Three-year-old Lab Art, a Los Angeles gallery dedicated to street art and graffiti, is opening a second space in the Dallas Design District in September. Founder Iskander Lemseffer, whose background is in fashion, opened the original space in 2011 in the mid-Wilshire neighborhood of L.A. to showcase and sell the work of street artists (and here we won’t get into the pros and cons of domesticating urban art or the long and mixed history of commercializing it). The gallery’s list of artists—many who use only their tag names—can be found here.
While Lemseffer was looking to expand Lab Art into other markets, the gallery’s Instagram caught the eye of Dallas-based investment guys Eric Rosiak and Adam Persiani, who have since partnered with Lemseffer; they’ll open the 4500 square foot space at 315 Cole Street in Dallas with a group show from the gallery’s L.A. stable on September 18. The second show, opening in October, will be a solo show by a Lab Art mainstay who goes by Alec Monopoly, whose bio on the Lab Art website reads: “‘Alec Monopoly’ is the alias of an unidentified graffiti artist, originally from New York City. The artist primarily works in the urban environments of New York, Los Angeles, and London using varied materials… to subversively depict the mascot of the board game, Monopoly.” And there you have it.
Says Lemseffer (via CultureMap Dallas): “The Dallas Design District is booming right now, and I ship so much to Dallas it’s not even funny.”
(photo: CultureMap Dallas and Lab Art)