If you live in LA and have even an inkling of what’s going on around you then you are quite familiar with the sister galleries that bear the name Gallery 1988. In 8 years Gallery 1988 has established itself as the preeminent home of pop culture art, taking residence at Melrose and Venice locations. Openings at the gallery are littered with celebrities and can draw in huge numbers of patrons. If you take a look at the list of shows that have been housed at this establishment you understand what all the fuss is about. Gallery 1988 has mastered “ARTvertising” and displayed works paying homage to fanboy chum like Arrested Development, Breaking Bad, Step Brothers, Avengers, LOST, Adult Swim and more. One of the masterminds behind collaborations of this nature is owner and curator, Jensen Karp. A pop culture sponge of sorts, Jensen has amassed a wealth of knowledge that he has managed to bottle and make profitable. His bio is beyond belief. Young college student turns rapper turns clothes designer turns art gallery entrepreneur turns marketing genius turns podcaster turns…..no one knows. The story of Gallery 1988 is as intriguing as Jensen Karp himself. So put on your cool glasses and ready yourself to get on trend. Read up!

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Jensen Karp

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Serial Optimist: Sup Jensen? (That’s as street as I get.) How on earth did white rapper extraordinaire, Hot Karl (your alter ego), end up co-owning and curating the world’s most premiere pop art galleries?

Jensen Karp: I think the weirder part is really about being a white rapper extraordinaire, than a white guy opening an art gallery. But after my time signed to Interscope Records, I was really looking for an outlet to do something without any sort of hands or censorship or outside opinions stifling my creativity. I had enough of that from A&R’s and managers and such. My business partner, Katie, and I went to USC together and she was an art history major. I was looking for art for my apartment at the time, and realized quickly that the only easily accessible art geared towards my age group and interests were Scarface posters that ever college dorm had, and Bed, Bath & Beyond crap. So, we got to talking, and without much research, we opened a youth-centered art gallery in Hollywood in 2004 and the rest is history (a history with a lot of ups and downs and painfully hard work).

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“Jagaloons” by Aaron Sechrist

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SO: I think my dorm may have had one of those. With your access to so many prominent celebrities, how much do you think your early music career assisted you in putting Gallery1988 on the map?

Jensen: I think it helped a lot. I was friends with a lot of people who were in a similar financial position as I was. We had gotten money kinda quick, and also were hip-hop kids who were spending $300 on sneakers. I knew we’d all be as interested in making our walls as fashionable and unique as we did our feet, there just wasn’t any venue doing that. The only galleries in the world at the time were focusing on high price point, snooty, pretentious aspects – and that’s just not who I was. I wanted to create a space where I didn’t need to convince anyone to buy the paintings. So when DJ AM was coming in to see what I was doing, or the Good Charlotte kids, or Swizz Beats, sure it was because I bothered him, but I also knew we had product that would be more than a pity visit for a failed rapper.

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“I Am The Danger” by Aled Lewis

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SO: It worked! You have galleries in Melrose and Venice locations. How do you think the galleries differ?

Jensen: Nowadays they are pretty interchangeable, as they both heavily focus on pop culture, but the crowds do differ a lot. Our Melrose location really has a fan base that has been with us for quite a lot of years, while in Venice, we see mostly new faces. LA isn’t known for people who want to travel somewhere for an event, so we appreciate starting from scratch most the time there. But both have amazing, and similar shows, going on all year long.

SO: They are certainly both impressive in their own way. Tell us about the 6th annual “Crazy 4 Cult” show held in NYC, where over 200 artists reinterpreted classic cult movies in their own style. What was it like holding a show outside of Cali for the first time? What made this show most special?

Jensen: We weren’t sure what to expect bringing G1988 outside of CA for the first time. We assumed we’d have some die-hard fans who had been watching our shows and progress through the website, but we just weren’t sure. We ended up having people sleep outside the gallery for the opening reception, where over 1000 people showed up. The sales were incredible and it really surpassed any expectations we ever could’ve mustered up. It definitely wasn’t easy, and it’s not something we’re counting down the days to do again, but it was very rewarding and humbling to see how many people are into what we do. My father, who passed away a few years ago, was also from New York and made a living there for his 20’s and 30’s, so being able to do something in that vein meant a ton to me. It was my dad’s “thing” to be in NY doing business; so living on that legacy was a nice touch for me.

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“There’s Always Money in the Banana Stand!” by Anthony Petrie

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SO: Do you plan to do more shows outside of California? Will you consider a foray outside the US?

Jensen: I think that’s the goal. We’d love to yearly take a show outside of CA, and I GUESS take it globally (honestly, I hate traveling), but it’s not a top priority right now. We’re still coming down from NY, and shipping orders from that show, so I think we’re still a good two months away from sitting down and saying, “What’s next?”

SO: I’m sure you’ll have many patrons eagerly awaiting those shows. How did your marketing company, Tyson Givens Design & Marketing, get started? What are some of the marketing projects you are most proud of being a part of? How successful has the BreakingGifs.com viral campaign been? So many covet their Breaking Bad art, including myself.

Jensen: About 2-3 years into G1988, we were approached by a great guy in Disney Consumer Products, who helped us understand that we weren’t just putting on pop culture art shows, but we were also producing marketing campaigns that he wished he was coming up with. He put us on a retainer and we became consultants for them. From there, I had opened a more detailed and specific marketing division, which is Tyson/Givens, and I started working hand-in-hand with corporations to create artistic and heartfelt visuals and campaigns for their properties. I’ve worked with Mattel on Hot Wheels & He-Man, Paramount Pictures on The Fighter, Young Adult and their 100th Anniversary Poster, Bad Robot for Person of Interest and LOST (which was sort of the job that put me on the map). And yeah, most recently, I worked with SONY on marketing the newest season of Breaking Bad by releasing screenprints, creating events and producing one large art exhibition for the show. And that was a pretty amazing experience, and by far the most successful thing I’ve worked on so far, especially with what the studio’s goal was with the job. I’m stoked to have been a part of it.

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Crazy4Cult NYC

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SO: You have contributed to both art and television history in your own unique way. How do you usually find new artists to host at your galleries? What goes into putting together a show? What has been your most successful show to date?

Jensen: Most of the artists we work with are a group of names we’ve been steadily showing since our birth. But we do seem to add about 10-15% new artists per show, which are submissions we get, people we stumble on through blogs and the Internet or artists that stand out in other shows we see. Katie & I really sit down with each theme we come up with, or are approached with, and curate it based on what we’d want to see if we were just a fan. And that happens each time. It’s pretty tiring, but I think the care we put into the process, is what makes us different than the 50 other galleries now doing what we’re doing. I think our most successful shows have been our tribute to Stan Lee or our Arrested Development show a few months ago. But truthfully, I never really check on stuff like that. If it has a lot of red dots, I say “It went well,” but the details are something I haven’t had time for in the past few years.

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Eric Price for Crazy 4 Cult

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SO: Your team certainly has a knack for choosing the pieces that people really want to see. Who are some up and coming artists you have your eye on?

Jensen: I remember seeing Mark Englert’s work a few months back and being blown away. A buyer at the gallery sent it to me, and I thought not only do I love his work currently, but also watching him grow will be a fun process. We were happy to be the first place to release his stuff, connect him to a property and studio (FOX) and add him to the Breaking Bad campaign. I’m also thrilled for Justin White’s upcoming show at the gallery. I think this one is going to creep up on people the same way Olly Moss’s Paper Cuts show did here. He creates fake animation cells for cartoons that should never be produced and they are incredible. Really excited for that one.

SO: Sounds utterly intriguing. What advice can you give to young entrepreneurs hoping to open a gallery of their own?

Jensen: I mean, I think we have enough pop culture galleries now. lol. It was fun being the only one, but now you can’t look at an art blog without seeing a new pop culture space opening up. So…maybe at this point, put a spin on it or something, cause a lot of these places will drop out in the next few years, same way we saw it happen with vinyl toys a few years back. Also, hang the art you like either way. Don’t let trends dictate your taste. You’ll never succeed if you aren’t passionate about the work.

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“Breaking Bad: The Animated Series” by Ian Glaubinger

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SO: Ain’t that the truth. You host the SModcast podcast (say that fast 5 times), “Get Up On This”. On the show you cover trends in pop culture. How did you become such a walking encyclopedia? Who have been some of your favorite guest hosts? Do always talk so fast?

Jensen: I grew up with a pretty scorching case of OCD, which is well chronicled on the show. I was able to shake a lot of it, not all of it, but one of the aspects was that I obsessed over a lot pop culture events. It’s not really a GREAT thing from my childhood, as I was pretty hard on myself trying to know all the wives names of the 1986 Mets, but I’ve calmed it down a little and tried to focus just on knowing what’s on the pulse, about to break. Making sure I know what is going on around me. And I always have loved turning people onto to new stuff. So it made for a good formula for the podcast. Some of my favorite guests have been Adam Pally, Paul Scheer, Overdoz, Fat Jew and Jenny Mollen. But honestly, there have been some great episodes where our guests bring in some seriously cool stuff I have never heard of. And yes, my whole life I have talked like I have somewhere to get to in a hurry. It helped when rapping, but not so much in other aspects of life.

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“Did We Just Become Best Friends?” by Mike Jackson

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SO: You have strong ties to comedy, appearing on multiple comedy podcasts like Earwolf‘s “Who Charted” and “How Did This Get Made?” Am I crazy or can I recall you mentioning making an appearance at an open mic in your formative years?

Jensen: Yeah, in college I was pretty active in the comedy scene at USC, and once Hot Karl took off, I used that avenue to get out a lot of my bits and comedic writing. But my original plan in college was to stay in the writing program and then get a job writing TV. I signed my record deal junior year, so even though I ended up graduating – I had a new path. Twitter has been my outlet to write jokes for quite some time now, which has also gotten me invites to do cool podcasts or fun comedy shows. I’ve even done some open mics in the past year. It’s never something I want to abandon, but I also respect my friends who do it as a craft too much to attempt it again without giving it my full attention – and I can’t do that right now.

SO: We’ll be the first to enthusiastically back that decision. I must point out “Howard Kremer’s Hip Hop Radio Tape: 25th Anniversary Special featuring Jensen Karp” (available at feralaudio.com). How did this rediscovery of an old hip hop radio tape from the 80s get new legs?

Jensen: That was incredibly fun. Basically, Howard and I both really took to hip-hop at young ages and obsessed over it in similar ways. He’s a little older than me, so he actually was old enough to watch its birth in NY, where he grew up. So, in the formative years of the music form, they would only have an hour or so a day on ONE STATION in NY to play rap on the radio. And like MANY people, Howard would tape it off the radio. Most people have probably thrown out the tapes at this point, or taped over it, but Howard is a machine and has kept his tapes. He brought it up during my appearance on “Who Charted?” and we realized I’m the only other guy in LA that is excited over this discovery. So he came up with the idea of listening to it together for a podcast and just realizing how far hip hop has come since being the ugly stepchild on this one radio station. It was really fun and we hope to do it again with another one of his treasured tapes.

SO: Hmmm….All the music genres I still have on tape have gone the way of the dodo (with good reason). What’s next for Jensen and Gallery1988?

Jensen: We’re coming off a prettttttty serious 4 months, so I hope some rest is on its way. But we always have incredible shows coming up, including Scott Campbell’s newest Showdowns exhibit at Melrose and the 1st focused shows from Dave Perillo & Tom Whalen at our Venice location. I’m going to Paris for the first time ever next week, so honestly, I’m trying to just refuel a bit and get ready for whatever comes next. And I will talk fast.

SO: Bon Voyage Jensen! We will save up our pennies for all the treasures you have awaiting us.

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SO Note: Check out Gallery 1988 at nineteeneightyeight.com, listen to the awesome “Get Up On This” on the constant here, get Howard Kremer’s Hip Hop Radio Tape here and follow Jensen Karp @JensenClan88.