May 6th, 2012

• Artists include Peter Coffin, Benjamin Jones, Mike Mills, Tom Sachs
• 17-day festival celebrating and presenting contemporary art, design, music, film, and food
• Hosted at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Los Angeles
• Plans for weekend concerts, DJ nights and pop-up restaurant underway
• Free admission

The Avant/Garde Diaries, a global online interview magazine, is hosting "Transmission LA: AV CLUB curated by Mike D," from April 20th through May 6th, at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Los Angeles. The multi-disciplinary festival is scheduled to be the meeting point for the Los Angeles art and music community, and is the sequel to the series of festivals that premiered in Berlin last year with curator and fashion designer Raf Simons. Mike D will be joined by Roy Choi, Benjamin Jones, Mike Mills, Tom Sachs, Public Fiction from Los Angeles, Still House Group from New York, and additional artists and musicians, for the 17-day collaborative festival in Los Angeles.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120315/NY70790 )

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100901/NY58315LOGO )

"I'm psyched to be presenting a group of visual artists, musicians, DJs, food masters, and top notch baristas. I'm honored to be a part of a truly memorable sensory experience," said Mike D.

With exhibitions, concerts, DJ nights, performances and installations, the festival will illustrate how audio and visual art forms can inspire each another and unleash unimagined synergies. This artistic concept is also symbolized by the event's logo, which depicts the letters A (for audio) and V (for visual), merging inextricably and appearing to fuse with one another. The festival will be open daily from April 20th through May 6th. Entry is free.

Opening hours:

Sunday: 11am to 6pm
Monday: noon to 6pm
Tuesday: closed
Wednesday: noon to 10pm
Thursday: noon to 10pm
Friday: noon to 10pm
Saturday: 11am to 10pm

The Avant/Garde Diaries

Mercedes-Benz started the Avant/Garde Diaries in 2011 as a creative platform for topics including art, fashion, music, and the innovations, trends, and culture that are shaping social discourse. The festival itself provides a platform for international artists and trendsetters, under the direction of a visionary mind, to present their perspective on the world of today and tomorrow, as well as enter into dialogue with experts and the general public. A digital interview magazine at www.theavantgardediaries.com captures innovators with extraordinary ideas who are influencing culture and future trends.

"The aim of Avant/Garde Diaries is to offer a platform for creativity. Curiosity and the joy of breaking through existing barriers are drivers for innovation and progress, and not just at Mercedes-Benz," said Anders Sundt Jensen, Vice President Brand Communications Mercedes-Benz Cars. A special highlight of the festival in Los Angeles will be the artistic staging of the Mercedes-Benz Concept Style Coupe, which will be unveiled to the world for the first time.

About the artists and musicians participating in Transmission LA: AV CLUB

The artists participating in the Transmission LA: AV CLUB festival were selected by curator Mike D.

Roy Choi, chief chef of the iconic Kogi Korean BBQ Food Truck in Los Angeles. He is considered as a post-abstract expressionist food artist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kogi_Korean_BBQ_note-lat-1

Mike D: "This LA native represents the truly global vision and tastes that can be LA at least in a culinary sense. Roy truly amazes me with his ability to reinvent radically different cuisines presenting them with respect for what they are but completely remixed or reinvented. His work is really analogous to what a hip hop producer or DJ does, chopping up a sample, re-contextualizing it, adding beets, maybe a little vocal and on and on. And he makes a hell of a mixed tape."

Peter Coffin, an artist who resides and works in New York City. Often using art history as a departure point for his surreal reinventions, Peter Coffin's work engages with pre-conceptions about cultural ideals to challenge established perception and interpretation.

Mike D: "Peter is a mad man, genius, and physicist/prankster and keeps a sly wit in cold storage for special occasions."

Will Fowler is a painter who lives and works in Los Angeles. He makes abstract paintings that reference early Modernism. His paintings can sometimes take years to complete and often contain the same patterns and shapes quoted from his previous work.

Mike D: "I first saw Will's work at David Kordansky's booth at the armory show in New York City. Even amongst this chaos, his methodical yet witty abstract canvases stayed tight, focused and galvanizing. I was sucked in immediately. One can keep coming back to his work that, filled with enough depth that repeat views are a must and rewarded."

Benjamin Jones is a cartoonist, painter and multimedia artist who resides and works in Los Angeles. Besides exhibiting sculptures, paintings and drawings at galleries internationally. Jones has designed giant blimps, sneakers and board shorts, animated music videos for M.I.A and Beck, and produced a plethora of computer-animated cartoons. He has defined an aesthetic both handmade and mass-produced, combining cartoon characters, high energy techno music, meta-graffiti, fantasy worlds and sublime color fields.

Mike D: "Ben's work can be silent, in that there can be moving animated images without a sound track, but it can be the loudest thing on the planet. I can truly say that his installation will leave visitors stoked or perhaps nauseous or both."

Mike Mills, a filmmaker, graphic designer and artist who works and resides in Los Angeles. Among other things, he has created music videos for Moby, Yoko

Ono and Air, as graphic designer he has worked on album covers for such acts as Beastie Boys, Beck and Sonic Youth, and on promotional material for X-Girl and Marc Jacobs.

Mike D: "Mike is a true Renaissance man: a visual artist, a film maker, a graphic designer, a musician and a personal collaborator even. What am I forgetting Mike? And he does it all with such great flare but a lot of heart."

Public Fiction, an Art Space and a publication from the East side of Los Angeles, created by Lauren Mackler.

Mike D: "Lauren Mackler is an energetic magnet for artistic talent on the East side of LA. I became aware of her from her publication: Public Fiction. What will go down at the show will go way beyond the publication and will really explore the audio visual realms and realities."

Tom Sachs, a sculptor who resides and works in New York City. Probably he is best known for his elaborate recreations of various modern icons, all of them masterpieces of engineering and design of one kind or another. For example, he made Knoll office furniture out of phone books and duct tape or recreated Le Corbusier's 1952 Unite d'Habitation using only foamcore and a glue gun.

Mike D: "It is with great pleasure that AV CLUB presents Tom Sachs. It is kind of a full circle thing for me because over a decade ago during a hot summer in NYC a small group of us including myself and Tom kept gathering in the evenings at a friend's shaved ice stand in lower Manhattan trying to cool off from the savage heat. We wanted to listen to music, so Tom started building different boxes so we could listen to dub while we enjoyed the shaved ice, good company and scenery. These contraptions became bigger and more elaborate as the summer went on and eventually Tom built the behemoth that you all will see, feel and hear in the show."

Still House Group, an emerging arts organization based in Brooklyn, New York. It supports a unit of young artists, ages 22-26, providing them with an environment to conceptualize, produce and exhibit their work.

Mike D: "Still House are an interesting call to me. Younger for sure, but wise beyond their years: this Brooklyn NY based artist collective can pretty much do it all so we are looking forward to what they will bring April 19."

Sage Vaughn, an artist who works and resides in Los Angeles. Wildlife and Wildlives make up his world. Swarming brightly colored butterflies along with strangely dressed kids makes for some interesting subject matter, and there is definitely a feeling of tension between the natural and unnatural elements in these paintings.

Mike D: "Sage is a painter that I am a fan of. I am always excited to see new work of his. He has the chops, imagination and the humor."

Further information about Mercedes-Benz is available online: www.media.daimler.com and www.mercedes-benz.com

Further information about the Avant/Garde Dairies can be found in the interview magazine at www.theavantgardediaries.com

SOURCE Mercedes-Benz USA