April 2, 2009

The Los Angeles art scene is where it’s at. Forget New York, forget Chicago. This is where the beautiful people congregate, network, and marvel at how fabulous they are. There’s free bottom shelf wine offered in front of $10,000 paintings, guest lists where only the fashion elite can gain entry, and people raise their whispering voices just loud enough so everyone around them can hear them namedrop whatever celebrity they’re browning their noses with this week. This is the essence of HOLLYWOOD…and this is where I come in.

I’m Bill Shafer and I own Hyaena Gallery in beautiful Burbank, CA. I am the pus bubble staph infection on the ass of LA’s gallery scene. I am the middle finger that rises defiantly off the canvas and lodges itself up the uretha of every pretentious gallery owner on this sinking slab of Californian earth. I moved out to the West coast from the puritanical frathaven of Boston with one simple goal: I want to make art dangerous again.

Real art is in the underground. It’s the propaganda of revolution that pokes fun at the things we blindly accept in life. The worse thing art can be is flaccid (Thomas Kinkade), it’s supposed to scare you, make you think, make you feel anything other than indifference. Dark Art, Outsider Art, Fetish Art, Illustration, True Crime; I go out of my way at Hyaena to show the work that other galleries ignore. No attitude, no egos, just killer art that speaks to the dark, deviant, and inappropriate sides of all our personalities.

Selling $2000 prints to a herd of Juxtaposeur sheep isn’t dangerous, it’s retarded. We’re taking that part of the art world and fisting it with a little bit of old school rebellion. I’m surrounded by such an amazing pack of creative and twisted artists and we’re making our presence felt. Whether you’re a collector, an artist, a fan, or just a free thinker, this is for all of us and I hope you dig it.

I’ll be doing regular updates here for Icons and sharing my ramblings on the art world in general. Mostly, I’m hoping to highlight the art I love and turn people on to some great artists that you wont find plastered limply on the pages of every graffiti/design/”art” magazine with a glossy Lowbrow cover. For three years, I’ve donned my Hyaena guise and roamed CHUD-like around the art sewers…It’s time we lift the manhole covers and show mainstream society what is really happening beneath it all. Oh, and we have bottom shelf wine, too, but there’s always a bottle of Jack behind the counter for those in the know. Come get some.

Amen.

VISIT: WWW.HYAENAGALLERY.COM

Next: Mark Ryden is not a god.

Write to Bill Shafer at: hyaenaking@hyaenagallery.com