ISM is coming, will blow…your mind!

‘GORINJYU’ by YUKA YAMAGUCHI

There’s no way someone as DIY as Koos’ Dennis Lluy couldn’t totally and completely cream over the DIY ethos of ISM. I mean, I didn’t ask him or anything, but the fact that ISM has settled into Koos’ back room on Broadway, and will get the run of the whole center on opening nights, pretty much negates my having to, which can only be to the good.

Kevin Staniec and Josh Levenshus, the founders of ISM—which is a gallery, an online educational resource, an art mag, and a “community project”—are in their mid-late twenties (they seem to both be 28) and have been putting out their well-loved magazine for five years, which would make them 23 when they started, and which would make those of us who spend our evenings watching trash TV instead of working on “projects” gnash our teeth in melancholy reveries of could-have-been. You know, if we were contenders instead of lazy pieces of crap. Their small, beautifully designed journal features in its latest issue an interview of Thomas Woodruff by Greg Escalante, Joe Flazh! on Diane Arbus, and a piece on experimental activism featuring Shepard Fairey. This thing is so hip, so hip and pretty . . . it’s so . . . damn, it’s sweet. It’s like Olde Time Longe Beach, when everybody was making stuff, except The Kids These Days are so much more polished than we ever were. The stuff we made was mostly parties, whereas Staniec and Levenshus publish their friends’ beautiful works of art on thick, lovely paper stock surrounded by all the right fonts. They sell ads, too, all so everything can go back into the project. Dude, they’re so 501(c)(3).

So now ISM comes to the back room at Koos, where their newest project “Hello My Name Is” will shine forth. Seriously: The artists they tap for their themed shows are stars, bright shining stars, as you’ll also be able to see in “Untitled Love Project,” their last project, which has shown at J. Flynn in Costa Mesa and OCCCA in Santa Ana and will hang in Koos’ main room the night of the opening party. “Love Project” invited hundreds of their favorite artists to contribute works based on a lost love, and had professionals interview the artists for the stories behind them (this is good, as artists are usually shitty writers). Staniec and Levenshus are publishing a special edition book on the project as well. You know: because they don’t watch TV.

The works themselves, though, are so beautifully made. One, by Lori Escobar, shows a beautiful woman, outside in the wind and the night—almost like Dame Darcy’s Jane Eyre—with wild teal and ebony tresses, pert breasts, a Schiele-gaunt waist, and no arms. It’s more Boxing Helena than DeMilo, except it’s a metaphor instead of a shriekingly bad exercise in the obvious.

“Hello” will open Saturday night (their online project launched Monday), and it’s an apt how-do-you-do. There are more than 100 artists presenting moody, Surrealist fairy tale portraits; pages that could be ripped from the most avant graphic novels; and lots of cute li’l monsters—the kind that could easily launch a vinyl toy line or star in an ad about plaque—hobayaing across inkwashed backgrounds. The works are gorgeous, stylish, funny and sometimes evil. They’re New Long Beach. As it should be.

ISM KOO’S ART CENTER | 540 E BROADWAY | LONG BEACH 90802 | GALLERY OPENS WITH A RECEPTION SAT 7-10 PM |THROUGH MARCH 15

Tags: art, ism, Joe Flazh, koo's, new long beach, thomas woodruff