Thank you to all that came out to the opening reception of our current exhibitions on Saturday, November 8th. It was an incredible evening and great to see so many of the artists in “Re-Beginning” make it out. Congratulations to all those who contributed works for the big PaintGuide curated show, along with Stella Im Hultberg and the Perez Bros on their new body of work.
All three exhibitions remain on view through November 30 and can also be enjoyed via our website. Please stop by if in the Culver City Arts District of Los Angeles.
Thinkspace Projects is honored to present Instruments of Change at the Fullerton Museum Center, a groundbreaking exhibition that transforms the museum with site-specific murals by 8 Latin-American street artists. This will be the first time in history that a US museum has hosted this kind of art show. In mid-November, the Fullerton Museum Center will open its doors to Alvaro Naddeo, Curiot, Fefe Talavera, Fernando Chamarelli, Hilda Palafox (aka Poni), Paola Delfin, Saner, and Zezao, giving them 10 days to create a series of large-scale murals and installations. The new work will be revealed on November 24 with an opening reception from 6pm to 10pm, in tandem with the closing party of DesignerCon. Instruments of Change will be on view until February 23, 2020. In addition, the Instruments of Change: A Compendium exhibition will be on view up the street at the Fullerton College Art Gallery on the campus of the Fullerton College, from January 30 to February 19, 2020.
Dedicated to full-inclusion, all materials, signage, and advertising will be presented in both English and Spanish. “We really want to welcome in a portion of the SoCal community that is often overlooked and neglected by the area’s museums,” saysAndrew Hosner, co-owner and curator of Thinkspace Projects. “We are very excited and honored to have the opportunity to put together a show of this caliber for a Southern California based institution. The street art culture throughout Mexico and South America is rich with history and has so many varied styles. Following in the footsteps of the ‘Vitality and Verve’ exhibitions that we curated at the Long Beach Museum of Art, ‘Instruments of Change’ aims to shine a spotlight on some of the most innovative artists from Latin America.”
“Much like the featured muralists in Instruments of Change, The Fullerton Museum Center seeks to engage, inform, inspire, and, when necessary, challenge the viewer,” says Kelly Chidester, curator for the Fullerton Museum Center. “We are excited to partner with Thinkspace to bring this socially conscious and timely exhibit to Fullerton as a celebration of art, culture and powerful storytelling.”
Instruments of Change will feature a diversity of artistic styles, ranging from photorealistic black and white portraiture to colorful, abstract works with indigenous aesthetics. Some artists in the show, such as Paola Delfín and Saner, have a track record of crafting intricately detailed, building-sized murals, while others like Zezao and Curiot often create work out of the public view in obscure locations like sewers and jungles.
The birthplace of the low-brow art movement, as well as a nexus of many cultures’ creatives, LA has become a destination for street artists over the past few decades. The unique art scene allowed many Hispanic-American graffiti artists to transcend the streets and thrive in fine art settings—Thinkspace Gallery being among them. Instruments of Changemarks a new chapter in the story of street art’s evolution, and starts its next decade on a whole new level.
Instruments of Change will be on view at Fullerton Museum Center from November 24, 2019 to February 23, 2020. The museum is located at 301 N. Pomona Ave. Fullerton, California 92832.
Stella Im Hultberg was born in South Korea, raised in Seoul, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and later in California. She studied Industrial Design and worked as a product designer before serendipitously falling into the art world in late 2005.
Hultberg’s paintings are conceived in varying combinations of ink, watercolor, and oils on paper, wood and canvas. Her lyrical depictions of women combine decorative elements and graphic patterns, melding the figurative with the illustrative and a looser more painterly component. Ever present, this tension between the gestural and the controlled describe space in her dynamic compositions. Her palettes tend towards the monochromatic, moody and dark, but are punctuated by moments of contrast and vibrancy.
Her mannered figurative style, both elegant and selectively awkward, is at times reminiscent of early 20th century artists like Egon Schiele, Aubrey Beardsley or Gustav Klimt. Though beautiful, her figures are strangely displaced, subtly distorted, and at times melancholically encumbered with ornamentation, as seen in a recent series in which her nudes are laden with heavy blooms. Darkly beautiful, Hultberg’s feminine imaginary is an ambiguous terrain of melancholic desire.
Having grown up in Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan, she has a diverse blend of cultural influences to pull from. After a decade in NYC, she now lives (and works) in Portland OR with her daughter and husband.
Thank you to all those who came to the opening reception of Brian Viveros’s “Tougher Than Leather” and Ken Flewellyn’s “SHINE” last weekend. The gallery was packed to the brim with art lovers, and Viveros had a never-ending line of fans waiting to share their love of his work with him. He was signing books, posters, and taking pictures – overjoyed by the response to the work. Flewellyn’s second solo with the gallery, “SHINE” was a great pairing to Viversos’s “Tougher Than Leather” with a collaborative piece by the artists acting as the cherry on an already great show.
Beyond Eden, Will Present the Best Galleries From the Lowbrow, New Contemporary, Pop Surrealist & Outsider Art Movements To An Audience Ready to Collect
CONVENTION DATES November 22 – 24, 2019 VIP Night | November 22, 5pm – 9pm General Entry | November 23, 10am – 7pm General Entry | November 24, 10am – 6pm
Anaheim Convention Center 800 W. Katella Ave, Anaheim, CA 92802
For 14 years, DesignerCon has been a destination for designer toy brands, collectible artists and the people who love them, hosting world-renowned brands like MEDICOM, KidRobot, Mighty Jaxx, and Giant Robot. Now, for the first time ever, the convention will have a traditional art space dedicated to the lowbrow, pop surrealist and outsider art movements that flourished in Southern California. On the heels of Littletopia that drew crowds at the LA Art Show, Beyond Eden is spearheaded by Thinkspace Projects founder Andrew Hosner, as a way to connect DesignerCon attendees directly to the larger art world. Many artists who are prominent in the designer toy realm also have thriving fine art careers. Most notable at the moment is KAWS, who is best known for his OriginalFake series of vinyl toys, but recently made a $14 million sale of one of his museum-quality artworks.
The addition of Beyond Eden to Designercon is perfect for the evolution the convention has been undergoing for the past several years. Many avid fine art collectors actually get their start collecting designer toys—something that Designercon founder Ben Goretksy can attest to, personally.
Picking up where Greg Escalante’s Littletopia left off, Hosner’s Beyond Eden will be exhibiting many of the artists DCON attendees already know and love, plus the galleries who rep them, and other artists in their repertoire.
The inaugural archway welcoming attendees into the new section will be designed by Carlos Ramirez, formerly of The Date Farmers artist collective. The Date Farmers were a collaboration of artists Carlos Ramirez and Armando Lerma, best known for paintings and assemblages steeped in California’s Mexican-American experience, referencing street art, posters of the Mexican Revolution, and popular tropes of Hollywood and the media.
Galleries that will be part of this year’s programming include:
Thinkspace Projects
Founded in 2005, Thinkspace has garnered an international reputation as one of the most active and productive exponents of the New Contemporary Art Movement. Maintaining its founding commitment to the promotion and support of its artists, Thinkspace has steadily expanded its roster and diversified its projects, creating collaborative and institutional opportunities all over the world. Founded in the spirit of forging recognition for young, emerging, and lesser-known talents, the gallery is now home to artists from all over the world, ranging from the emerging, mid-career, and established.
La Luz De Jesus
Established in 1986 La Luz de Jesus Gallery is the brainchild of entrepreneur and art collector Billy Shire, considered primarily responsible for fostering a new school of California art and prompting JUXTAPOZ Magazine to dub him “the Peggy Guggenheim of Lowbrow.” Showcasing mainly figurative, narrative paintings and unusual sculpture, the exhibitions are post-pop with content ranging from folk to outsider to religious to sexually deviant. The gallery’s objective is to bring underground art and counter-culture to the masses. Past shows have been groundbreaking, exhibiting artists, such as Manuel Ocampo, Joe Coleman, and Robert Williams.
KP Projects
One of Los Angeles’ premier art galleries specializing in contemporary pop surrealism, new contemporary, and street art. KP Projects is home to several of the most significant artists working today. The gallery’s focus is to continually champion emerging and mid-career artists who push beyond the boundaries of formal definition.
Dark Art Emporium
The Dark Art Emporium is located in Long Beach, CA close to Los Angeles and Orange County in Southern California.The Dark Art Emporium is host to a variety of unique art pieces which would not normally be seen in an art gallery including taxidermy, oddities, strange photography, etc.
Modern Eden Gallery
Modern Eden is located in San Francisco’s historic North Beach neighborhood. Established in June 2010 by local artists Bradley Platz and Kim Larson, the gallery regularly exhibits new works of representational painting and sculpture. Our aesthetic ranges from realism to surrealism, with a program that focuses on elevating Bay-Area artists in the global art market through the sophisticated use of digital channels and the organization of groundbreaking exhibitions.
Tierra Del Sol Foundation
A strong and vibrant community is one in which all of its members contribute to the strengths and assets for the common good. Tierra’s mission is to empower people with disabilities to fulfill their potential and desire to become productive citizens who are accepted, included and valued for the contributions they make to the economic, civic, and cultural vitality of the community. We are actively working towards the day when people with any type of disability are fully recognized as an integral part of our community – as neighbors, co-workers, and contributors.
The 2019 DesignerCon will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center on November 22 – 24, 2019. The
convention center is located at 800 W. Katella Ave, Anaheim, CA 92802.
More will be announced as details are confirmed.
About DesignerCon
Founded in 2005 by Ben Goretsky, DesignerCon brings together artists, manufacturers, distributors, and
retailers in the designer toy / vinyl collectibles market and has grown to incorporate everything in the
design world including apparel, plush, printing, sculpture, designer toys, and both fine and urban art. The
steady growth DesignerCon has enjoyed correlates with its popularity in today’s art nerd, geek culture;
collectors and designer toy lovers alike wait through the night for new releases, pre-orders for new artist
collaboration apparel are sold out within minutes, and artists use the convention as an opportunity to
announce exclusive releases and collaborations. www.designercon.com
Galleries that will be part of this year’s programming include:
