Known for its emphasis on figuration, surrealism, and pop culture, the New Contemporary Art movement has roots in the irreverent, high-energy counterculture of the ‘90s. Largely self-supported and community-driven, the movement has slowly taken shape beyond gallery walls, incorporating “lowbrow,” accessible, and socially-activated work by artists that tend to fall outside the mainstream. 

On today’s podcast episode, host and NOT REAL ART founder Scott “Sourdough” Power sits down with Andrew Hosner of Thinkspace Projects to discuss the curator’s leading role in the New Contemporary Art movement. As the co-founder, curator, and owner of Thinkspace, Andrew is an authority on all things street art and L.A. subculture. “We're blessed to know a lot of people,” he says. “We’ve got our toe in the subculture. If we’re able to help be that mouthpiece that helps expand that bandwidth for those folks and get them seen by the general public and let them live their lives through their creativity and their God-given gifts and stuff like that, that's a pretty special thing.”

For nearly 20 years now, Andrew’s discerning eye for emerging talent, commitment to community building, and passion for pushing culture forward has resulted in an exceptional roster of lesser-known, mid-career, and established artists from all over the world (as well as a close-knit circle of loyal art-lovers that keep coming back for more). “In LA, a city that's probably got [a hundred things going on on any given night], we’re pretty blessed to have [so many people in] our community that are always showing up, month after month, to support us and our artists,” Andrew says. “We try to never lose sight of that.” 

In this episode, Andrew gives us a glimpse into Thinkspace’s history, charting its unconventional trajectory from a passion project to an internationally acclaimed gallery space. Tuning in, you’ll learn how Thinkspace’s focus on collaboration and community benefits both the gallery and the artists it supports. Don’t miss our conversation with the visionary curator behind Thinkspace Projects, Andrew Hosner. 

In Today’s Podcast Episode:

Andrew Hosner discusses…

• How Thinkspace found a foothold in the up-and-coming L.A. art scene
• The history behind the gallery and their unconventional approach
• The collaborative mindset that underpins Thinkspace’s marketing strategy
• How Thinkspace’s focus on community benefits both the gallery and its artists
• The gallery’s process for working with international artists and galleries
• Art as a spiritual product that benefits your health and well-being
• The juxtaposition of gentrification and economic development through art
• Why he refers to his ever-expanding art collection as a “roadmap”
• Insight into his approach as an art dealer: “If I wouldn’t buy it, I won’t try and sell it to you.”
• Why it's better to have art on the walls than money in the bank

For more information, please visit http://notrealart.com/andrew-hosner

Warning, the Not Real Art Podcast is intended for creative audiences only. The Not Real Art Podcast celebrates creativity and creative culture worldwide. It contains material that is fresh, fun, and inspiring and is not suitable for boring old art snobs. Now, let's get started and enjoy the show.

Greetings and salutations, my creative brothers and sisters. Welcome to Not Real Art, the podcast where we talk to the world's most creative people. I am your host, faithful, trusted, loyal, tireless host, Sourdough, coming at you from Crewest Studio in Los Angeles. Man, do we have a great show for you today. The one and only Andrew Hosner from Thinkspace Gallery here in Los Angeles. If you don't know about Thinkspace, you're about to. Thinkspace is the place for New Contemporary art here in Los Angeles and actually, internationally.

I mean, these guys work all over the world and Andrew is doing some incredible work around the world and with museums and other institutions, helping them work with his incredible stable of artists and helping curate shows that really connect with people. Stay tuned, because we're going to hear from Andrew. Andrew has to be one of the nicest guys in the game, a fellow Midwesterner. I think that says a lot about why he and I get along so well.

Before we get into our conversation, I want to thank you for tuning in. We do this for you. It's all about you. If you weren't here, I'd just be talking to a microphone and that would just be weird. Really grateful that you tuned in to, I don't know, the 200 and something-something episode of Not Real Art. Thanks for being here today.

I also want to let to check out the new remote series that we're producing with Badir McCleary, some incredible storytelling there around public art in this country and around the world. Badir does an amazing job shining a light on public art around the country and the world. The first episode is about the Desert X program. The second episode is about Philadelphia and the public art there in Philly. Anyway, definitely check out the remote series from Badir. He's doing a killer job.

All right. Without further ado, we need to talk about Thinkspace. We need to talk about Andrew. I'll tell you what, as I said earlier, Andrew is one of the nicest guys in the game. He's the head curator and head of sales and marketing, co-owner of Thinkspace. I just love talking to Andrew. Just down to earth and just so passionate sweet and kind. He used to come through our old gallery, Crewest Gallery, and bought some of our artists and art back in the day when Man One, LA OG writer and artist, Man One, and my business partner had the gallery, Andrew was a loyal patron of our gallery as well.

It's just great to have Andrew back on the podcast. When I say back on, this is his inaugural appearance here. Hopefully, he'll come back on and do it again. I know I loved talking to Andrew. It was great. He's so damn busy for him to take time, being very generous to come through and sit down and talk about all the great stuff that Thinkspace is doing.

Thinkspace is, I mean, these guys are blowing up. I mean, each time they move, they double in size. Their new space is incredible, indoor/outdoor space, and their programming is off the charts. Of course, Google them, thinkspaceprojects.com to learn more. Without further ado, let's get into this. Let's get into the conversation and stop hearing me ramble. Let's get into this wonderful chat I had with the one and only Andrew Hosner from Thinkspace Gallery. Here we go.

Man, do we have a VIP in the house today. We have the one and only Andrew Hosner from Thinkspace LA. Andrew, welcome to the show.

Hey. Nice to see you.

Man, it's great to be together, man. Looks like, are you in your home office or is that the office at the new space there? Where are you at?

Well, the gallery office, which has slowly become inundated with our personal collection as well.

Absolutely. Absolutely, man. Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. It's like an addiction, right? We're addicted, man. We need help.

I mean, we don't have kids and we look at it as the one thing that it's our one extravagance. We get to travel with the gallery.

Hey, you don't have kids? You want some? I got two. I'll be happy to give them to you.

I’d say, you keep them.

I‘d tell you what, I love my kids. But boy, I hate my kids. I mean, I love my kids, but I hate – It's a very complicated dynamic, you know? By the way, before we get into this, shout out to our mutual friend, Heidi Johnson from Hijinx PR. I mean, we love our Heidi. She brought us together and hooked us up here today. This show is brought to us by Hijinx.

Oh, definitely. Hijinx family.

Yeah, exactly. One of the things I've always wanted to ask you, because of your love and your passion for art, number one, and artists, number two, you have, I think, over the years, not intentionally, but like, here you are now, right, really as a leader. I mean, you're a leader in the art world. I'm sure when you got started, that was not your agenda. That was not maybe your goal. But how does it feel then to have carved out this space of leadership for yourself and for Thinkspace?

Well, thank you for that. I definitely wouldn't consider that. Our world's a big place. I mean, we're still a small little cog in the machine, but I guess, for our niche little corner of the art world, we've definitely outlasted a lot of, I guess, the people that formed the foundation. They're gone now, the Levine’s and the [inaudible 0:07:07] and some of those folks that have screwed up for one reason or another. Then some of the other ones that were huge back in the day are not really doing too much these days and stuff.

We've continued to try to – I guess, always expand when we move and at the same time, we've been doing quite a few things over the past decade with museums, which I think is super, super important and has really helped to get our name out there that and our strong alliance with, I think, Juxtapoz and Hi-Fructose helped. Those are two magazines that are the bibles of our little bubble of the art world. We've been really good to them and been on every issue now for, I mean, each for every issue at Juxtapoz now for 17, 18 years. We've been in every issue of Hi-Fructose since, I think issue eight or nine. I would have to ask Ada to be sure.

Yeah. I mean, I remember when he was set up at a Comic-Con hawking his first issue, along with his little spiky, green guy that came out. I remember picking up both of those and going, “Oh, shit. This is super cool.” At the time, no one would ever really thought to try to go up against Juxtapoz. They came at it with a totally different vibe and a different mindset, which I think is cool.

Yeah. No, it's definitely wild to look back and think that we're coming up on 20 years and about a year in change. We're already talking about what we want to do for it and just to see how many things have changed, too, just in that world in that time and to see how much all our personal lives have changed is crazy as well. I mean, when we started, I mean, it was just a whim. I mean, we started in a place where we didn't have a lease. It was just a handshake deal of a buddy of LC’s, my partner in the space.

So much for the handshake deal.

Yeah, yeah. It went [inaudible 09:32]. It was wild. LC was like, “Oh, maybe it wasn't meant to be.” I was just like, “No, fuck that.” We scrambled and we found another spot out in Silver Lake, and the rest of this history, I guess, as they say.

The scenic route is never a straight line, right? But it's the most beautiful. We bob and weave and we deal with life's curveballs and sucker punches. One way or another, we figure out how to make lemonade out of the lemons and add vodka if we're lucky. Here we are 20 years later, celebrating all of that ingenuity and that perseverance and endurance and commitment to the love of the art.

I mean, I think that's what's so cool about your story from as I see it, anyway, it's just that you led with the passion and the love. You got into this for the love of the game, right? It wasn't like, you were like, “Oh, I'm going to be a gallerist,” right?

Yeah, we didn't have a plan. We didn't have a set program. We're not one of those galleries where you’ve got to have an installation. You’ve got to have photography. You’ve got to have, you know. I mean, there's just a lot of little rhythms to the more cookie-cutter art world, the proper art world, I guess, you could say. In recent years, we've definitely dabbled in that sector. Some of the artists that we work with have really taken off. Definitely, recently, a couple of major artists have just been snapped up by the machine of the Almine Rech’s and stuff of the world.

At the same time, you got to look at that as like, you're doing something right and people are paying attention. The more attention you get, even if it's just for one or two major artists, it still brings attention to the whole family and it trickles down. It's been wild to watch – the last three to five years has been really strong for us. I guess, we've also made some stronger moves to just on the back end of what we've been doing and stuff.

Now with the onset of the new space and the courtyard and stuff, we're really focusing on building a community here in LA, because it's something we felt we got a little bit of ways from for a while. It was what led us to build the fifth gallery, I guess, now in our courtyard, which we're lovingly calling The Doghouse Gallery, which was inspired by the work of a local graffiti artist, BREK. We opened it last month and then people were just loving it.

We've got Mr. Toledo in there coming up in June, and Cody Jimenez in July. In a whole little – Duke Monster right after that in August. We've got a good lineup of just keeping it local and taking a lot less than we do in the proper gallery and just giving some local artists the chance. By and large, with the overhead that we've got now with the two spaces and the bigger crew and stuff like that, we're unfortunately not able to do some of the things that we were able to do that, really, is what got us into it, this sheer love of giving opportunities and trying to open a door for people that might not otherwise be able to kick it open.

It's up to them after that to keep the door open and keep blazing that path. At the same time, if we're able to just give that nudge up over the fence, so to speak, or that initial creak of the door open and stuff like that, that's awesome. I mean, recently my wife has been having some crazy health issues. Not worth getting into too much, but it's one of those things that's led her to get her flowers, as they say, before she's gone.

With that, a lot of the praise is to both of us. It's just things you don't stop and think about, where you, I want to say, you take them for granted, but you don't think about it until you get these super long, paragraph-long written emails from artists that you work with for a long time, or maybe that you haven't even heard from in a decade, but they tell you how much you changed their lives and stuff. God, I’m getting emotional. No, it's amazing. That's why we do it. The last few months have been tough. But at the same time, the community has been amazing.

Well, first of all, sending good healing vibes to the missus. None of our business, what's going on, but sending love your way, brother.

It's out there in the world and we did a big cancer benefit recently. It revolved around her and stuff. If people want to know, it's on Instagram and stuff like that. But yeah, don't want to bring the vibe of the cast down too much. But overall, I mean, it's just been amazing how many people have just – it's one of those things. You don't have kids and you wonder, but then at the same time we do. We have hundreds of them in a way.

Yeah. I mean, the children you're raising AKA the artists you're raising are your children, right? The family. They're going to rally. I think that, again, right? I mean, you didn't get into this because you thought you were going to change artists' lives necessarily. But you look back 20 years and you're like, “Wow.” It turned out to be your legacy, right? That was not your intent.

No, no. It's one of those things. I mean, A, we never thought it would last this long, get this big, and at the same time, I mean, we all quit our day jobs long ago, which, I mean, when we – I mean, the first 10 years of the gallery, I was working 50, 60 hours a week still being vice president of sales and marketing for a pretty major [inaudible 14:30] label. Going to sales conventions and doing all that shit and then getting out of work at 5:00, 6:00. Rush home, work for five, six more hours.

Hang out with wife for an hour or two, blaze a little bit, go to bed. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat for 10 years. It got to the point where we were just like, “Whoo, something’s got to break.” That's when we decided to just make that next step and go for it. Yeah, we now look back, it's been the best loop I've ever done in my life, to be honest. I got to say, it's been – we're blessed to do what we do and to have the byproduct of that be helping to change other people's lives in the interim at the same time, it was pretty incredible.

Like I was saying, the people that send us on letters of support and stuff, I mean, it's just like, ones that we would have never, ever thought to be like, “Oh, yeah. We helped them,” or whatever because they're maybe only in a couple of shows, but then they just talk. They send you this little tree and you're just like, “Fuck.” It's wild.

It is wild, man. I mean, it's like, we have this little podcast and it's amazing to me. I'll hear back from guests and artists who, I mean, they're just so grateful to have had the exposure, or grateful to have a moment to share their story. It doesn't take much, right? To touch a life.

Like, come on, man. Even with you guys and Man One and everybody back in the day with Crewest, I mean, going back a decade, I mean, there's so many areas that pass through those halls that would have never ever gotten a show in LA otherwise. No, I mean, and who knows who saw them at a show that bought a piece. Then, their trees as they say, they're a little alike.

It's like the stone in the water. Just the ripple effects, right?

Yeah, yeah. The ripples. It’s wild. Yeah. Sometimes [inaudible 0:16:21]. It's a special place to be. We count our blessings every day. I mean, we live pretty simply. We got a small house. We drive old cars. We spend our money on art. It's just like, we like to keep it particular at the same time. I mean, we also buy artists young, because that's really when we can afford it. At the same time, I think that's when they need it the most.

We've also had many, many instances where we'll run into an artist at their third, fourth, fifth solo show and we bought something early on in the group show, or whatever, even before the first solo. But they'll remember us. It's like, I would say, and even with the early group shows with some of the artists that we shot. I mean, they'll just be like, “Oh, man. The time that you bought that piece, I just know what you guys collect and how important you are and this, that, and the other thing. That just uplifted me and fueled me for the next. The money helped.” You're just like, “Fuck, yeah.” It's just these little microcosms of people's lives that you don't really realize how much they sparked.

Yeah. I mean, to us, I mean, I'd rather have a bunch of art on the wall than a bunch of money sitting in the bank. I'm not worried about if it goes up in value. I mean, we've never flipped. We've never put anything to auction. Literally just bought a piece this morning from an artist that we've been chasing for a decade. I finally got a piece. It was just this quiet auction, no one was paying attention to him. It'd been 30 seconds before close and no one fought me. The last three times we've gone for it, it was just a battle with three or four other people and we got priced out every time.

It's like LC says. There are gods who are smiling on us. It might not always come back around right away, but they'll come back around. That's one of his main sayings. I got to say, it always works out for us, somehow or another. Even mid-pandemic, our landlord told us he was going to almost double our rent over in Culver City. In the middle of fucking –

What is he smoking? Like, what the fuck?

It was like, May 2020 that they told us this and they’re like, “Oh, we need to resign at least in December. It's going to go up this month.” We're like, “What?” We were like, “All right.” That spurred us to go looking. That made us move. Then a year after that, we got a – just this past year, we got the spot right next door to the new spot. Now it's like this machine more so than it's ever been. It's pretty amazing.

I mean, I drive by the space that kicked us out, it's still not been rented. Congratulations, jackass. This was at the same time, thank you. Because we were happy there. We were content. We were a little stagnant and, in retrospect, I'm so happy that the greed pushed us out. Because now we're literally paying not much more than what we were over there before he was going to change it. We've got 10 times the amount of space and now with the new courtyard and stuff, I think we're one of the few spaces in LA that just really has something different and special.

Now with GoopMassta taking over things out there and we've got the live painter each month. When that piece gets – following the live painting event, will get auctioned off to a charity of that artist’s choosing and we give a 100% every month to that. We get the canvases pretty much donated to us from Graphaids, who we've worked with for a long time here in town. A great little local art supply store in Culver City and he's curating a little mini artist mart each month. We don't take a thing. They bring all their own tables. We give them a backend, give them some power and stuff and let them do the thing.

From what I've heard, every month so far, everyone's earning 500 bucks or more and some lots of prints and little OGs and figures and whatever the hell they're doing. We're going to have a figure artist, or a character artist come out soon. GoopMassta was doing live airbrushing on t-shirts last month and killing it. Then we've got a couple of different little food things set up. The guys from Digital Debris Galleries are doing video projections all over the place. Got LC and his partner doing a little light show and live DJ action, and then an open bar. He had a marijuana vendor come out each month so far and just do little samples, little samples. People, if they're curious. It is Los Angeles after all.

Yeah, it's just been pretty awesome. It's just been really, really good vibes. Now with the Doghouse Gallery opening up, there's a whole other little aspect of, I think, just a crowd and a scene that will develop out there since we're always going to keep the artists in their local, so they can always bring out a nice little crew and have those little areas that are opening, and at the same time, help bring a lot of energy to everybody else's shows at the four other spots. It's definitely like we're seeing more and more people that are they show up between six and seven and then we should see that they're still here when we're pushing people out and we're just like, “Wow, crazy.”

I guess, if you feed people and you give them a good time, they’ll hang out. We always say that in LA, a city that's probably got, on any given night, a hundred things going on that you can check out, we’re pretty blessed to have that many people as a part of our community that are always showing up month after month to support us and our artists. We try to never lose sight of that.

Yeah. The word that comes to mind when I think about part of the reason why you guys are successful and part of the reason why you're beloved is the word is integrity, right? You guys, you have integrity. Everyone knows what you're about. Everyone knows why you're doing what you're doing. That resonates and that's compelling and they feel that, and you feel it in your bones and you want more of it, right?

I mean, it's like, yes, it's culture, but it's pure culture. I think that that resonates. People feel that truth, that honesty, that integrity, and that authenticity, right? You can't fake that shit, and people know when you're faking it. Even for us, back in the day and even today. I mean, we're in this because we love it. We don't have a fucking choice, man.

Yeah. I think, I mean, we're blessed to know a lot of people. We’ve got our toe in the subculture. If we’re able to help be that mouthpiece that helps expand that bandwidth for those folks and get them seen by the general public and let them live their lives through their creativity and their God-given gifts and stuff like that, that's a pretty special thing. No, it's pretty cool to hear that from you, to be honest. We try to be real. A lot of times, it shoots us in the foot. We burn some bridges. But a lot of times, I always joke that the bridges that I'm burning I'm not looking to drive my car across any time soon anyway. Fucking bring out the napalm. Fuck it.

There is no back. There is only forward.

[Inaudible 0:22:55].

Yeah. I mean, you got to scramble some eggs to make an omelet, or whatever the fuck that saying is. But, I mean, you came up through music, right? When you were 15, and you grew up in Philly, right?

I grew up in Michigan, actually.

Michigan. Oh, Michigan. Midwest. I'm Indiana.

I’m right in the middle of Kalamazoo. I was two hours away from Detroit and two hours away from Chicago.

Oh, my God. That's hilarious.

We were going from there to Detroit to Todd's or Harpos for the metal shows and then I'd go to Chicago too. That was with my dad for Cubs games. Those were my culture hubs, because there was nothing in Kalamazoo.

Okay. Okay. I don't know where I got Philly from. I mean, I didn't know.

I spent 10 years in Philly working at Relapse Records.

That's what it was. That's what it was.

Well, I worked there before I came up here to LA to work at Central Media Records, which I worked at for seven or eight years. Then Relapse was and still are, I mean, the leaders of just true underground death grind. Really, really underground shit. Spend a lot of my time in those early days with the Relapse doing a lot of international sales. I was always going to Europe, which really opened up my horizons, got me to see some of the best museums in the world. Just really opened up my worldview in a big, big way.

Not to mention just being exposed to some of the most amazing bands. The other night, we saw Dillinger Escape Plan. We went and saw Mastodon in a basement with eight people and signed them. I mean, just crazy shit like that. I mean, it's just good memories.

That's one thing I didn't realize you and I have is a Midwest connection, because I was born in Gary, Indiana. I grew up in Northwest Indiana. You and I were neighbors.

I'm sorry.

Yeah. Hey, man, we escaped. We escaped. We had Chicago. You had Detroit and then Chicago. I just had Chicago.

I was working at Believe in Music, which was a chain doing the night managing and buying. I started a little metal section with them. That and then I was doing community college, we got a gig at WIDR, which was the big college station at Western Michigan University, which was the proper big university in town. But I wasn't going there, but a friend of mine got me into the back door. I was on the air. I'm playing Relapse on Fridays and then they're doing a little thing at the store during the week. Matt, the old owner, his sons got out of it, but invited me to come out for an interview. I was 20, maybe, I think. Yeah, 20. I was maybe a year into my school and I was in the community college and just, I could tell I was never going to make four years of this. It was not my thing.

Exactly, right?

High school was a torture zone for me. I was just doing it because my folks were both in education, they’re like, “You have to do this. You have to be a robot.” I got this opportunity and I talked to them to let me go out. Sure enough, he offered me the gig to start his promotion division, because they were just starting to grow their year three or four. I think, maybe year five with the label, but realizing that it was more than just them and their two buddies at that point. They needed to hire somebody to deal with stores. They hired me and this radio guy and a couple of other guys. We were in the basement of a Christmas shop in Millersville, Pennsylvania about an hour outside of Philly and a total Amishville hell. Literally, foursome buggies going up and down my front window all day long with a 365-day-a-year Christmas store above us, peddling music in the basement.

I mean, just hysterical looking back on it. At the same time, it gave me, I guess, the wherewithal to do what we're doing now. A lot of people are baffled by some of the stuff we do from a marketing perspective. Just a lot of the collaborations that we've done over the years and stuff like that. I mean, it almost seems commonplace now for galleries to work with one another, but I've been interviewed many times over the years where people were baffled that we would work with another gallery.

It's funny. By no means am I saying we trail-blazed that but, I mean, I think in our little bubble of the art world, we definitely did. Because I mean, if you're friendly with somebody, why not? I mean, we'll have people that have stuff that we don't even know. Asking us to curate a show, and I'm like, no. That's obviously driven by other things and just wanting to have a good time and hang out. That's really what we're trying to do.

Yeah, the business is just an excuse to hang out.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, [inaudible 27:20] and change people's lives along the way, that's fucking dope to not have to wake up at 7:00 and punch the clock and make money for somebody else, ultimately. At least, making them a lot more than you're making for yourself is a beautiful thing. Yeah.

Yeah. It's what we do as a compulsion. I mean, I just feel – it's like, I don't have a fucking choice, you know what I mean? It's like, I guess, looking back speaking for myself and when I look back 20, 30 years, it’s like, “Oh, yeah. I totally see how I got here.” At the time, I didn't necessarily know where the fuck I was going. But there's, I couldn't wait to get there. I just didn't know where the fuck I was going.

But you've hit on a couple of things because you talk about some of the marketing stuff, some of the promotional stuff. I mean, the business acumen that you've displayed over the years, whether it was self-taught, or trial and error, or the price of an education, making mistakes along the way, we all make mistakes. That's how we learn. I mean, Thinkspace now, what, 500-plus shows, 20 years. I mean, thinking, I mean, you survived the ’08. Well, you survived all kinds of challenges, whether it was handshake deals gone wrong, or landlords trying to double their rent in the middle of a pandemic. You also survived the ’08 recession.

I mean, there have been so many things that have happened that would have taken down bigger businesses, smaller businesses, whatever. Somehow, you guys have continued to fight and survive and not just survive, but thrive. I think it's a testament to so many things, right? It's a testament, obviously, to you guys and your leadership and your creativity and your dedication and hard work. It's also, let's be frank, I mean, you've got the right thing at the right time. People love – they love your artists, they love the art that your artists put in the world. It’s like, I don't know, it's a little bit of magic, how these things come together.

100%. Yeah. I mean, those people asked how we did it and I'm just like, I can't – I mean, can't encapsulate that in an answer. At the same time, I really do believe it was [inaudible 0:29:34] in the perfect place at the perfect time. I mean, when we came on it in late 2005, I mean, the LA art scene was shifting. I mean, for a good three, four years prior to that, I mean, there was Cannibal Flower was starting to make a lot of waves downtown, as was Create:Fixate, as was Crewest, and ZERO1 in some of these spaces, and Billy back in the day and things like that.

A lot of new spaces were starting to open up. We were starting to get talked about as maybe a true contender to New York, early, early on. There were a lot of things going on. There were also a lot of artists that were coming up from those incubators that were Cannibal Flower and Create:Fixate and some of the smaller galleries downtown, just in the outskirts, that were all looking for that next step, or just not group shows, because there were quite a few places that were just doing consistent group shows, but not really that next step.

I don't know. I won't lie. I mean, we didn't know what the fuck we were doing. We put together a rough plan of about three months’ worth of shows that we thought would be pretty cool. We talked about three or four artists that we would love to do solo shows with, and we dove in. We shut down the street when we opened, so many people showed up. We were blessed. LC was already a few years into Cannibal Flower. He had a nice little patron base and actually had collectors and stuff like that. We were doing Sour Harvest, our blog at the time, which was probably about two years strong and was very well known for just exposing what was going on each week, what openings to go to, and doing interviews with artists and stuff.

Yeah. I just think that the two things together, along with the community itself and just everything just bubbling over at just a super magical time. Yeah, it was just a – you look back, I mean, you couldn't replicate it now if you wanted to. With the onset of socials and everything else, I mean, it's just, I don't know. We were also at this perfect place to be able to be that initial exposure, like pulling back the curtain, so to speak, behind the magical LA world. Then at the same time, really branching out to the New Contemporary world worldwide, which – there were a lot of people focusing on the LA contemporary, our New Contemporary folks, and pop surrealism, I guess, it was more known as back then. That was more and became more known as New Contemporary.

But back then, the pop surrealism lowbrow world was really focused on LA. At the same time, we saw that some of the most creative, amazing stuff was coming out of Asia and Europe. We started bringing a lot of those artists in and we were constantly getting asked, “Why aren't you showing more artists from LA?” It's just like, well, there are already fucking 20 galleries showing them. I don't want to share all that. At the same time, it just seems silly to bring exposure when we're doing more, I felt, than a lot of the other galleries, so why should we continue to shine something up, and then the following month, they go and do something with these other yahtzees that aren’t doing shit, but then benefit from it. I don't know, we just –

At the same time, we liked to travel. We got that bug when we were in the music industry and we were trying to figure out how we could continue to do it without just feeding the art fair machine, which we, by and large, we’ve avoided over the years, dave for here and there in Miami and a few others. We started working with some museums and like-minded galleries and getting things out there a little bit more. That has really helped us to take things out on a pretty international level. I'm excited.

Yeah. I'm reminded of at least years ago, right, we talked about America's greatest export being culture, entertainment. But even Levi's jeans, right, Levi's and Harley-Davidson, coveted around the world. I remember some dear friends of mine in Norway, they couldn't afford a Harley, but they had every Harley-Davidson bit of clothing, merch. You know, I mean, they looked like Harley writers in Oslo, but that was the connection, right?

I guess, what I'm saying is we live in California, we live in LA. For whatever reason, right, we're tapped into the scene, we're tapped into this cultural scene and people want it, man. They want it around the world. Yet, at the same time, it's also, our scene here is influenced by the international scene. I mean, I think about the influence that Japan had in the just, think about toys alone. I mean, and then now it's gone back. We were influenced by them, now they're influenced by us.

That's been wild to see for sure.

You guys, from what I understand, right, I mean, the Asian art market's really been blowing up for you guys. You have a connection there. Talk a little bit about how you guys are working across the pond.

We've happily shown artists from countries that make up Asia over the last 18 years. In recent years, we've been delving a bit more into Thailand and Indonesia and Taiwan of note, all led by one main artist that we would start working with in each market, and then they would help bring some of their friends along for the ride, so to speak. There's so many amazing creatives in that part of the world and we're just scratching the surface. I mean, literally just scratching the surface.

We did our first show in Hong Kong about 10 years ago with a gallery called Above Second, which closed a while back, but that was really, made us realize that there was definitely a fervor for the artists that we work with over there. That was a curated show of 12 artists with, I think, two pieces each. A handful of artists from Japan and then a good bit of artists from all over the rest of the world. It's sold out before the opening, just to the patrons and stuff. Then we've since done a couple of smaller shows and just recently. It's opened still now. by the time this airs, will have just closed. But we were able to partner with Woaw Gallery. Woaw is just an amazing space that I have, gosh, I think they’re up to five spaces now between Hong Kong and mainland China and they just opened a new space over in Singapore as well.

Ran by some great guys that we were lucky enough to have been introduced to by a couple of strong collector friends of ours that we've made over in Hong Kong in the past few years. We were able to get Giorgiko to do their first big solo show in Asia. It's really helped open the doors to even more opportunities over there for us that we're hoping that we can capitalize on in the coming years and talking to them about doing some more stuff soon.

We also recently did a pretty big show with Volery in Dubai. That was really successful. Talking with them, currently about doing a follow-up show with them as well, sometime in the next couple of years. Yeah, just trying to do everything we can, just to, like we were saying earlier, just create new opportunities. At the same time. keep it really exciting and interesting for us and our family as well, I guess.

I mean, not that it ever gets stagnant, but I was always brought up being told to challenge myself and stuff. I like to challenge our crew, our director, all kinds of well, and I mean, just for instance, I mean, he's been with us now for 12, 13, 14 years. I always forget. I mean, forever. I love him to death. He is an integral part of our crew and an amazing oil painter as well, and somebody that we've been lucky enough to show a good bit in recent years, and we just recently got him his first smaller museum exhibition.

Over the years, we've been blessed enough to work with the Pow!Wow! Hawaii family, which now go by World Wide Walls over in Honolulu. Every year, we're able to get like, I don’t know, it depends on Jasper's, I think, workload and how many people he's already got confirmed and stuff. But over the years, we've been able to get anywhere from three to six artists in the mix of the people that he brings over to Hawaii each spring.

This year, we were talking and he was asking me who I had in mind, I was just like, been trying to get Ken to do a mural locally for a minute with a couple of friends that are, I guess you could say mural facilitators, wall finders here in LA. It just hasn't worked out for one reason or another. At the same time, I really wanted to be able to bring over more of our crew to Hawaii this year than we normally are. I figured, well, let's see if we can get Ken a wall. Then my wife and I can come and we can bring one or two of the other guys to actually do the show, then Ken still gets to go, so Ken will usually be the one that goes because he's the long-time lead director and knows everything that's going on.

We were able to get him a great wall, man. Jasper was super stoked to do it. Unbeknownst to us, the photo was a little misleading. We thought it was a good bit smaller than it was than when we got there. See, he got to learn how to drive a lift and –

Be careful what you wish. Be careful what you wish for.

[Inaudible 0:38:32] I mean, honestly, he fucking killed it. I mean, we made a ton of new friends. Super-caused with the whole time, like he always is. He just fucking smashed it. Now, he's getting ready to do a wall here in town that we carried with our framers. That's right on the main drag of Jefferson and Rindell Ray area, and one of the more higher traffic streets in LA. That gets swapped out every six to nine months. He was actually the focus of a mural an artist did about four or five years ago there. He was so jazzed with that, because it was just this big, huge 20-foot head of Ken that he would drive by every day. It was cool. Now, he actually gets to rock a mural there on that same exact wall himself. I think that's pretty special. He's getting ready to figure that out sometime here.

Sometime, probably July or August that'll take place. Excited for that. Then next week, we've got Dulk coming into town. He's going to bless our courtyard with a huge new mural, the biggest one out there. That'll go alongside our murals that we've got out there from Sentrock and GoopMassta and folks.

Right on. Well, we're talking a lot about the pond right next to us AKA the Pacific Ocean. But from what I understand, you've got some stuff going on on the other side of the Atlantic pond. Don't you have something coming up in Amsterdam, right?

You were making me think about my geography there. I was just like, “Where is he talking about?”

I'm sorry. My wife tells me to shut up half the time. Sorry.

Oh, no, no. [inaudible 0:40:03]. I mean, honestly, I mean, I can't even look back. Even the Brand Library. Not to get off track. I won't forget where we're going, but the Brand Library show that we just did, the big RAIZ show, that was our third exhibition there. That came about, I mean, it's just funny, the lemons – I mean, some of the biggest opportunities for us happened out of fuckery. We did the big Beyond Eden events back in the day, if you remember. During the lead-up to the fifth one, we found out there was going to be a new director at the Barnsdall municipal gallery that's inside Barnsdall Park, where the Beyond Eden event happened each year.

It was like the anti-art fair because we would always bring together five or six other galleries and bring them all under one roof. After four really successful events and bringing them thousands of new people that would never get exposed to the park, let alone the gallery there, the new director decided it was time to start charging us an obscene fee for rental and was going to put it into place for this event that we had all already curated. We're all already getting ready to install in three weeks.

We ended up having the charge admission, which was the only thing we could think to offset it. Thankfully, everybody, having gone before to the previous ones was down and we made it worthwhile. We were able to cover the fee, but it was obscene to all of a sudden, get hit with this $20,000 fee out of nowhere and be like, “Bah, okay.” Anyways.

Yeah, say nothing of the fact that they could get away with that shit because you've actually done the hard work of making it cool for the last two or three years. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

Yeah. At the end of the night, I decided I was going to get on the mic because we always did little things at the beginning of the night, where we were mic’d up and we would give certain people accolades and these little trophies over the years. We did Anthony Ausgang, Robert Williams, Greg Escalante before he passed. We actually [inaudible 0:42:18]. I got on the mic and I was just like, “Hey, thank everybody for coming. Unfortunately, this is going to be the last one.” I called her out. I wanted to do some spitting, but I mean, it was childish. I'll admit. I shouldn't have called her out in front of everybody.

But at the same time, it was just like, “Hey, man. Just so no one wonders where we're at next year, this is what's up. It's bureaucracy nonsense. Love y'all. Thanks for coming.” Ended on a positive note. Tapped out. Sure enough, this woman that we worked with for a long time, Shannon Holmes came up to me and we had did some shows with her old space up North Hollywood way back in the day. Lo and behold, she was getting a new gig and was going to be the new director out of this place called the Brand Library in Glendale and wondered if maybe we wanted to basically, take the vision that was Beyond Eden, change the name a little bit and go out there. I was just like, “Okay, I’ll come on and check it out.”

Never heard of the spot. It was a cultural hidden gem for probably since the 60s out there. I had some artists that lived probably within a mile or two of the place that didn't even know it existed, because by and large, it was local call shows and our local open call shows and little pottery shows and photography calls. Just nothing that was really bringing in anybody outside of their circle of people that were already going there.

We rocked our first event there a number of years back and that was our fourth one that we just did, getting ready to go back for another one. The money that we helped raise off of that was some of the biggest fundraising things that they did and the most money they had brought in all the COVID. I mean, they were just super, super jazzed. I mean, that just was one opportunity that came out of another.

Then with the STRAAT, I mean, we worked and been really close buddies with Highland that runs Andenken Gallery, or used to run Andenken Gallery over in Amsterdam and then he moved over to Colorado and then he moved back to Amsterdam, and then he's now over in Portugal, running this amazing place called The Hideout. Just, I've always kept in touch with him. Sean and I and he's also Mando Marie's boyfriend or significant other. They’ve lived together for a number of years now. We work heavily with her. It's just a little familial-type thing.

We've also always done a lot of the scope art shows in tandem with him. He's just this super crazy bohemian guy. He’ll half the time just be camping out on the beach. He goes for a swim mid-day at the fair. Comes back soaking wet in the shorts and will just go back to work. He's just one of those real dudes, I guess. I guess, real attracts real and we've just always been buds and he's just a crack-up. We've done some shows, smaller shows with him over the years. Then lo and behold, he hit me up and he's just like, “Yo, man. I just got a gig, being the director at The STRAAT.” I'm like, “Holy shit.” I'm like, “No fucking way. We should do something.” Just like, and we were like, “Fuck, yeah.”

We're doing a cool group show with a focus on two big Netherlands-based artists that have yet to get into The STRAAT. They've worked for Boboni and to meet that they just hadn't been able to get the stars to align to get Super A and Collin van der Sluijs in there. I was just like, I'm good buddies with both of them, and they're best friends, so let me see if I can figure it out. Yeah, so that's coming up this June. Since I was just there in September, we're sending over Halo Pig, my right-hand man here, who's been with us for about a year and a half now, but has been working and part of the family for probably about a good 10 years.

He got out of the old weed industry that he was in for a number of years with everything falling apart on that side of things and then has been integral here. Super, super excited to have him on the team. Just had him go over to Hawaii before Sean and I flew in and install the show and do everything on his own. He's going to be doing the same thing for this one, just because we just really want to push the skill sets. I mean, sometimes people don't think they can do it until they do it, but when they realize they can do it, it's a whole another level of confidence –

Yeah. Sometimes we just got to push them, right? It’s like, you don’t.

Yeah, why not? Totally. Totally. Ken and Dan know full well that when we decide to tap out in the next 10 or 15 years, or whatever, maybe sooner, if life throws more curve balls, or whatever, or whatnot, I mean it's even set up officially now with paperwork and everything in a trust. But, I mean, we want them to continue Thinkspace on, hopefully. They both love the vision. They both have our same tastes, and more importantly, they've got the vibe. Like I said, like you were saying, it's just, I don’t know, yeah. I mean, we're hoping that it can continue on for a wee bit after we're able to keep pushing them up the hill, fingers crossed.

Well, and that's with the track record and the history and the legacy and the heritage of 20 years to look back on, I mean, it's sometimes to look forward – sometimes, to understand where you got to go, you got to look backwards, and it's like, where do we come from? It's like, “Oh, okay. Yeah, this is the way.” Then to have those people around you that truly understand it, get it, respect it. It's like a marriage, that chemistry. That it's a family, it's a family matter, right? The family can take it and run with it.

So much of what you're getting at, like what I love about all these stories you were just going through, it's like, the power of art as an economic development tool, I mean, it goes without saying, but I mean, we all know this, but it's like, it feels like, everything you guys have touched on a certain level has created economic opportunity for artists, for the communities, for the local businesses of that community, the hardware store, the Uber driver, the whatever. That's, I think the power of art and artists.

We don't think of it in economic terms, because we're artists and we're creative people, we're creating art and what have you, but we're also creating value and we're creating economic upside for these communities.

That’s something I never even thought of – I mean, that's why, I mean, yeah, that's crazy. But no, I mean, especially something like, I mean, just to have been involved with Pow!Wow! for the last decade and to watch that grow each year exponentially in each market that it's been and not just Hawaii, but Long Beach and others. It's crazy, because, I mean, the first year, we'll have the true art lovers wandering around, and then the next year, you see the next town over’s art lovers start coming around, and then the third year, the strollers start coming out and then the fourth year, we have the strollers with the grandmas with the umbrellas start coming out. Then all of a sudden, it's – yeah, it's wild.

Then all of a sudden, everyone's got five, 10 people across the street set up behind – set up underneath a little blue tent jams with coolers just watching them paint all week long. It's, oh shit. Pow!Wow! is going to be a Pow!Wow! week. Not to mention, then all those people, yeah, you're right, all those people that are known to every local shop, every local bar, yeah, it's wild.

Unfortunately, sometimes that bites you the ass in terms of just gentrification. I mean, it's happened recently in Hawaii, that whole Kakaʻako area is now getting leveled for high rises soon, but at the same time, I mean, going back to the curveball lemonade scenarios we're talking about earlier, Jasper decided that it was time to give back more to the community, instead of the – even though we were, I feel strongly, even though we've beautified it too much, so to speak, and then too desirable, and all of a sudden, developers were, “Wow.” That's the way of the land, unfortunately. That's just where evil led us to.

Yeah. That's Darwinian. I mean, that's Darwinian. I mean, that's just the nature of nature, right? The nature of – I'm not saying it's not a good thing or a bad thing, it's just a real thing. Sometimes it's a bad thing. Sometimes it's a good thing, but it's certainly a real thing. You think about Wynwood. I mean, Wynwood alone, I mean it's like, that place was a war zone 20 years ago, and then old man Goldman had the vision. He’s like, “You know what? I'm going to start putting art down here.” He knew. He knew what was going to happen.

Now, it's fucking about to open a world-class music venue in the middle of it all, and all this crazy shit. I mean, some of the stuff that's happened right now down there's crazy. But over in Hawaii, Jasper was like, “Screw it.” He was always, I think, impressed with what Warren Brand did over here with the schools. I think he took a little bit of influence from that, and he was able to go to this place called the Palama Settlement, which is over in the middle of the island. It's just a general community center that's tied in with three elementary schools that all also hosted murals as well. A community that's just pretty much by and large Asian immigrants that are pushed aside by a lot of the locals and local government.

Just this huge expanse of courtyards and even just, I mean, throughout the week, older folks would be doing yoga and Tai Chi type stuff in the morning, and kids’ swimming classes in the afternoon. Then once school let out, it’s basically like a boys and girls club in the grand scheme of things. But just everything just drab, tan, and blah. Just drenched with rust stains and shit like that. Just every other school, courtyards all the same stuff, and Jasper put together 70-plus artists, like 40 international, or 30 international, 40 local, and 60-something new murals over the course of eight days.

I mean, walking around there now, and the kids took part in just about every mural too, which is pretty special. They were learning how to do fills, and some of them were a little bit more advanced, and being set off on other projects and stuff like that. I mean, and now it's amazing to walk around. I can't imagine what that's going to do for their aspirations, not to mention just mental state. Just the general, I think, just thoughts of the community itself, from the people that drive all it and drive through it every day, now they're actually going to slow down, and check it out.

When you drive through the main Hawaii highway there, going into Waikiki, you go through that area, and it was just always drabness. Now, it's just nothing but murals on both sides of the highway. We were first driving in, we got in a couple of days later, like I had mentioned Daniel got in earlier, he got up there earlier and was doing everything. Slick especially was already well into his mural, which was right on the outside of the main coliseum area of one of the schools. Just epic to see when you're driving along the highway. I mean, just a game-changer. I mean, and he's already got plans for another school for next year, it sounds like. No, it was pretty special.

Well, that story alone is a reminder of why I often like to say that art, at the end of the day, art, well it's magic, but it's soul food, you know what I mean? It's a spiritual product. It's a health and wellness product. Yes, you can get into – go down the rabbit hole of collecting and whatever. I often joked that collecting art for economic reasons is a horrible decision because art is a horrible investment. Economically, it's horrible. But it's such an important investment into your spiritual health and well-being, right?

Yeah, appreciation is great. But, I mean, I always tell people to buy it. I mean, you got to love it to buy it.

You got to love it.

You want to have it on your walls. Personally, I love dealing with people that have kids and are planning to pass it down to them. Yeah. I mean, the people that flip after two or three years, I mean, it's part of the machine, I get it. We deal with some people that whenever they flip, they're always buying something else. I mean, they're not necessarily flipping for the fattening of the bank account. That too, I get. But I don't know. We just come from a mindset, I mean, my mom and dad, were big – or are big antique collectors. Our house, their house, I should say, still is floor-to-ceiling filled with shit. I just grew up with that around us.

When I had my own room, it was floor-to-ceiling KISS posters. When I finally got my first apartment, it was floor-to-ceiling beer mirrors and stupid shit. Then it transitioned to Dali and Mucha framed prints and this, that, and the other thing. Now, it's just like, I mean, you saw my one wall in my office, our entire house looks like that. Every time we buy a piece, now it’s Sophie's choice. Something's got to come down. We probably got just about as much in storage as we do up. But at the same time, I mean, we don't want to get rid of it, because we look, like we were saying, it's our legacy, and we feel it shows our – it's like our roadmap, and it shows our growth as a collector.

I mean, if anyone ever really wants to curate a special Herb and Dorothy-type exhibit about Shawn and I's crazy 30-year ride or whatever in the art world, I think it'll show a really cool arc of how our tastes change. At the same time styles change and things like that. I think you can almost map along with it the growth and the curatorial rhythm that Thinkspace has followed with our buying habits.

I mean, we're strictly – if I'm not going to buy it, I'm not going to try to sell it to you. I've always been that like, because people have been like, “Why don't you show so and so? You can kill with that show?” It's just like, I don't like that art. I mean, nothing against so and so. That’s what makes art great, is there's something for everybody, but I'm not going to just show something because I know I can sell it. I mean, if I did that, we'd probably be driving Maseratis and have a lot bigger house right now. But with that said, we don't really care about either of those things. We knew we would just have a lot of five-by-seven paintings, five-by-seven-foot paintings instead of 16-by-20 paintings or something. But not. I mean, I don't know. I mean, there's just a joy and a reward to working with artists that are a little bit more on the come up.

Indeed. I so appreciate your shout-out to Herb and Dorothy, because I was going to say a minute ago, it's like, you guys are the modern reincarnation of Herb and Dorothy Vogel, who are just – I always love their story and tell people to watch their documentary, because it's –

Oh, all the time.

I mean, that's all you need to know. Just the love of the game, going out, and of course, you guys, my wife, you and your lady, I mean, you share that addiction, that passion. Herb and Dorothy shared that passion. Maybe it's a good thing my wife doesn't share the addiction because maybe it saves money or something, I don't know, because I can't get enough. She's like, “Stop. Stop.” I'm like, “No, I can't.”

No, Shawn is definitely the yang to LC and I’s yin because we'll just spend and go crazy. We're the dreamers, and she's the more realistic one. Even with our collecting, it's by and large been, she's always made sure the bills are paid, and I'm always buying the art. But at the same time, she tells me when the brakes need to go on and behave for a little bit and let things catch up or whatever. Yeah, it's been a nice rhythm over the years.

I mean, I got to say, I mean, for two folks that live a pretty simple life and never went to art school, or had a five-year plan, so to speak, when we opened the gallery, or anything of that nature, it's cool to see what we've built in terms of our own personal collection. It's special. I mean, like I said, at least we get to leave something that we'll have our name under it somewhere for hopefully, a long time to come. Make people remember us when they walk by, so to speak.

A 100%. I mean you guys, our culture tends to be quite reductive and one-dimensional around these notions of wealth and what it means to be rich. I mean, in my view, some people are so poor, all they have is money. The idea of being rich and having wealth is so much more than about money. The fact that you guys have created such a fulfilling, meaningful life for yourself, that is, by any measure, rich with love and passion and friends and family and art and color and shape and form. Then the way that allows you to feel like the life you're leading matters and is making a difference, I mean, how lucky are we to be able to, at night, lay our heads down and go like, “You know what? I'm using my time and I'm trying to make a difference.” It's not just good for us, but it's good for the world, it's good for artists and we're lucky SOBs, Andrew. Very lucky.

Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed.

Well, man. I'm a lucky SOB because you took time out of your busy day to come and chop it up with me, man. Thank you so much.

Well, thanks for having me on. It was a good chat.

Well, I’d tell you what, please come back. You're always welcome. Open door policy. Any artist, any show you want to have them come on, just say the word. Then one of these days, we'll figure out when to break bread together. We'll go out and have some food and some drink. How's that?

That would be nice, man. Come on out to the Dog House if you have a chance next week.

I will. I will for sure.

All four of us are going to be here, which is a rarity. Toyameg from Japan is going to be here, Charlie Immer, who is a local. Badass is going to be here. Dulk is coming in from Spain and [inaudible 1:00:05] from Chicago. [Inaudible 1:00:07] is a local and he'll be in the courtyard. Mr. B. Baby is painting live. It's going to be nasty.

Right on. Right on. All right, my friend, Andrew Hosner from Thinkspace Galleries, thank you for coming on. Before we go, tell our listeners where they can find you guys online.

On Instagram, we're @thinkspace_art, and thinkspaceprojects.com on the old world wide web. _ThinkspaceArt on Facebook.

You heard it, people. Go look them up. Thanks, Andrew.

Thanks, everybody.

Thanks for listening to the Not Real Art Podcast. Please make sure to like this episode, write a review, and share it with your friends on social. Also, remember to subscribe, so you get all of our new episodes. Not Real Art is produced by Crewest Studios in Los Angeles. Our theme music was created by Ricky Pageot and Dessy Di Lauro from the band Parlor Social. Not Real Art is created by We Edit Podcasts and hosted by Captivate. Thanks again for listening to Not Real Art. We'll be back soon with another inspiring episode, celebrating creative culture and the artists who make it.