Since the dawn of man, we have used the tools in our environment to depict images of the Gods believed to have created us and renderings of some sort of afterlife. The Last Judgement by Hans Memling, created during the 15th century, is a classical example of a painting portraying the Christian's end of the world belief in the rapture.
In modern times, Harold Camping falsely predicted that the rapture would transpire on May 21st of this year. This marked his third wrong prediction (according to wikipedia). As stated before, THIS gallery, located in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, celebrated "Judgement Night" on the night of May 20th with a one night art show. I had the opportunity to attend the event.
I would have to describe the motif of the show as a guide to post-apocalyptic survival. The first things visible in the gallery were haunting ski masks and nail-ridden baseball bats. The harshness of the Mad Max-esq baseball bat weapons were contrasted with images of colorful butterflies. The back wall of the gallery featured more zombie killing, end of time era weapons constructed of twisted metal, broken glass, rusted steel, and splintered wood.
The armageddon themed event also contained a wall of mostly geometric, grey scale artwork. A few of these pieces seemed to have slightly ambiguous cosmic undertones to keep with the tone of the night.
The final region of the show incorporated a fantastic collage containing images of the occult, S&M, voodoo, and a lone picture of Johnny Cash.
THIS gallery had recently been invaded by the French street artist Invader with a red, white and blue mosaic piece.
Lastly, the event was scored with two turntables by the awesomely eccentric punk rock icon Keith Morris. Keith is the original lead singer and founding member of Black Flag before Henry Rollins took the reins. He also leads the rowdy and raucous punk bands the Circle Jerks and, most recently, OFF!
I was slightly too awkward to snap a picture of Keith DJing so I'm going to impart his presence with YouTube videos. Below are two of OFF!'s official music videos released for their first album. The second video was filmed in a downtown Los Angeles warehouse/arts complex that hosted one of the best art shows that I have been to on the west coast. Another event that Keith Morris provided the sounds for.
Even though the "Judgement Day" weekend proved to be the uneventful psychobabble of an elderly religious weirdo, THIS Gallery embraced the opportunity to put on a hell of a party and art show. Also, the event provided excellent inspiration for home made weapons to use during the zombie apocalypse.