In a city as sprawling, splintered, competitive and oftentimes numbing as Los Angeles, it was a bonafied rarity to come across a gallery (or any venue for that matter) as inclusive and supportive as THIS. There was a palpable sense of comradery and community that flowed thru it.
Justin Van Hoy, who was one of the original principals in the gallery, sadly passed away last year from Leukemia. In 2010, he was quoted as saying: “the thing that makes us stand out is that we aren’t art fans opening a gallery — we are artists opening a gallery space.” That simple but powerful fact clearly underlied their day to day: artists supporting artists. (Consider making a donation to the Lukemia & Lymphoma Society in the name of Justin Van Hoy.)
There was an energy and vibe surrounding THIS that becomes hard to articulate. A refreshing lack of pretension and pretense in a city that can be easily overcome by such nonsense.
THIS was a special moment in time.
Pure in it’s unspoken mission statement.
Yes, THIS will be missed…
The Poetry of Living asked gallery owners Claire Weiss, Jeremy Weiss & Aaron Farley (pictured below: L to R) a few questions about the beginnings of THIS, it’s history and philosophy. We thank them for their time.
[The gallery’s final show “These Friends 4” closed on May 25, 2013.]
Who were the original founders of THIS?
Aaron:
Justin Van Hoy, Dan Monick, Jeremy Weiss, Claire Weiss, Aaron Farley. Luis Farfan was a member for a couple years, but started a couple months after we opened. Will Copeland was our intern at the beginning but really became a staple at the space and helped out whenever we needed him.
Where did the idea originate to start the gallery?
Jeremy & Claire:
Claire and I were in Australia speaking at a conference called Semi-Permanent when we got an email from Lucy (Goodwin) at Monster Children magazine asking to do a story on our Polaroid Project. We responded saying we were in Australia but in Melbourne. They said if we flew up to Sydney they’d show us around so we did and got completely inspired by what they were doing. They had a magazine, freelance careers, a gallery and kids. It made us want to do something bigger than just be picture takers. When we got home, I IM’d Justin saying we were looking for a communal office space with some other friends and if we found a store front would he be interested in starting a gallery in the front part. Hope Gallery in Echo Park had just closed and we always liked what they were doing. He was down and I knew Aaron would be down because we do every silly idea together. Justin and I were talking and he suggested Dan would make a good addition as well so we found a store front right by Justin’s old house on Figueroa St. between a Halloween pop up shop and a shoe repair store. None of us ever had dreams of doing a gallery, it was just something we did on a whim and figured it out as we went along.
Is there any particular significance behind the gallery’s name?
Jeremy & Claire:
We were all sitting around and I think Aaron threw “THIS” out there and we all said yes right away.
How daunting of an undertaking was it to get things off the ground initially…and to sustain it for as long as your doors were open?
RVCA (pronounced: roo-kuh) is a clothing company based in Costa Mesa, CA. RVCA was founded by PM Tenore and professional surfer Conan Hayes.
Aaron:
If we didn’t have help from RVCA we wouldn’t have been able to sustain. We would have made it about 6 months. Getting it off the ground really wasn’t too hard because we weren’t worried about it, so we just asked all our friends or people who we knew who did artwork. We really had no idea what it would take so we just put on shows and went for it. There were 5 or 6 of us at any time to help out so we all kind of fell into different roles, it just worked out pretty naturally. It wasn’t until later we realized we should probably get some help with the books and accounting and all that. We also had our friend Victor (Saldana) helping out for a while and Katia got us organized.
Jeremy & Claire:
I don’t feel like the initial undertaking was that hard. We were all chipping in to pay rent for the first 4 months until we had our first show. Our buddy Josh helped us build a wall and Jeff Electric put in some lights and we were ready. Surprisingly the walls all had plywood behind the drywall so we lucked out on that. We had bought a bunch of crazy anchors before we hung the “These Friends 1” show and didn’t end up needing any of them.
To sustain it is a different story. We knew going into it that most of the ideas we had for shows would generate no income and any money we made was spent on shipping pretty much. It was all of our very, very part time gig and we couldn’t afford to hire anyone so we all just did what we could when we could. Without Justin’s relationship with RVCA and all the support they gave us we wouldn’t have lasted a year.
It’s poignant that the gallery started AND ended with a “THESE FRIENDS” event. They were certainly symbolic moments in the gallery’s history and seemed to beautifully sum up much of the ethos behind THIS…insofar as there is a large extended family of artists coming together and supporting one another. What did these particular group shows represent to you guys personally?
GROUP SHOWS:
“These Friends”
Opening: Feb. 12, 2010
“These Friends 2”
Opening: Feb. 4, 2011
“These Friends 3”
Opening: Feb. 24, 2012
“These Friends 4”
Opening: April 26, 2013
Jeremy & Claire:
It’s really just an excuse to bring all our friends together and try to make some new ones. It’s an easy way to reach out to someone you respect and ask them if they want to be a part of something.
Aaron:
To me they were really a chance to meet new people and stay in touch with old friends and see what they’re up to. It was like a Birthday, opening all those packages and seeing everything coming through the doors. It’s so fun when all these really talented people trust you with your work and just want to be a part of the show. The first show was the only idea we really had honestly. Before we started we said we should all put together a list of people who we each know who make art and figure out shows from there. When we put our lists together it was 75 people and we figured knowing that many people, we would kind of be dicks if we didn’t at least try it. So we asked everyone to submit one piece in a white frame, because we wanted it to still seem like a curated show…and the white frames is really what makes it look different than other group shows.
Over the years, you also featured musicians at the gallery from time to time. Did you all have a hand in bringing in bands?
Jeremy:
Aaron and I had a little internet/pirate radio show we did together for 10 years so we knew a lot of great musicians and a lot that played acoustically because that’s how they would play on our show. When we first built the wall we realized how great it sounded in there so Aaron started filming musicians playing a one take song in the gallery space.
When we first got the keys to the place 4 months before our first show we wanted to do a lot of different things in there and release it out into the world and keep it anonymous. This way no one would be like, “oh, another gallery”. We wanted people to realize right away we always wanted it to be more than just another gallery.
Aaron:
Nobody knew what the space was, so the video links started getting passed around and people starting wondering what was going on. But also, we had a Peter Bjorn and John event there, and some other people came in and played…we were always open to anyone doing something positive and creative in the space.
It’s cool to look back at a lot of those because they all played in front of the same wall, but the art is different behind them. It was pretty fun.
Can you talk a bit about the sponsor relationships you’ve had (RVCA, Incase, etc)? What was their involvement and how might they have helped to keep things afloat?
Aaron:
We couldn’t have done it without RVCA, and that was really Justin’s doing at the beginning, he set that meeting up. We put together a proposal and went down to their offices and met with Casey (Holland) and Pat (Tenore) and everyone else, and they basically heard us out and just said yes right there. Ultimate support right from the beginning. They didn’t want anything in return other than a sticker in the window and us putting on great shows that we believed in. They also made all of our t-shirts which gave the artists a different outlet to design their own shirt for their show. It was really cool…and we see them everywhere now. We had 100 shirts made for each show and probably 35 shows? So there are 3,500 THIS shirts out there.
Incase Designs is a manufacturer of iPod, MacBook, iPhone, iPad, and guitar cases. Founded in 1997 by four longtime friends. Incase created the first iPod case for Apple Inc.
With Incase, Luis had the idea of doing a canvas record bag for each show that we could give away. He got together with our good friend Arlie (Carstens) who was working at Incase and they figured it out. So yeah, there are also 3,000 or so bags out there too.
Incase also sponsored our THIS Visits program which was us filming artists’ visits. They helped out a ton and were always really supportive of everything we did.
How did each of you divide duties in the general day to day management of THIS?
Jeremy & Claire:
Whoever wasn’t completely busy with their other things usually took charge. Justin was always the designer of everything there. Claire and I did a lot of the day-to-day stuff there at first (not very well) only because our office was in the back so we were there a lot. But towards the end we definitely had the least involvement just because of getting busy with photo work. I don’t completely understand how we made it work but it was always fun and rewarding when we did.
Would any of you have a desire to take something like this on again in the future in some capacity (or maybe one-off events)?
Aaron:
Maybe, I don’t want to think of it too much. THIS worked because we just showed what we liked. But that doesn’t really pay the bills so to go any further it would have to be a full time thing, and none of us are art dealers.
Jeremy & Claire:
We would like to do some one off events for sure. I love showcasing people’s work and bringing a whole lotta folks together. I would love for something like THIS to take over the space that we could help with from time to time but we’ll see. Definitely some “THIS Presents” things every once in awhile. Need to have the family reunions.
Do each of you have a favorite memory from these past years at the gallery?
Aaron:
It’s all a blur to me. I really loved the Tim Biskup show (“Former State” / Opening: Oct. 14, 2011), because he trusted us to do our best, even though he knew we wouldn’t sell as well as a bigger gallery
and the show “Falling Down” with Sage Vaughn and Bill McRight (Opening: Jan.18, 2013), where they hit paint filled balloons with spiked bats and beautifully covered the whole space with paint, and then they had the bats for sale.
That was really cathartic, because it was the first show after Justin had passed and it was violent and beautiful. Also there are 100 people who I know well now, who i didn’t know prior to the gallery existing, so I would have to say that’s my favorite moment.
Jeremy & Claire:
Too many honestly. I know the Kid’s show (“Kids of All Ages” / Opening: May 28, 2010) was one of my favorites.
We had a bunch of children’s book artists show original work and Vans donated a ton of shoes that some of the artists in the show painted with the kids. It was a good one. Really just seeing people’s faces all at the same time was our favorite part.
Check out The Poetry of Living’s exclusive slideshow from the hanging of “These Friends 4” + opening night (April 26, 2013).
PAPER Magazine article (Feb 2010)
Cobra Snake photos (“These Friends” opening / Feb 2010)
Shepard Fairey on Justin Van Hoy
Milk & Honey (book) by Justin Van Hoy
Photos by: Devin Sarno
Justin Van Hoy photo courtesy: Aaron Farley
Peter Bjorn and John photo courtesy: Jeremy & Claire Weiss Photography / Day19
T-shirt photo courtesy: THIS Los Angeles
“Former State” photo courtesy: THIS Los Angeles
