Tag: Press

Mr. Wash Fundraising Initiative Featured on NBC News

HVW8 L.A. is currently showing Fulton Leroy “Mr. Wash’s” Washington’s fundraising exhibition “Bridging the Way” which is helping to fund the building of his new studio and community center in Compton, CA. NBC News reports:

“Fulton Leroy Washington, who goes by Mr. Wash, knows a thing or two about getting a second chance in life even in the midst of hopelessness and isolation.

Before President Barack Obama commuted his sentence in 2016, Mr. Wash was behind bars for more than two decades. While serving a life sentence after being wrongfully convicted of nonviolent drug offenses in the 1970s, he taught himself how to draw and paint.

“I brought eight brushes and a couple of paint tubes and started practicing. And here we are now,” the Compton native recalled.” 

“After commissioning his artwork, he was able to purchase his studio in Compton. And he’s now raising money to build a community center on the same lot with the goal of giving second chances to the formerly incarcerated and artists of color.  The ex-inmate said the Art by Wash Center will also provide free housing of up to 6 months to those newly released from prison.

“This is my new blank canvass,” Mr. Wash described. “It’s going to have spaces for inmates coming home from prison and teaching art as a way of communication to prevent them from going [back] to prison.”

Mr. Wash also planned to host a fundraising exhibition with other artists of color whom he took under his wings.

The exhibition, which is curated by Mr. Wash himself, runs from Feb. 15 through Mar. 26 at HVW8 Gallery at 661 N. Spaulding Ave. in Los Angeles.”

Read the full article here or learn more about the exhibition.

Kilo Kish ‘real — safe’ Interview

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Interview from WestwoodWestwood

Kilo Kish can do anything, but her strongest suit is processing how overwhelmingly underwhelmed we all are by life. The 27-year-old’s first professional work to explore that very theme was her 2016 debut album Reflections In Real Time. Since then, she’s jumped from industry to industry, executing everything from video to fashion textiles, and most recently, she’s found herself in a gallery setting with her first ever art exhibition, Real — Safe at  Los Angeles’ HVW8.

On the day before the show’s opening on Friday, we sat down with the Los Angeles based artist to get an idea of what’s been on her mind and how her multi-media show represents the way she walks through her daily life.

Your work focuses on negotiating the personal with the public self. What’s the process of articulating these themes from music to visuals? 

I just have tons of questions in general. I’m always trying to figure out my own doctrine for things and what i believe to be true at different points in my life. I definitely believe that people can change and grow. I do try to document different types of feelings over the years because they totally change. My perception even since making Reflections In Real Time to now about all those things—online interactions, being a creative—all that changed in a year in a half since that record. Working through ideas constantly.

When I think about things, I usually think that “This feels like this“: I’ll be having this conversation at this party…which literally makes me feel like I’m stuck in an elevator. Things like that. In my brain, I’m doing other stuff when I’m talking sometimes. It’s nice to sometimes, when I have the opportunity, to make those spaces real, which I try to do with my videos and films and my live performances. I try to take some of that actual emotional feelings and create spaces for them.

Are a lot of the works in the show abstract mundanities of these situations? 

Yes, exactly.

What are other examples of that? 

For me, when I look on Instagram and stuff like that, I’m like, “All of these are mundane situations.” It’s my lunch or my dinner or on a bike ride or getting an ice cream cone but there’s this grandeur that’s created out of it because it’s curated and formatted for a public. I do kind of the opposite, where I take these situations and make them extreme versions of what they really are.

How do you feel that–given some time after Reflections–this show and body of work evolves these subjects? Or are you going in a different direction? 

This show is the farthest abstraction from the record. The music is literal: if you’re singing something and you’re the artist, people will be like, “That’s what you think!” You know what I mean? That’s usually where they’re going to take it. This is like all of the other ideas that don’t necessarily work in a musical medium or a live show. There are still parameters for a live show. If you don’t want to be a dick, there’s still things: people want to come here to come here–to have fun. They probably want to drink and hang out with the new girl they just met and whatever else. For you to push your really intense performance art show on them—which I do anyway—I curtail it a tiny bit. The extra stuff, that’s just too too much for a live show? That’s where it exists in a gallery.

One thing in reading about this show is this idea of the “blissfully blasé.” It very much feels like an excitement and constant pushing down by social structures or other generations that are making you apathetic.

Because there’s so much information.

Yeah. 

I don’t think we were supposed to handle this much information. I think we were really actually supposed to hunt for our food and walk around and cook for three hours and walk up a hill for six hours and then come home and be too tired to do anything.

That’s what I was curious about. Do you think this simultaneous feeling of being both overwhelmed and underwhelmed is a bit of our generational calling card? 

Totally—because it’s sensory overload…If you wanted to genuinely be happy (and not fake online happy), you really have to work on it. That’s a spiritual endeavor. You would have to disconnect a tiny bit from all of the boxes that you are looking at all times, literally and figuratively. There’s just so much to look at. If you finished posting your picture of your best day ever and—literally point two seconds after—someone posted a better best day than you and then you look at the next person and the next person and the next person…It’s not easy. It’s not easy to be one hundred percent satisfied, especially now when there are so many options. The only way to be fully happy is to not input as much information.

That’s great. 

You’d have to disconnect a tiny bit and be like, “My day was great. And I really don’t care about all that other stuff that’s going on right now.”

What’s next after this? 

After this, I’m probably going to do one more video for Reflections In Real Time and then I need to really, seriously start working on a new album.

 

For more on Kilo Kish, check out her SoundCloud and follow her on Instagram + Twitter.

HVW8 Gallery— Tyler Gibney on Art & Politics

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Listen to the Interview — Tyler Gibney of HVW8

To not stand for something means you’ll fall for anything. HVW8 Gallery co-founder Tyler Gibney has never been content on the sidelines. Despite the inability to vote as a Canadian citizen, Gibney put his artistic stake in the ground for the 2016 Presidential Election. The global influence of the United States is an important part of the world’s fabric. To be apathetic and not challenge the world around us is a great disservice according to Gibney. The HVW8 story is not focused so much on the candidate they support. It’s about the very decision to pick a side and to tell a story through art in the divisive world of politics.

By Eugene Kan
Photos by Alex Maeland

Full Interview HERE

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How To Make It: 15 Rules For Success From Creative Industry Insiders

Tyler Gibney of HVW8 Art + Design Gallery contributed to Complex Art + Design’s How To Make It: 15 Rules For Success From Creative Industry Insiders

Rule: There is no singular rule for success.

“Yes, hard work, developing an audience/patrons, finding your artists, studying, networking, gallery location, commitment, seeing as much art as possible, making your own art, finding and developing new talent, not being afraid, proper curation, enjoying yourself, attention to details — these are all important, but there is no formula for success in art. It can be absurd, and you can learn from others, but it’s your own trials and tribulations, mistakes, and experiences that will lead you to your path and define what success means to you.”

Website / @hvw8tyg

Past & Present

 

Here is an excerpt from an interview with HVW8’s Tyler Gibney on Hi-Fi’s recent acquisition of number of pieces from the HVW8 Gallery.

CF (Vanessa Conley): What can we expect from this collection of artists?

The Hifi acquired a number of pieces and prints from the HVW8 Gallery. This represents a good cross section of what the Gallery is about, with a mandate of representing avant-garde graphic design; Some of best international artists of this genre.

‘Past & Present’ is the theme of the collection. What does this entail?

HVW8 started in a golden era of Montreal in 1998. In 2005 we opened the Gallery in West Hollywood. This represents pieces from the past 14 years to present. The artwork ranges from myself, HVW8 Art Collective to number of past alumni at the HVW8 Gallery.

How does the aspect of music contribute in this collection?

We’ve always had music and music artists at the Gallery … Mos Def, Snoop Dog, Mayer Hawthorne, Master Blazter have all done things at the space, as well a number of bands were created during live recordings at the Gallery. Art and music have a symbiotic relationship – aural and visual, but the process is the same, so I think there is context for the two to live together, and I try to do that at the Gallery. These pieces reflect this.

What can this HVW8 installation bring to Calgary to help develop the local arts scene?

I’m from Calgary, went to Montreal, ended up in Los Angeles and now I’m back here, all through art and music.

Art can be a very difficult term to define. What is art to you?

Art is a mediation and reflection of life. Art is the times.

Can you explain how HVW8 Art Collective works?

We started off as three guys coming together creating live pieces and we were lucky to travel around the world. We had installations and exhibitions in cities such as Tokyo, Munich, London, Amsterdam, New York, Miami, San Juan, Puerto Rico to name a few. We were the first ‘Art Band’ creating pieces collectively.

 

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