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You have probably heard us mention Known Gallery and The Seventh Letter quite a bit in the past years. To some, these monikers may have deep-rooted meaning, but to others, they could hold no significance. We sat down with Casey, who runs Known Gallery and has roots in The Seventh Letter crew, to lay down solid facts for us. After all, these guys have definitely earned the respect.

Katie Zuppann: If I'm not mistaken, Known Gallery started off as a venue for Seventh Letter artists to show of their work-both on the streets and on canvas. Why did you organize the group as Known Gallery?

Casey for Known Gallery: You are correct. Known Gallery was started to showcase our friends and family which turns out to be mostly The Seventh Letter artists and our associates, much like The Seventh Letter is made up of mostly AWR and MSK members. This doesn't mean we only work with crew members, it just means we know a lot of people through graffiti and our roots in street culture. We originally didn't want to display graffiti but only gallery works, but that didn't last very long.

The name KNOWN came from KNOWN SURVIVOR, which came from this track I was listening to that reminded me of my father who fought in the Hungarian revolution in 1956 and lived to talk about it. I know that's kind of deep but that's where the name comes from to be honest. Almost everything I do starts with a crazy thought that is usually sparked by a music track or something. I've always liked the word KNOWN, like in: known affiliate, known graffiti writer, also known as, etc. so I had to do something with it. The name was also really appealing because I felt it was our way to be KNOWN NOW or NOW KNOWN.

Known Gallery has grown from a daily blog into a full-fledged website and movement. Describe Known Gallery's progression.

In the beginning we never planned to be a daily blog, but the site wasn't completely ready when we went on tour to Japan and Taiwan with the LETTERS FIRST art show. We wanted to share our experiences with our supporters so we launched the blog and people really liked it so we decided to continue.  When we got home we finished the site with the artist profiles and began to represent artists, curate more shows and with the success of Letters First and help from The Seventh Letter, it all fell into place.

To what do you contribute the success of Known Gallery?

All the amazing artists that are involved, all the great shows we've curated, The Seventh Letter crew, our street credit and our supporters. The list goes on…

www.knowngallery.com

 

Part II of this interview is online here.