Keith Rocka Knittel

WE'VE MOVED!

2011-03-04T12:26:00.000-08:00

For current blog updates, please click this link to my Tumblr.
For tweets, follow @rockaknittel on Twitter.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE 2/18

2011-02-17T13:40:00.001-08:00

Keith Rocka Knittel: Prosperity Gospel

2011-01-12T23:25:00.001-08:00

Anthony Greaney x Samsøn x DAN GRAHAM @ Cottage Home

January 14 - February 20, 2011. Opening reception Friday, January 14, 6-9PM.
410 Cottage Home St
Los Angeles (Chinatown), CA 90012

featuring:
Craig Drennen
Liz Glynn
Greg Hayes
Ian Jeffrey
Keith Rocka Knittel
Nick Kramer
Calvin Lee
Annette Lemieux
Todd Pavlisko
Matthew Rich

-----

Keith Rocka Knittel
Prosperity Gospel

Prosperity Gospel is a sculptural installation with concepts arising from a Pentecostal theology Knittel links, through these pieces, to the recent housing bubble and its subsequent burst in America’s Sun-Belt states. Knittel toys with the idea of gospel as a counterpart to the achievement of the American dream through the creation of objects that represent this idea that faith will reap financial reward.

Fabricated from ready-made, artificially opulent construction materials accessed in home renovation super-stores, the central pieces in Prosperity Gospel are symbolic of miraculous financial gifts from the Heavens. Two large architectural elements book-end the installation and emblematically re-construct an existing space- the project space Dan Graham- within Cottage Home, while also functioning as altars or lecterns that tower over the viewer.

Keith Rocka Knittel received an MFA from CalArts, Valencia, California, and a BFA from the Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland. He currently lives and works in San Pedro, California.

Holiday MiXXXes

2010-12-09T11:43:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of December, I'll be uploading a bunch of holiday-themed and other mixes and audio tracks periodically. Call me the Kanye West of the holidays.

Here are direct download links for the first few:
XMAS RAPPING 2010 - Christmas rap songs mixed into thirty minutes of holiday madness.
Christmas Mix (recorded in 2009) - Christmas favorites and not so favorites mixed up. Perfect for Holiday parties!
Days 'Til Christmas (Soundtrack) - This is the audio portion of a recent performance of the same name.
Hippo - My cover version of the obnoxious Christmas classic "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas." Spruced up for the 21st century.
hanuKKah Mix 2010 - My first delving into the world of Jewish music, traditional and not so traditional.

White Arrows (To the People of Los Angeles) 11/13

2010-11-11T12:13:00.001-08:00

KEITH ROCKA KNITTEL PRESENTS: WHITE ARROWS (TO THE PEOPLE OF LOS ANGELES)

November 13, 2010 – LOS ANGELES, CA - “White Arrows (To the People of Los Angeles)” is a site-specific artwork to be staged on November 13, 2010, from 5:30 – 7:30 PM across the street from the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) at 250 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, 90012.

Rocka Knittel hired five professional sign-spinners to activate, consecutively for two hours, five white arrow-shaped paintings made by the artist. Viewers will be presented with a constantly moving blank advertisement, arrows pointing in all directions and at nothing in particular. The method of sign spinning, used primarily as a curbside marketing tool, is blurred in this instance as no product is being advertised, thus emphasizing the actions of each individual sign-spinner and the object with which they are interacting. The sign-spinners act as stand-ins for the artist, both as commentator on institutional and social paradigms and as creator completing the paintings through the action of the performance.

A Letter to Lindsay

2010-07-28T11:38:00.000-07:00

I recently wrote and sent a letter to Lindsay Lohan as a performative utterance.
You can read the entire letter here.

1:08 We Got Mario on the Scene

2010-07-18T12:14:00.001-07:00

REDCAT video screening 7/15/10

2010-07-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

"In conjunction with Box Scheme, the CalArts 2010 MFA Exhibition in Chinatown, a screening of video works by 13 CalArts MFAs will be held at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT) in downtown LA. The event takes place July 15th at 8 PM and has a running time of 2 1/2 hours including intermission. The screening promises to further showcase the breadth of experimental forms and critically reflexive expression in the CalArts graduate Art and Photo/Media programs."

Below are some stills from the new video I'll be premiering, titled "1:08 We Got Mario on the Scene." Video will be posted after the event.

Redcat is located at 631 West 2nd St. in downtown Los Angeles, at the base of Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall. Admission to the screening is free. For directions and parking information, please visit www.redcat.org.

We're All Haunted By Michael Asher's Ghosts

2010-07-04T11:44:00.000-07:00

“We’re All Haunted By Michael Asher’s Ghosts,” part of the Box Scheme 2010 CalArts MFA Graduate Exhibition, transforms a former projection room located on the second floor of Cottage Home gallery into an experiential three-room environment investigating institutional critique through discombobulating physical spaces, camouflage, isolation and voyeurism.

Viewers enter the space through a site-specific construction – a skewed, white hallway evocative of a trough or an industrial chute. This transitory space is a disconcerting and problematical passageway.

A second room showcases a sculpture that resembles both a bench, the classic seat of Socratic dialectic, and a utility pole textured by thousands of staples from notices and posters past. The bench offers respite only after one navigates its treacherous landscape of obsessively applied staples, alluding to the artist’s studio practice, manic hours spent working over ideas and engaging in repetitive labor. The piece expands beyond the gallery with an edition of letterpress posters hung around Los Angeles in conjunction with the installation.

In a third room, paintings on canvas, constructed scenic flats and existing walls form a hidden observation area or duck blind that overlooks the bulk of the exhibition. The paintings combine camouflage worn while hunting and observing waterfowl with dazzle camouflage, a type of camouflage used on World War I battleships to “dazzle” the enemy into a state of confusion.

We're All Haunted By Michael Asher's Ghosts (a preview)

2010-06-28T01:03:00.000-07:00

My new installation "We're All Haunted By Michael Asher's Ghosts" arrives this week at Cottage Home Gallery, 410 Cottage Home Street, LA, CA, 90012, upstairs in the former projection room.

Part of the exhibit Box Scheme (see post below), July 2 - 10, 2010.

Box Scheme: CalArts 2010 MFA Exhibit

2010-06-19T19:45:00.000-07:00

BOX SCHEME
California Institute of the Arts
Master of Fine Arts Exhibition 2010
July 2nd - July 9th, 2010
Opening July 2nd, 6 - 10 PM

Participating galleries:
Actual Size, 741 New High Street, LA, CA, 90012
POVevolving, 939 Chung King Road, LA, CA, 90012
Charlie James Gallery, 975 Chung King Road, LA, CA, 90012
The Company, 946 Yale Street, LA, CA, 90012
Dan Graham, 506 Bernard Street, LA, CA, 90012
Cottage Home, 410 Cottage Home Street, LA, CA, 90012

Keith Rocka Knittel : Way of Sorrows

2010-04-04T14:06:00.000-07:00

CalArts MFA Open Studios 4/11/10

2010-03-22T10:33:00.000-07:00

More info here.

Keith Rocka Knittel : Station 3

2010-02-24T11:12:00.000-08:00

Coming soon...

2010-02-08T23:00:00.000-08:00

Keith Rocka Knittel : "Way of Sorrows"

March 7-13, 2010

With performances on Thursday March 11

Opening reception on Thursday March 11

6PM - 11PM

(rsvp: kk@keithrocka.com)

D301 Gallery

CalArts

24700 McBean Pkwy

Valencia, CA 91355

(661) 255-1050

Keith Rocka Knittel presents: Rocco Gaccione's "Suspiria"

2010-01-14T23:46:00.000-08:00

Keith Rocka Knittel: "Keith Rocka Knittel Presents: Rocco Gaccione's Suspiria," 2009 (installation views)

Wood planks, speakers, video, monitor, scenic flat
Handle Like Eggs Studio, Valencia, CA

"For Immediate Release:
Keith Rocka Knittel presents:
Rocco Gaccione’s “Suspiria”

Valencia, CA – Keith Rocka Knittel is pleased to present a new site-specific work by Italian artist Rocco Gaccione as the first installment of the Handle Like Eggs Studio Exchange Program. Rocco Gaccione’s piece “Suspiria” will be on display in Broad Studio 20 at CalArts in Valencia, California on Tuesday, December 15, 2009, from 7-10PM.
“Suspiria,” 2009, uses appropriated footage from the 1977 film “Suspiria,” directed by Dario Argento, to create an environment that is at once inviting and repulsive. The soundtrack (by the Italian progressive-psych rock band Goblin) is amplified and looped into an endless crescendo. The tropes of Italian horror movies, or Giallo, are expanded beyond the constraints of the video frame into the viewer’s personal space, creating a tense expanse where voyeur and victim become one and the same.
Rocco Gaccione (b. 1984) is a graduate of The Mediterranean Center for Arts and Sciences Studio Art Program, in Sicily, Italy. He received the Enzio Fabriccone Award of Excellence from the Centro per Arte Contemporanea Italiana a Milano (CACIM) in 2007, the youngest recipient of the award. Gaccione has exhibited his work in Europe and Asia, and has an upcoming solo show in 2010 in New York City. He currently resides in Cosenza, Italy.
The Handle Like Eggs Studio Exchange Program invites artists from outside of North America to create site-specific installations in Keith Rocka Knittel’s graduate art studio at CalArts. The goal is to create a dialogue between artists from around the world, and present new, unseen works to the students of CalArts."

Keith Rocka Knittel presents... Authenticity

2009-12-01T23:10:00.001-08:00

Authenticity
A multi-media performance by Keith Rocka Knittel
With choreography by Andrew Wojtal

Authenticity examines issues of authenticity, appropriation, re-enactment, and re-presentation.
Key scenes from the 1984 teen exploitation film Breakin' are reinterpreted through video, dance, and music, creating a multi-media environment in which larger issues of artistic integrity are examined. Authenticity confronts the philosophical and artistic ideas of authenticity by questioning the role of art and artist as both a contributor to and product of external societal values such as history and commercialism.

Thursday, December 3, 2009
7PM & 10PM.
Coffee House Theater
CalArts
24700 McBean Pkwy
Valencia, CA, 91355

photo by Rena Kosnett

LEGACY

2009-12-01T22:38:00.000-08:00

Keith Rocka Knittel: "Legacy," 2009 (installation view, detail)
CalArts 2010 MFA Mid-Residency Show 
October 18th - 26th, 2009

Multi-media installation consisting of scenic flats, painted Styrofoam, hand-made red canvas "sandbags" stuffed with polyester fiber-fill, clip lamps with red-clay bulbs, viewing ramp, and a single channel video projection.

Keith Rocka Knittel Presents: September!

2009-09-27T21:59:00.000-07:00

Keith Rocka Knittel: "Septembr9," 2009
Digital audio file™

Here's a mix I made last week, inspired by the "Pomposelli x Party People" installation and performance in Carl Pomposelli and my adjoining studios. I was closed in Carl's studio where I djed for an audience in my studio, whom I could not see. The audience could view into Carl's studio via a live video feed projected onto the wall in my studio. The audio from my dj set was playing through a p.a. also in my studio, which was installed amongst mini-installations and a projected animation by Carl. Peep holes (or glory holes) and a pin hole camera were cut in the walls between the two studios for direct contact.

The mix consists of loops of songs, overlapped and sculpted to mimic the arcs and dips of a dj club mix but with no apex or nethermost floor. No song plays in its entirety- only in chopped up pieces, some times more recognizable than others. Versions of some emerge, disappear, and revisit the mix in an attempt to represent the fuzziness of time and memory.

It's a roughly thirty minute mix. Sometimes up to five loops are playing at a time.

Tracks I Took From:
Destroy Wendy Williams - Keith Rocka
Birthday Sex - Jeremih
My Melody - Stu
Apache - Incredible Bongo Band
Windows Media Player - Charles Hamilton
Monsters - Kid 606
Fuck Off - Yerzmyey
Blow Ya Head - The JBs
Tokyo Boy - Sabrepulse
Emerge (DFA Remix) - Fischerspooner
What's A Girl To Do (remix) - Cristina
The Other Woman - Ray Parker, Jr.
Spooks in Space - Aural Exciters
Hot Chick - Uffie
I'm in Love With a Ripper (Party Mix) - Yacht
Busta v. Mario - Stolen From YouTube
Losing My Edge - LCD Soundsystem
Mutant Wisdom - Richard Bone
Woof Woof - Dan Deacon
Beach Culture - The Thompson Twins
Triumph of a Heart (Video Mix) - Bjork
Charlie Brown (DJ Technics Remix) - Debonair Samir
Deli - Delorean
Mario's HA (Bonus Beat) - Bama Bounce
Playmate (feat. Roxy Cottontail & Lacole "Tigga" Campbell) - Armand Van Helden
PPXCP- Keith Rocka
I Hold The Crown (Gigi Barocco Remix) - Redman
Pop Champagne - The Clipse
Freaky Tales - Too $hort

As always, best on headphones, in a car, or loud on decent speakers. Pass it on, but give me credit please.

Download it for a week here:
Keith Rocka September Mix

I Buried Paul

2009-08-09T22:46:00.000-07:00

Keith Rocka Knittel: "Keith Rocka Meets The Beatles / Magical Mystery Tour Re-Edit," 2009
Digital audio file™

You can download the first in a new series of work where I re-edit significant works by other artists here.

Keith Rocka Meets The Beatles / Magical Mystery Tour Re-Edit
Track List:
1. The Magical Mystery Tour 9:23
2. The Fool On The Hill 4:31
3. Flying 10:10
4. Blue Jay Way 7:11
5. I Am The Walrus 7:21
6. Your Mother Should Know 3:21
7. Baby You're A Rich Man (Bonus Track on US Release) 6:52

There are only 100 available downloads from this link, so please download, repost and share.

Re-present.

"If you heard we were celebratin' that's a worldwide lie!"

2009-07-04T03:07:00.000-07:00

Keith Rocka Knittel: "7-4-09," 2009
Digital audio file™

I just made a 30 minute rap mix for the Fourth of July.

Here's the track list:
Louder Than A Bomb (intro) – Public Enemy
No Justice No Peace – Lakim Shabazz
Verbal Milk – X Clan
American Way – Nas
Dollar Day (Surprise Surprise) – Mos Def
America (feat. Mos Def & Chali 2Na)- K’Naan
The Beast – The Fugees

download it here!

Michael Jackson Memorial Mix

2009-06-26T22:56:00.000-07:00

Keith Rocka Knittel: "P4RT33P33PL3_JACKSON_MEGA_MEMORIAL_MIX," 2009
Digital audio file™

So Michael Jackson died yesterday. Frankly, I haven't had any interest in his music since [some of the songs on] "Bad," but as a human spectacle he was fascinating. To prove my point I just needed to watch "Larry King Live" on CNN the past two nights, which at different times had Corey Feldman, Liza Minelli, and Miko Brando on the panel.

Michael Jackson and The Jacksons have released some of the most important and influential pop music in the last 40 or so years, so I decided to make a short little dj mix to commemorate. You can download it free here.

Enjoy!

CalArts MFA Open Studios, April 26, 2009

2009-04-03T22:28:00.000-07:00

The CalArts MFA Open Studios are coming up. Now's your chance to peek and poke into my studio and see what I've been up to this year. I'll have snacks! Oh, and I'll be playing the after-party with Party People at 7PM. Be there.

Info here:
http://alum.calarts.edu/~studio/

Keith Rocka Knittel: "Low Frequency Amplification Unit 1," 2009

(studio view)
MDF pyramid bass bin tombs playing a modified audio track, amplifier, paint, audio cables
CalArts MFA Open Studios, Valencia, CA

Keith Rocka Knittel: "Unappeased Ghost Incessantly Circling," 2009 (video still)
Multi-media installation
CalArts MFA Open Studios, Valencia, CA

View a slideshow of visitors exiting "Unappeased Ghost Incessantly Circling" at the MFA Open Studios by clicking here.

FROGHOLLOW:METH:MTN

2009-01-27T13:57:00.000-08:00

Keith Rocka Knittel: "FROGHOLLOW:METH:MTN," 2009
Multi-media installation
CalArts MFA Exhibition, CalArts Lime Gallery, Valencia, CA
January 12-17, 2009

Analytic of Da Bootyful

2009-01-24T20:52:00.000-08:00

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Keith Rocka Knittel: "Analytic of da Bootyful," 2009
YouTube video

Many-worlds Interpretation

2009-01-20T17:10:00.000-08:00

Keith Rocka Knittel: "Many-worlds Interpretation," 2009 (video still)

For this video piece, I filmed myself on two separate occasions dancing for 45 minutes straight to a mix tape by DJ Red Alert from 1988. Then I superimposed the two videos onto one background. And then, I isolated a series of animated freeze-frames, capturing parallel moments that had occurred simultaneously.

I once saw a documentary that illustrated the theory of parallel universes with a good animation of a cat experiencing two outcomes at once, alive and dead, dead and alive. Somehow, it wasn't as sad as it sounds.

Nipplegate

2009-01-20T15:36:00.000-08:00

Keith Rocka Knittel: "Nipplegate," 2009
Multi-media installation

Inspired by the aftermath of the Nipplegate incident during the Superbowl XXXVIII halftime show in which Janet Jackson's star-shaped nipple shield was revealed when her wardrobe "malfunctioned," I made a star-shaped sculpture out of radios that were all tuned to play an FM broadcast of remixes I'd made of a dozen or so songs that were censored by the FCC post-Nipplegate.

Nipplegate led to a crackdown on perceived indecency in broadcasting and resulted in a record half-million dollar fine levied by the FCC against CBS. The FCC also increased its fine per indecency violation from $27,500 to $325,000, resulting in widespread censorship by radio stations of music containing lyrics now dubbed "indecent" by Michael Powell, then-chairman of the FCC.

My new "Nipplegate" mixes contain only these "offensive" parts of the songs, the parts now bleeped or completely edited out of radio play. The songs include "Jet Airliner" by The Steve Miller Band, "Legs" by ZZ Top, "Genius of Love" by Tom Tom Club, "Start Me Up" by the Rolling Stones, "Money" by Pink Floyd, "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin, "Erotic City" by Prince, "White Horse" by Laid Back, and "Rich Girl" by Hall and Oates, all of which have been self-censored by radio or television program directors since Nipplegate.

Pete Rock of Gibraltar continued...

2009-01-20T15:05:00.000-08:00

These are a few more drawings from the Pete Rock series of endangered animals, commissioned by a good friend/very savvy collector.

Pete Rock of Gibraltar

2008-11-11T22:16:00.000-08:00

This is the second drawing in a series that I'm doing for a friend who commissioned a bunch of endangered animal drawings. They'll all have lyrics from Pete Rock produced songs - this one is from the Pete Rock & CL Smooth song "Act Like You Know." It's a Vancouver Island Marmot, the most endangered species in Canada. I'm really enjoying doing these drawings lately, because they feel like they are at the total opposite end of the spectrum from other work I've been doing - but still completely attached.

[laugh track]

2008-09-19T00:32:00.001-07:00

Keith Rocka Knittel: "[laugh track]," 2008
Site-specific installation
Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA

squawkin' tern : lost on a sandbar

2008-08-02T21:43:00.001-07:00

I just did a drawing for the header of "Lost on a Sandbar." It's a blog by my friend Dennis who is one of those crazy East Coast surfers. Like NORTH of DelMarVa crazy! Like surfing in 40 degree (fahrenheit) water hypothermia crazy! Anyway, he and I have been down since birth, literally, and when he asked me to hook him up with a drawing I was more than happy to oblige.

I have always loved shore birds and gulls and the like (even though they tend to get a bad rap by most beach goers) so I drew this squawking tern. He's all "LAY OFF MY FISH!" but he's also trying to be a little polite about it (it's in his eyes). I see terns and gulls how I see someone who lives in New York and calls Rockaway their local break- resourceful and thankful for what they can get.

Old Drawings

2008-07-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

Three drawings dating a few years back, when I was transitioning out of dynamo-ville and into being just plain Keith.

This drawing is called "Dick Lewis Is Watching." It's a watercolor on notebook paper, 8 1/2" x 11", drawn in 2006. The story behind it is this: I used to see commercials on TV growing up on Long Island for Newmark & Lewis, which was like Best Buy or Circuit City before those places existed. The deal with this place was they had the lowest prices because Dick Lewis (he's the Lewis of Newmark & Lewis) was watching out for all of us - finding low, low prices on any appliance or electronic device you wanted. Their slogan was "Dick Lewis Is Watching," which always had this creepy 1984-esque quality to me. It almost made me feel like I did when I believed in Santa Claus, but felt funny knowing that he watched me all the time deciding if I was bad or good. I was pleased when, after years of being subjected to paranoia inducing Newmark & Lewis commercials, I read the liner notes of Public Enemy's "Yo! Bum Rush The Show" LP which stated "The 1990's are here, so take no shorts (particularly when we know that Dick Lewis is watching)" - which was Chuck D's way of saying "you better watch The Man, because The Man is watching you!"

This drawing is called "SUN" and is ballpoint pen on paper, 8 1/2" x 11", drawn in 2005. It's a page taken from a hand made sketchbook, so there are holes on the left side from where it was once bound. It's one of the last times I drew anything that looked like one of my "dynamo-ville" characters. This sketchbook is filled with lots of therapeutic drawings and writings which I used to help expunge all that was "dynamo-ville" from my head.

This drawing is called "Acieed!" and is ballpoint pen and pencil on newsprint, approximately 7" x 10", from 2005. It's also a page from the aforementioned sketchbook. This drawing actually has three blank pages that are attached to the back of it - it was a cluster of hand cut newsprint pages in the sketchbook but only one page got drawn on and the rest just stuck together at the edge making it that much more interesting. The critter in the drawing is a tanuki, or raccoon dog found in Japanese folklore. Usually statues of tanuki are found outside of temples or noodle shops. They are mischievous, absent minded shape shifters. The word "Acieed!" refers to the refrain in the song "We Call It Acieed" by D-Mob, which was an Acid House anthem in the late 1980s. Honestly, I don't know what the two things have to do with each other.

Grand Puba Maxwell

2008-06-26T16:21:00.001-07:00

This drawing is called "Grand Puba Maxwell (pigeon)." It's watercolor and pencil on paper, 7" x 10", drawn in 2008. It was recently featured in my solo show "Crab Kids Keep Quiet" at The Lab 101 Gallery in Culver City, CA. It's a pigeon, and the words are by Grand Puba Maxwell of Brand Nubian ("Who Can Get Busy Like This Man..." from the album One For All).

Nolan Mookie George Rollie

2008-06-05T23:58:00.001-07:00

This drawing is called "Nolan Mookie George Rollie." It's watercolor and pencil on paper, 11" x 17", drawn in 2006. It's a drawing of an infinite word bubble pinwheel of baseball stars' names of yore.

De La Soul

2008-06-05T23:47:00.000-07:00

This soft-sculpture is called "De La Soul." It's an embroidered felt word bubble, stuffed with polyfil, approximately 6"x 8" x 2", made in 2008 (click image to see it larger). It was recently featured in my solo show "Crab Kids Keep Quiet" at The Lab 101 Gallery in Culver City, CA. It hangs on a wall and has the words "Take Those Shell Toes Off" on it, a line from the song "Take It Off" on De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising.

Rabbit Day

2008-06-05T23:24:00.000-07:00

This drawing is called "Rabbit Day." It's watercolor and pencil on paper, 11" x 17", drawn in 2006. The girl in the drawing is excited because it's rabbit day at her school. Wouldn't you be?

Subroc

2008-06-05T23:09:00.000-07:00

This drawing is called "Subroc." It's watercolor and pencil on paper, 7" x 10", drawn in 2008. It was recently featured in my solo show "Crab Kids Keep Quiet" at The Lab 101 Gallery in Culver City, CA. It's a chihuahua, the words are by Subroc of KMD ("Soul Flexin'" from the KMD album Mr. Hood).

KRS One

2008-06-03T22:41:00.000-07:00

"KRS One" is a watercolor and pencil on paper, 7" x 10", drawn in 2008. It was recently featured in my solo show "Crab Kids Keep Quiet" at The Lab 101 Gallery in Culver City, CA. The creature in the piece is a nautilus, and the words are by KRS One ("Who Protects Us From You" from the Boogie Down Productions' album Ghetto Music: The Blueprint of Hip Hop).