Light & Wire Gallery is a new collaboration in Los Angeles promoting emerging artists online. They spent some time telling us how they got started and we thought it might provide inspiration for those of you in the community looking for new ways to get your artwork and the art you love out to a wider audience in this new digital age.

1. Describe for us a little bit about your backgrounds and how you got here.

Gladys was born and raised in Miami Beach, Florida. In 2000, she moved to LA to go to Otis College of Art and Design, where her focus was in Fine Arts- Painting and Drawing. Gladys graduated in 2004, and is currently working at a contemporary art gallery in mid-city LA.

Jessica was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. She also moved to LA to go to Otis College of Art and Design, where her focus was in Fine Arts- drawing, and sculpture and she minored in creative writing. Since school, Jessica has had a drive to curate friends into shows and put things together. She has curated several shows since 2001 and has worked in non-profits and galleries.


2. Where does the name Light and Wire come from? What is the focus/mission of Light & Wire or how is it unique?

We wanted a name that could be a sort of stand in for us, instead of just using our last names Minckley and Hernando. Light & Wire is something poetic or more obscured. We had a running joke about if we called ourselves Hernando-Minckley, it could become a wordplay like Random Kinky. (Also, H&M has been taken.) Light & Wire just made sense in relation to the technological aspect of the images through internet exposure, as well as the likeness to Smoke & Mirrors, because we have yet to fully disclose that we don't have physicality.

Our mission is to focus on exhibiting upcoming and unrepresented artists in an environment that challenges the traditional gallery format. What makes us unique is our attempt to run a legitimate gallery without having a physical space to work out of or into. This also gives us a greater flexibility for experimentation (curating two shows with artists who do not live in the L.A. to date,) and in playing with the technological potential of the internet (screening films that have never been seen in public as in the work of Greg Wilken, and in utilizing basic code like hyperlinks to create a more complex rhizome of interest as in the work of Matt MacFarland [November.]) Each of our shows so far has explored different approaches to the possibilities of the "white box" gallery and the non-space. Installation shots are key to showing sculptural works and larger bodies of work. It's an essential "gallery" trope, to show the exhibition hung, and it also serves to legitimize us as a "real" gallery. But if you notice, the place changes from month to month, and we have to pool our creative resources to make that come together. In this sense we are aligned with rented and phantom spaces, that pop up to run month-long exhibitions around town, this is an already accepted mode of communication. The idea of having an online based gallery is purposed around the accessibility of globalization, as the art world gets bigger, it also gets smaller. Art exists in many cities around the globe and many of us only experience those shows via the internet.


3. What were some of the biggest hurdles to overcome in starting Light & Wire?

After graduating from Otis, where we met, Gladys had been wanting to collaborate, curatorially, as we were both working at galleries. We wanted to make a difference in what was happening in Los Angeles art as opposed to working for the man. We had spoken of collaborating with other spaces, but it seemed to get too complicated; too many parties were responsible for ideas and coordination. We looked into renting spaces, and even teaming up with other non-profit projects, but since we both worked full time at other galleries, it was both a conflict of interests and not financially feasable. From our desks, and chat rooms, we formulated a "fake gallery", in which we produced, ad hoc, 12 months of hypothetical programming. Understanding that it would be financially difficult to commit to renting a space and being competitive in the LA art world, we came up with a low-cost plan that involved many of our artist friends and anyone who could help (See the ABOUT US page on our website). A few months later, we asked artists if they would be interested in helping us to materialize this vision, and create a space that existed only online, and every single artist was surprisingly supportive. We decided to launch a group show that was a fair cross-section of our collective tastes and got right to work doing studio visits. That show was FAULT LINE, in July of this year. This, we believe, is one of the most important facets of artistic production, creating a kinship between like-minded individuals and fostering a dialog for a greater understanding.


4. What further challenges do you see up ahead?

There are several ongoing challenges, one being reaching a larger audience, and expanding our concept to a physical space. L&W is still a baby, and many people still don't quite understand what we are doing. We think the best way to reach these people and others would be to have an exhibition in a physical gallery space once or twice a year. By bringing everyone to a single location to see the art, to meet us and the artists, the hope is that the interest will grow and develop more of a following. Once the doors close, they'll know where we can be found.


5. What are your biggest hopes for Light & Wire?

Pinnochio was made of wood. We are currently made of zeros and ones.


6. What advice would you give artists? Aspiring gallery owners?

To artists: Of course, everything starts with the work. You have to make your work all the time, as best you can. Show up for your friends. Go to openings and say hello to people. Have your friends introduce you to their friends. Making friends (and keeping them) is of far more important than going to the best school for your career, champion that community over showing at the ritziest gallery most days too. Also, it helps tremendously to have web presence. The reason most of us make art is to show it to other people. The way things are going (we see many more shows in our Inboxes than we do on Satuday nights.) Show your work to people, if they don't like it, that's ok. They will forget. But even if they do like your work, they will also forget, so it helps to have people to update.

To aspiring gallery owners: I know a lot of people who have pulled it off with incredible enthusiasm and heart, like John Knuth, the director of Circus Gallery. You have to start with something, connections and community are also invaluable for new galleries. If you don't know what the work is about... Please find it out! Do the right thing for the art work and the artist.


7. With the saturation of gallery spaces in LA, do you think its more or less difficult to be successful? How do you see things adapting/evolving?

We don't see the art circuit in L.A. as saturated at all. It's like a sponge with several wet spots all over it. It's become about identities, and how people place themselves within certain communities that are established. Luckily, the art community in LA is fairly small compared to New York, and generally pretty accessible besides driving across town in the same day, which makes it difficult to see shows.

Galleries moving is nothing new. Galleries closing is nothing new. Markets crashing and booming- just the cycle of things. The great thing about L&W is that we're not in business to make money. Being a successful gallery is generally based on the ability to mount consistently good exhibitions, which will hopefully allow the gallery to sell work and stay open. Sometimes those priorities are easily confused.
Recently though, it does seem like the LA art community is evolving. Many small, yet popular galleries are expanding to dense gallery centers, like Culver City and Chinatown, which in some ways allows for a new generation of young galleries to open. Regardless, times are tough, but artists will never stop making art work, and we're in the perfect position to show that work.


8. Please tell us about your current online exhibition featuring the work of David Horvitz.

Our current exhibition is New York based artist, David Horvitz. David has made many works related to the performative aspects of the late Bas Jan Ader. In his project for L&W, you might say he completes the journey. David traveled to a port in Falmouth, Cape Cod in Massachusetts, where Ader embarked on his fateful sailing trip, "In Search of the Miraculous" in 1975. Then David traveled across the Atlantic to eventually arrive at Ader's never-reached destination, Falmouth in Cornwall, England. The exhibition is made up of post cards acquired upon reaching these two locations, and a downloadable edition text piece related to the project. The show is about a current of action flowing into the gallery space, the action of arriving at a destination: David reaching his two locations and the two post cards reaching the gallery.


9. For our fledgelings out there, how do you find your artists and do you take submissions?

The artists we've shown and plan to show are people we somehow know. They are currently working, but not receiving the attention they deserve. We know firsthand that most galleries do not accept unsolicited submissions. This has little to do with how artists make it, other than being diligent, ambitious, and immersing themselves in a community of artists like themselves, there is no formula.

Submissions can be emailed to info@lightandwiregallery.com we review all submissions sent to us, but may not be able to respond. Please accompany any inquiry with several small images (we use 72 dpi 400 pixels wide on our site), a blurb about you and some pertinent information about your work. We look forward to meeting you.


10. Any parting words of wisdom, personal mottos or related jokes you want to share?

Fake it til you make it. (That works for happiness too.)


*http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html


http://lightandwiregallery.com