Thank you, Roland!

I had the best time last night at Roland Tamayo's opening reception. It's an amazing show and I want to thank everyone who came out. We had a HUGE turnout! It was packed!



I want to give a big thank you to Roland, his wife Joy and their family. I have never seen a more supportive family in my entire life. It was really incredible, Roland had friends and family fly in from across the country. Some came all the way from Florida!

Roland's first solo show was a huge success and I'm so happy we were able to a part of it! I cannot say enough nice things about him and I LOVE his work. I now own three Tamayo pieces, this being the new addition to my collection...



I haven't bought a piece in a very long time, so I'm really excited to bring this one home!

Again, a huge thank you to Roland and his wonderful family for making last night a blast!

Now I get to start working on these puppies...



Yep! We're making a new Scott Campbell set! Not quite ready yet, but soon... Hooray!

Katie
G1988 SF

Roland's Human Nature

We had a busy day today setting up the new Roland Tamayo solo show...


Roland and his wife Joy drove all the way from LA to SF this morning at 8AM after only sleeping for 3 hours! Although they were both probably delirious from lack of sleep, they did an amazing job installing the show!


Meanwhile, Irma worked on the Progress Tree prints. You can see the proofs sitting behind her desk. They look awesome by the way!


Roland seemed very happy with the end product. The show looks great.

This is his first solo show and Roland created 40 pieces! That's a huge show! We are so excited.

The artwork is now available for sale, so check it out by CLICKING HERE!

And just so you know, all the drawings in this show are on wood panel. Awesome.

The show opens tomorrow night! Hope to see there!

Katie
G1988

I mean, seriously?

DUDE!

Another gem from the upcoming Peter Gronquist show, "The Revolution Will Be Fabulous," featuring Peter's signature designer weapons. This baby would make Ash from Army of Darkness a whole lot fresher, not to mention what this could do for Leatherface...or even really just my gardener.

How do you top this?

Jensen
G1988: LA

LL's Radio

I have a new favorite thing to do. 2 AM radio interviews on Canadian airwaves is actually a ton of fun. Thanks to Peter Anthony Holder, and anyone in Edmonton or Quebec who listened. I did get to say "...you can see by the results" (which is something I try and squeeze into every interview if you didn't know), but I also said "decapitate your hand" - which made me cringe as soon as I said it. Hey, I almost did 10 minutes of informative radio, so one word mistake can fly, right? Right? Wanna check it out? Use the player below and see what made these radio stations take a little over 7 minutes off of intensive Stanley Cup Playoff coverage, eh?



Jensen
G1988: LA

No Bigger

So last night saw the debut of Real World: Hollywood on MTV which showed off some of the art they picked up for Gallery 1988 rather nicely. PlasticGod has a ton of full body and head pieces throughout the house, including a nice stretch on the way to the bathroom that was shown a ton in the premiere. The pieces look like this for those keeping score at home:



I also peeped the Peter Gronquist Power Glove near the kitchen and the Chris Lee Crazy 4 Cult poster too! Make sure to tune into the Real World, which seems to air every 15 minutes on MTV and look for the 1988 connection, as there are a lot more pieces to be seen over the course of what seems to be a rather turbulent season.

And tonight, I will be the featured guest on Canadian radio stations CJAD and CFRB talking it up about the TOYS! exhibition. Those outside of the Great North can check it out at 11:05 PM PST (too lazy to look it up for every time zone), at either www.cjad.com or www.cfrb.com. I once visited Canada in my past lifetime as part of a music project with 50 Cent (pre-uber fame). About 15 minutes into our trip, while getting settled at the hotel, 50 cent was immediately deported by dudes in suits. It was one of the weirdest experiences of my life. Besides that, I know very little about Canada. But now I know they are interested in the TOYS! exhibit, so I'm down with it. No deportation, please.

Jensen
G1988: LA

Arms Race

I can't believe the TOYS! show is already entering its last week already! The show closes here in Los Angeles on the 25th, so make sure to stop by if you can, before it's all gone! But it won't be dead...

Lucky attendees of Comic-Con will be seeing many of the vans, and related merchandise and appearances resulting from this show, as a major focal point at Mattel's Hot Wheels presence this year. But more on that down the road.

It's not all bad news as TOYS! finds itself in our previous exhibitions - it does make room for our next show, one I've been excited for since we booked it a year and a half ago.



It's a special engagement show filled wall to wall with customized weapons from Bay Area second amendment satirist Peter Gronquist. Peter takes serious weapons of death (although mostly guns, he's also messed with tanks and guillitines in the past) and puts his own spin on the firearms (now plugged and harmless replicas that is) by incorporating designer prints and ridiculous gold plating, hence creating a whole new creation. Some people might recognize these guns from visits to nearby Melrose boutique SURU, as the owner, Joe Hahn, had purchased some of Peter's first pieces a few years back and decided to include them into his store's design. Joe has told us that although the gun has a serious NOT FOR SALE sign on it at his spot, he has gotten offers that are 5 to 6 times higher than he paid for it. Joe has some day job playing records or something, so he was more into keeping his gems for prosperity. Truth is, we don't come by these much, as they usually sell out immediately upon delivery in the past, even garnering fans like Lupe Fiasco and Swizz Beats.

Peter actually sent us over some work in progress pictures that would make Ted Nugent jealous and ready to attend the opening reception, Saturday night, May 3 from 7-10 PM.





Although shiny like Lil Wayne's teeth, that last one does has the Murakami LV print, proving this show can not be missed.

And then there's always this...



Yes, he really did make a LV golf bag / gun holster for the inner Rambo in you. That's just screaming for inclusion in some Summer blockbuster.

Jensen
G1988: LA

Battle For My Affection

In staying with the G1988 memories theme (refer back to Jensen's post a few days ago), this piece has a pretty cool story too. For the second year of I Am 8-Bit (R.I.P.) back in 2006, IGN held a contest where artists could submit videogame themed work for the I Am 8-Bit show at our gallery, and the winning piece would then be featured in the show. Well, "Battle For My Affection" by Roland Tamayo was the winner by a landslide and one of my personal favorites from the entire show. I love the piece so much, that I now own it! Roland was actually a customer of our gallery and we never knew he was an artist until this contest. Since then, we've worked with Roland in a ton of shows in LA and SF and we are so excited to be hosting his very first solo show, which opens in 10 days!!! I can't believe it's already here! I feel like a proud parent cause we've been with Roland from the begining of his gallery career and I have a lot of love for him.

The reason I posted a pic of "Battle For My Affection" is because we're making prints of it for Roland's new show!

Last week, Roland sent me this photo of a few new paintings that will be in the show. These are not quite finished yet, but take a look...



The cat is not for sale.

Katie
G1988 San Francisco

GeezFour

Coming off a high from bowling a 212 in my weekly league, I couldn't have been happier to see this video posted up on the G4 website showing off our TOYS! exhibit. I do get to talk about my undying love for M.U.S.C.L.E. Men, so that was also a plus, but also learning that G4's coverage of last year's Crazy4Cult art show is up for a Webby, really was icing on the cake. Enjoy this and let's pretend I didn't admit I was in a bowling league....

CLICK HERE FOR G4 FEATURE ON TOYS!

Jensen
G1988: LA

The Difference Today

It really didn't hit me until today that the second week of April marks the 4th anniversary of Gallery 1988: Los Angeles. We opened our doors in April 2004 here on Melrose and La Brea, but seriously, it feels like a lifetime has passed. Katie recently remembered we had an OFoto account, and there we found some lost pictures from our first art show ever, "The Difference," which featured artwork from a fresh faced PlasticFucker (pre-heavenly name change, post C&D from Lego), Canadian ESM-Artificial, Nikki Van Pelt and Tofer. I'm doubting many of you were there, so here's your first look at what 2004 looked like to Gallery 1988.



This was PlasticGod's full celeb head display and I have to admit, it's still my favorite installation of all time. Not taking into consideration that Katie and I knew NOTHING of what we were doing (using 2 large nails per head, using handfuls of spackle to badly cover our tracks, etc.), I still have tremendous memories of Doug's first dive into our gallery. He was a main inspiration to open the gallery, and even though the de-install brought both me and Katie to tears (not a joke), just seeing this makes me smile.



View from Melrose and a look at 2 Nikki Van Pelt originals. Like my dad always said, "Location, location, location."



I love the two small business card holders for Katie and my "business cards." LOL. I HATE business cards. But I do LOVE that we were selling Stella Shorts DVDs before even Comedy Central caught wind.



Please notice FOUR clothing racks and the handmade jewelry. Man, you live and you learn. R.I.P. though to our green back wall.

And here are shots from the opening night party, which was packed, forcing Katie and I to look at each other and say, "Um, how did these people know we were opening?"









I love the one above for a few reasons. #1 - I have a shaved head. #2 - I'm fat thanks to newly moving my place of work near Pinks Hot Dogs. #3 - Gallery favorite Mylissa Fitzsimmons (now married with a new last name) is standing with me (she's since opened her own space in Los Feliz) and #4 - Basically our in-house DJ at the time, Adam 12, is just chilling, unknowing that the little fun band he started Justin will soon explode and finally get the revenge she's always wanted.

Anyway, trips down memory lane aside, if you walked up to Katie and I that night and said, "See you in 4 years," I'd look you dead in the eye and say, "Sure dude, if we're lucky!"

And look how lucky we ended up.

We are extremely lucky. One weird thing I noticed while looking at these pictures is that ALL of the businesses viewable from our front window have changed at least once each over the past 4 years (two of them have changed 3 times each, while the other, only once). Hell, the neighbor on our left side has changed owners three times, while our right side location has had three different occupants since 2004. We've opened a second location (which also turns 1 this month, but Katie can write her own sappy blog post if she wants), we're dead in the midst of a sponsored show with Mattel toys, about to open a whole new division to 1988 and working on events that will literally blow your mind in 2009 - and it all started with that green wall, 4 racks of clothes, hand made jewelry, noticing people spend $500 on sneakers and handbag but $10 on their wall and REALLY hard work.

And as egocentric as this post is (which is nothing really new to me), I wanted to take a small second and say, "4 years? THAT'S CRAZY!"

Jensen
G1988: LA

Video Killed the Art Star

Thanks to Keith Noordzy for finding this video:

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

A nice little diddy which ran on Yahoo! video, Revver, Dailymotion, blip.tv, Vimeo, Crackle, IFilm and other websites with cute, yet robot sounding, names. I didn't get to say "results," but I did get to use "plethora" naturally in a sentence, which is something not many people can claim daily.

Jensen
G1988: LA

One Number Off

We just got our second American Idol wrong phone number, so I'm beginning to think we have a number that's eerily close to a number affiliated with the show. This one was the from the office of the Governor of New Mexico, asking to speak with whoever is charge of contestant background checks for the show. First instinct was to say, "Me!" and just talk out of my ass, listening to whatever problem New Mexico has with somebody on the show, then telling the good Governor that we suggest she "take a bowl of poop and stick her problems, and face, into it." But we went with the nicer option, although a little lower on my instinct meter, and said they had the wrong number. I'm telling you though, next AI call, I'm going with it. You've been warned, David Cook.

CLICK HERE FOR ABC 7 COVERAGE OF THE HOT WHEELS SHOW! We're on TV more than that Head-On commercial ("Apply directly to the forehead"). Going to be a busy weekend.

Jensen
G1988: LA

Up and Early

Been at the Gallery since 8:30 AM as ABC is filming a nice little segment on the TOYS! exhibit...



Max Grundy is ready for his close-up. Look for this segment to run at 5 PM tonight on Channel 7 (unless we get bumped for breaking news like a 2 headed bird birthed in Switzerland. In that case, it would run tomorrow). I'll link it up when it's available online, as I may have been able to once again sneak the sentence, "...and you can tell by the results" into my interview (a practice I've tried to accomplish since our first coverage in 2005).

Oh, here's a long version of the news segment that's been running all week. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE VIDEO, as this is the Channel 2 CBS version. Weirdly, in LA, our Channel 2 and Channel 9 are owned by the same people, making for a weird deja vu feeling when changing the channels during the news hour.

Shout out to Jack FM, who gave us the same thing during drive time the other day for the TOYS! exhibit. I also want to thank Seth Green for jumping into the press madness on opening night and saying such nice things about the exhibit and the gallery. Good people that Seth.

So, when we do big events like this, sometimes a photographer is hired to take photos of the night and try and get them picked up the Associated Press and hence, published all over the Internet. And they'll take a bajillion pictures, but only about one or two will be ever seen by someone outside of the show production. So I usually get a disc of all the pictures a day or two later, and this disc is always dependable for a dozen or so laughs, and this one is no different. Here we go...and we'll end with this show's winner, finding itself all over the web. These were all taken during the private 6-7 reception we had in the gallery for a Mattel only preview.



Greg has a serious stare down with his Hot Wheels illustration.



The Dangler HAD to smile, even if it just barely snuck in there. I mean, look at how cute that bear is. You have to grin a little. Making an angry face in front of that painting would be like meeting the person behind Hello Kitty and finding out they have a Swastika tattoo on their bicep.



Danielle Rizollo, a newcomer to 1988, not only sold her piece, but also took pictures of other artists' pieces in order to print them on her home Epson and sell them through Photobucket. I kid. She uses Flickr.

Since in my prior life I found myself on a stage a lot, I know that I usually look like a total moron with a microphone in my hand. While talking (or performing) I make faces that would make Peter North jealous. I'm like the John Mayer of gallery owners. Take these examples, as we had a small little presentation for the employees and VIPs of Mattel and our partner charity CAAF.







I mean, really? I look AWFUL.

I also had to introduce Greg Simkins, who did the whole dog and pony show for the press and such. He did a great job, as I know being put on the spot like that isn't exactly what you sign up for when you decide to start showing in galleries.



Here's a better picture of the real size Hot Wheel that was parked outside during the exhibit.



And then the photo guy makes you take a lot of posed pictures, pretending they are candid, which is always good for a laugh. Usually, during these shots, everyone involved is saying, "Man, this is awkward" and laughing, but to anyone looking at the photo on the web, it looks like someone either just told a joke or watched an elderly person fall.









Those are all mixes of me, Greg, the execs at Hot Wheels/Mattel and our representative from CAAF. Here's our 3rd grade class photo.



And as if they didn't get enough attention this week (I mean, it was the dude's first gallery showing EVER and now he has a commission waiting list)...The Browns.



Mark celebrated his first (and second) gallery sale ever and this dude has a future brighter than Ryan Seacrest's teeth.

Even artists got into the staged photo ops. Jeff McMillan and Greg Simkins present: "Amazement."



Which brings us to the TOYS! winner. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the winner, a picture now picked up my numerous sources and plastered throughout the WWW: Jeff McMillan asking you to touch his car.



Don't believe me? Check this out:

Breitbart

AN ARGENTINIAN NEWSWIRE!!!!

A JAPANESE NEWS SITE!

I mean, and that's three I found with a quick search. Congrats, Jeff, you're our Associated Press darling and we couldn't be happier.

On top of that, thanks to Hypebeast for the post, as well as GermanCarScene.com, Clutter Magazine, 4Kidsnus.com, German Welt Online, MetroMix, GoingLosAngeles.com, Flavor Pill, La2Day, The Guide at LA Times, LAist, All About Duncan, DUB, Thrillist and Vinyl Pulse for their coverage.

And there's still more to come. I'm looking at you, Wolf Blitzer.

Jensen
G1988: LA

STELLA PRINTS - SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT

Alright my friends, here's what we have...



Mini Print Set (includes Always…, Bruised, November, and Nowhere Near)
Giclee prints on Sommerset Velvet Fine Art Paper
4 prints, 4 x 5 inches each
Limited edition of 500
10% of the sets contain a fifth hidden chase print
5% of the sets contain a hidden Stella Im Hultberg original drawing
$80.00




Lovely Day Print
giclee print on Sommerset Velvet Fine Art Paper
16 x 20 inches
Limited edition of 150
$150.00
*up to 4 weeks for delivery for this print




Marla Print
giclee print on Sommerset Velvet Fine Art Paper
12 x 16 inches
Limited edition of 150
$150.00


Each of these prints was made in-house, right here at G1988 SF and they look awesome. (Stella even said we make the best prints! It's true!)

Oh, and in response to the rumor that all the chase and OG drawings in the mini set were passed out at the opening - that's a HUGE LIE! All the sets were packaged randomly and passed out randomly, so there's no way to know who got what. In fact, I didn't see one person at the opening with a chase print or drawing. It actually makes me mad that someone would start that rumor because we worked really hard on these sets. 500 sets x 4 prints + 50 chase prints + 25 drawings. All printed and hand-cut in the gallery (except the drawings). You do the math. Cmon guys!

Katie
G1988: SF

Good Night

And just like that it's gone.

But it's just starting for you.

CLICK HERE TO SEE OUR COVERAGE ON KCAL/CBS. It ran at 8,9 and 10 PM. This one you're gonna watch is the shorter of the three, but watch the ending where one of the news ladies outs herself as a Pee-Wee Herman fan to a lot of peoples' "Hey, this chick is weird" reactions. But check out the G1988 logo right there on one of them "news TVs!!!" (<---to be said with southern accent)

And be on the lookout for lots of other media coverage. I'll name-drop them when they air.

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE WORK FROM TOYS! (not yet updated with sales, I know). Curators, start Googling!

Now I sleep.

Jensen
G1988: LA

Engines Ready

Too busy to type...





















OK, I'm lying about the Delorean (maybe the garage and suburban home gave it away?) - but I mean would it really make a difference? You need to come tonight from 7-10 PM.

Jensen
G1988: LA