SPACE 242, Boston’s lowbrow destination, proudly announces its April 2009 exhibition: DESTROY YOU, BOSTON! The exhibition, on view April 24 through May 22, features new work by MCA/Evil Design and Magmo The Destroyer. The opening reception, Friday, April 24, runs from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in Boston’s South End, 242 E. Berkeley Street, 2nd floor (between Albany Street and Harrison Avenue). Both artists will also host an artist talk Thursday, May 21, from 7:00 to 8:00p.m. RSVP required for attendance at either event at ww.space242.com. Regular gallery hours are Friday evenings, 6:30-8pm, and by appointment. No RSVP is necessary for visiting during regular gallery hours.

DESTROY YOU, BOSTON! is a joint exhibition by two long-time collaborators, MCA/Evil design and Magmo The Destroyer, who recently exhibited together at Orchard Street Gallery in Manhattan with DESTROY YOU, NYC! This exhibition, however, features new work by both artists, of varied mediums. MCA known for his Evil Ape and other illustrative characters, shows brand new sculptures of said characters, sandblasted of stone in varied sizes. His family business in central Massachusetts (gravestone engraving) afforded him the skill to transfer his kooky faves into long-lasting 3D pieces. Magmo The Destroyer, mostly known for his modern mixed media work, shows a series of new illustrative paintings and charcoal drawings of grotesque characters he calls “Voids” and “Suckholes.”

Click here for a "sneek peek" at DESTROY YOU, BOSTON!
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MCA/Evil Design
MCA sites influences including Holiday in Cambodia, Geraldo getting hit with a chair, Rip Torn, Mr. T, Shaft, Superfly, Foxy Brown, Neil Diamond, What’s New Pussy Cat, Deputy Dawg, The San Diego Padre’s Chicken, Marty Scorsese, Bobby Deniro, Junk Yard Dog, J.J. Jackson, Pineapple Now`n`Laters, Kareem Abdul Jabar in the movie Airplane, Paul Reubens at the movies, Mr. Green Jeans, Dr. Hook’s `Baby Makes Her Blue Jeans Talk`, The Banana Splits, Darby Crash, Public Enemy, Donald Duck swearing in duck language, Good Times, The Three Men and a Baby Boy, Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, Edith Massey, Flounder, Mushmouth, Gary Coleman, Tootie, Jack Tripper`s friend Larry, Ozzy, Lux Interior, Earth, Wind & Fire, Harvey Keitel in The Bad Lieutenant, NWA, Female Trouble, that `Where`s the Beef?` lady, Raging Bull, Prison tattoos, Larry, Daryl & Daryl, Shemp, Jeff Spicoli, Chris Farley, Ted from Mary Tyler Moore, Ol`Dirty Bastard, Bruce Lee, The Fat Boys, Car Wash, Froggy from The Little Rascals, and Hot Buttered Soul.

He has exhibited throughout the U.S. and Japan, and his work has been on Kid 606’s critically-acclaimed CD The Action Packed Mentalist Bring you the Fucking Jams, Weezer’s Pinkerton tour swag, as well as Mission of Burma’s Inexplicable reunion tour.

MCA also designs toys for Hong Kong-based Toy2r, who have released 70 of his toys thus far, including his original sculpt 5” Evil Ape figure (in variants) and the 8” Elder Ape Qee. His book, Simian Nation, was also recently released by Toy2R. MCA lives in Westport, MA.

Magmo The Destroyer
Ryan Maguire began illustrating under the name MAGMO The Destroyer as a way to deal with the world around him. Specifically, Magmo could "destroy" things he did not like including the gentrification of his Brighton neighborhood, the ever-failing healthcare system, and pollution. Such social concerns influenced digital illustrations and short narratives; Earth is Sick, Save Ocean, In America..., Puppy Mill Warriors, and Magmo Destroy Zines. The Magmo concept has transformed and evolved, reflecting his ever changing views of society and the environment. Magmo the Destroyer has been published and exhibited in the U.S. and abroad.

Maguire’s most recent body of work, Voids, are part of an extensive personal exploration, questioning human nature and the origin of "want." Early Magmo works confronted both common and emerging social concerns (greed, genetically modified organism, death ray, cloning, etc.) and were intended to raise awareness and inspire viewers to take action and "destroy" such problems. For Maguire, the Void series take a deeper, darker look into an individual’s core. Feelings of desire are explored and visualized through graphite, charcoal, and pastel drawings. The primordial impulses that motivate us to want the new car, more money, a bigger house, more power, more control, are thus given tangible forms. Spawned from our shared appetites of vanity and ego the Voids are born.

The Voids focus on the "I want" trait in humans. It is not particularly important what the VOIDS desire; power, war, clothes, online friends, yoga, violence, pills, knowledge, lies, faith, or food. Instead, Maguire emphasizes visualizing the uncontrollable, often unconscious, emotional and mental impulses of the "want.” Maguire envisions humans overwhelmed by desires as empty creatures who fill their voids with what they want, with what they think they want, with what they need, and with what they think they need to define their self, ego, and existence. Grotesque in appearance, the Voids depict a surreal look of the chaos, vulgarity, and urges. Using graphite, charcoal, and his fingers, these primitive, yet contemporary oversized drawings present abstracted figures in ambiguous moments, unsure of why they want, why they need—but that they must fill their Voids.

A graduate of the Art Institute of Boston, Magmo lives in Rhode Island, where he spear fishes, makes fires, hangs out in the deep end, stares at the wall, works, and draws. He is currently Adjunct Faculty at the Art Institute of Boston and is editor of AIB's Foundation and Illustration & Animation Blogs.

DESTROY YOU, BOSTON! is sponsored in part by Harpoon, The Weekly Dig, and ArtScope Magazine.

SPACE 242 Mini Theatre
LUZIDEN by John Tyson
-Screening: Friday, April 24, 6-8pm
Luziden is an interactive triptych video installation created by John Tyson. The viewer will be able to press keys on an 88-key MIDI keyboard, triggering various clips of sound and video which are composited in real-time on a 16:3 super-widescreen display (3840x720) consisting of a projector and two LCD displays. If traditional cinema is, as Jacques Lacan claims, a Freudian dream state, Luziden attempts to be the cinematic equivalent of a lucid dream - one in which the viewer asserts some degree of control over what transpires.