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TITLE: "INTER-VIEWS"
WHERE: Curio by AFN
WHEN: October 6th - 26th, 2012

This was the first art exhibit that I curated. I didn't know how to do it, so I had to ask Anne Faith Nicholls a lot of questions and she helped me out a lot. She came up with the concept of having it be all the artists I had interviewed up until that point. And what began as a list of something like 10 artists, blossomed into a huge list of artists to work with.

Curio by AFN was Anne's amazing art studio in Venice Beach that she sometimes hosted exhibitions in. I had interviewed her and it was truly one of my favorite galleries, just because it looked so cool inside. Rather than white walls it had dark grey and blue walls as well as one wall that was all reclaimed wood. Plus, all of their designs were incredible - I mean even the flyer for the show was super epic! Anyways, one day I was visiting and she asked me to curate a show for her.

I remember driving to all of the artists that lived in Los Angeles and picking up works from them to bring to the gallery. And when I got there, my buddy Ryan (who eventually started Intellectual Property Prints with me) helped hang the show and make sense of it all. Anne had a really good eye for details and she also helped arrange things too.

The most memorable part was the opening reception, which was so packed you could barely fit inside the gallery. I had to go outside at one point and the next thing I know, I'm hearing yelling about how someone broke a sculpture. Then the artist came out crying, but within the scope of maybe an hour or so, was in total bliss as randomly Baz Luhrmann (the film director who made Moulin Rouge) came in and bought the broken sculpture on the ground. He said he liked the story.

Another thing I thought was really cool was that the performance artist Jon Bernad brought a plastic case that was open at the top as his work. The idea was to create a time capsule of the show - so you could leave messages in it or drawings or whatever. the most memorable things inside it were that Anne left a foam heart and Gary Baseman left an original drawing. It was epic beyond belief.

Some of the artists in the show were relatively unknown at the time and only a few years later their works that sold for $200 at "Inter-Views" were now $2000. It was totally random and unknown, but EPIC! EPIC!!! EPIC!!! There was some drama behind the scenes and things got a little funky, but it didn't really matter because the end result was a spectacular show.

Artists

Joshua Petker, Ellen Schinderman, Will Deutsch, Ryan McIntosh, Mark Hanauer, Jennie Cotterill, Rebecca Manson, Jesse Hazelip, Robert Fontenot, Alex Andre, Lena Verderano Reynoso, Matt Reynoso, Isabelle Alford-Lago, Scott Belcastro, XVALA, Josh Atlas, Orson Oblowitz, Gregory Siff, America Martin, Luis Arevalo, Almighty Opp, Allie Pohl, and more