It's impressive for ANY business to last 15 years, but the art world is even more impressive. The trends, the market, the ebbs and flows of how much social media has changed the way we view and buy art, are all things that have to be taken into account. Think about the last 15 years: stock market crash, Instagram's emergence as the predominant communication tool, Obama, Trump... it's the shit even Hollywood (or Orwell) could come up with. And that is what makes Thinkspace Projects, one of the most enduring galleries of outsider and emerging contemporary art, such a fantastic story. From gallery shows in Culver City to curating and supporting museum shows around the world for a new generation of artists, their influence is remarkable. On January 11th, the gallery celebrates its 15th year with a special group show featuring 70+ artists creating works on custom 15 × 15” panels. —Juxtapoz

Founded back in 2005, Thinkspace Projects has garnered an international reputation as one of the most active and productive proponents in the New Contemporary Art Movement. Maintaining its founding commitment to the promotion of its artists, Thinkspace has steadily expanded its roster and diversified its projects, creating collaborative and institutional opportunities all over the world. Founded in the spirit of forging recognition for young and lesser-known talents, the gallery now hosts artists from all over the world, ranging from the emerging, mid-career, and established.

ADOR Tame or Wild 2019 acrylic on wood 46x46cm
AdorTame or Wild, 2019.

15 Years of Thinkspace marks their 463rd show to date, and features work from 70 of our family members from around the globe. Each work is created on custom 15-inch wood panels with a built-in floater frame made and provided by Trekell Art Supplies, a leading champion of the New Contemporary Art Movement in Southern California.

Similar to its earlier 20th Century counterparts such as Surrealism, Dada and Fauvism, the New Contemporary Art Movement ultimately materialized in search of new forms, content, and expressions that cited rather than disavowed the individual and the social. The earliest incarnations of the Movement, refusing the paradigmatic disinterest of “Art” as an inaccessible garrison of ‘high culture’, championed figuration, surrealism, representation, pop culture, and the subcultural.

Yosuke Ueno
Yosuke Ueno

By incorporating the ‘lowbrow,’ accessible and even profane, an exciting and irreverent art movement grew in defiance of the mandated renunciations of “high” art. Emerging on the West Coast in the ’90s partly as a response to the rabid ‘conceptual-turn’ then championed on the East Coasts, the Movement steadily created its own platforms, publications, and spaces for the dissemination of its imagery and ideas.

The New Contemporary Art Movement remains largely unacknowledged by vetted institutions of the fine art world and other arbiters of ‘high culture', though the future promises a shift. The Movement’s formative aversion to the establishment is also waning in the wake of its increased visibility, institutional presence, and widespread popularity.

Laura Berger Diamond with frame
Laura BergerDiamond.

Seeking to champion and promote the breadth of the Movement, Thinkspaces creates new opportunities for the presentation of its artists and work. Though still invested in the elevation and exposure of its emerging talents, the gallery, now in its thirteenth year, has come into its own with a roster that reflects this maturity. An active advocate for what is now one of the longest extant organized art movement’s in history, Thinkspace is an established voice for its continued growth and evolution.

And they're just getting started.

15 Years of Thinkspace opens Saturday, January 11, 2020, with an opening reception from 6 to 9 pm, and is on view through January 25, 2020. See the full roster below.
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