Saturday night I went to Thinkspace to help them celebrate their fifth anniversary.  Over the last five years, Thinkspace has emerged as one of Los Angeles’ premiere contemporary art galleries.  Showcasing an eclectic assortment of pop surrealism, lowbrow and urban art, Thinkspace promotes young visionaries.

Thinkspace began as a co-venture between Andrew Hosner and Shawn Vezinaw of Sour Harvest (a Los Angeles-centric art blog) and L.Croskey of Cannibal Flower (a pop-up gallery project).  Previously situated in Silver Lake, Thinkspace moved to its third and current location in Culver City about a year and a half ago.

Fittingly, the Five Year Anniversary Show features an all-star roster of forty eight distinguished artists, many of whom got their start at Thinkspace.  With so many different artists each using their own mediums, the show does not have a unifying tone.  But it was exciting to see new pieces from artists I admire including Kukula, Stella Im Hultberg and Sylvia Ji, and also to discover some new artists to check out including Anthony Clarkson and Sarah Joncas.

The gallery was packed with a diverse crowd. I was surprised to see several children present (real children, not just the ones skipping around a skeletal maypole in the painting below).

At least half the art on display depicted women.  Its interesting to contrast the various ways contemporary artists portray the female form.  Some  (like Spotless by Aaron Nagel and Fight Club by Brian Viveros) are highly sexual and provocative, while others (like Peppermint by Esao Andrews and Soul Purple by Yosuke Ueno) create a surreal child-woman hybrid.  In contrast, only about four works showed a dominant human male form.  I wonder why depictions of men seem out of favor while we’re surrounded by depictions of women.

Congratulations Thinkspace on reaching your five year milestone.  May you continue to push the envelope with edgy new artists.  The Five Year Anniversary Show runs through November 27.  For more information or to preview the rest of the work in the show, click here.  To read snapshot interviews with featured artists, visit Sour Harvest blog.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 8th, 2010 at 9:26 pm and is filed under Around Los Angeles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.