Start your day in Little Tokyo celebrating Giant Robot, end at these artist-approved gems

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(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times) With “Giant Robot Biennale 5,” on view at the Japanese American National Museum through Sept. 1, the West L.A. native flashes back to his scrappy DIY days and showcases creatives who’ve been a part of his art ecosystem from the past to present day.
They scrutinized a collage of candid photos trying to ID the stars that orbited around Giant Robot in the late ’90s and early ’00s — from comedian Margaret Cho to rocker Karen O. And they posed for selfies in front of a wall covered with issues of Giant Robot magazine, the now-defunct full-color glossy that evolved from the zine and featured cover art by the likes of Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara.
(The cult favorite bimonthly magazine, which Nakamura edited with friend and former colleague Martin Wong, folded in 2010 after 68 issues.) (Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times) In the other gallery rooms, guests eagerly awaited their turn to interact with artists who started as Giant Robot fans and ultimately launched their careers by showing at Nakamura’s retail store and neighboring art gallery, GR2, on Japantown’s Sawtelle Boulevard.
With Eric and Giant Robot, there was an element of a healthy amount of pride — not sweeping under the rug our ethnicity and history, but actually being able to highlight it.”