What is this Industrial Squid?

Hiya. The purpose of this, our first blog, is to explain to those of you who are not yet in the know, what exactly is Industrial Squid. Here I intend to answer all the important questions you have about Industrial Squid, such as:

Who is Industrial Squid?

What does Industrial Squid do?

Where did Industrial Squid come from?

Is Industrial Squid going to eat that?

To better understand Industrial Squid, which I will refer to from now on as I.S., because I’m tired of typing out Industrial Squid already and I’m only like five lines into this thing, we have to go back to the beginning.

Not so long ago (about three years or so) in a land that is fairly close (Culver City, CA) a new art gallery emerged in an already burgeoning arts district. That gallery was The Wonderful World of Animation, the passion project of Debbie Weiss, who left a promising career on Wall Street to follow a dream. By the time Debbie opened the gallery, The Wonderful World of Animation had already lived, quite successfully I might add, on the internet for over a decade. As the internet business continued to thrive, it quickly became evident to Debbie that the physical space was a bit superfluous, and because she always loved a good challenge she decided to tackle the unfamiliar world of contemporary fine art, thus was born WWA gallery,

Now, if this were a Michael Bay movie, this is the part where I.S. would round the corner and walk down a long hallway in super slow motion while some pop-rock song with an annoying amount of radio play blared at decibels once thought impossible by man. The truth, as it tends to be, is far less dramatic. I.S. is the combined efforts of Stephanie Chefas, Rob Faucette, and myself, David Radford. We all worked for Debbie in some capacity, helping her run the day to day operations of the animation side of the business, but once she decided to dive into contemporary art we became extremely excited. Each of us love the contemporary art world, even though we have vastly different tastes, and we are all passionate about seeing the artists we derive inspiration from succeed. Recognizing each other’s talents, we decided to join forces and by our powers combined we have formed Industrial Squid.

I.S. is a curatorial supergroup that is constantly on the lookout for emerging artistic talent and ways to push that talent to create something awe-inspiring. We’re using our powers for good, helping get WWA gallery off the ground and running by curating five group shows in 2010, that are guaranteed to rock the eyeballs of anyone who should look upon them. The first of which was “The Devil Made We Do It,” which opened Friday, February 12th, and featured the likes of Lily Mae Martin, Bob Dob, David Chung, Dan Barry, Edward Robin Coronel, Julian Callos, and many, many more. The art from the show ranged from the macabre to the absolutely hilarious, and combined to make a strong group show certainly worth perusing, I urge you to come to the gallery and take a look, or if you are too far away to come see it in person then take the time to pamper your ocular receptors here.

“The Devil Made Me Do It,” was just the beginning for I.S. however, so be on the lookout for our future endeavors. In fact, our second show, “LA 3010” is just around the corner, set to open March 26th. The show challenges artists to create a work that reflects what they believe will become of Los Angeles by the year 3010. I know, it sounds awesome right? Well you can expect more of that out of I.S.. We are here now. We intend to stick around.

That’s all for now.

Yours truly,
Dave

P.S. Industrial Squid is going to eat that.

P.P.S. I really like your hair like that.