Drinkin' Smokin' & West Coastin' is Think Tank Gallery's love (or hate) letter to the biggest exporter of culture in the world: the City of Los Angeles. Featuring hundreds of art pieces by some of the biggest artists in the skate, street, and illustration genres, and dozens of performances by musicians that have shaped West Coast, American, and worldwide culture through their Southland-centric tunes, DS&WC is a broad stroke with which to paint The Container Yard in a light seen by millions of LA-fetishizing-fanatics, both online and in person. Add a well-curated series of programming and you'll become the spot to see this Summer. Our previous largescale installations have been shared by media to hundreds of millions of artists, musicians and fans, and it's time now to invite creators (and The Yard) to present work about the city that defines us and has made this all possible.
Think Tank Gallery doesn't just hang art and call it a day. We're a full fledged production company that serves as creative directors on massive festivals like Night on Broadway (70K+ attendees), and for our major shows we fill a monthlong calendar with dozens of events ranging from supper clubs to comedy shows. For DS&WC we are taking a Red Bull 30 Days of Sound approach, with our sights set on the influence of G-Funk hip hop and West Coast surf punk on LA and the world as a whole. Throw in some Cumbia, psych rock, and experimental producers, and your brand has the most talked-about event series in the city for Summer 2017. The names in the concept posters above are artists we're currently talking to.
Perhaps the most original aspects of the Think Tank's productions are the way events integrate seamlessly into the theme of the show as a whole, in a setting with so much brilliant art as the focus. For our Break Bread experience in 2016 (full recap here), we held 28 events in 29 days, all with a different audience and event producer tapping into the theme of the show. In a city with some of the best producers in the world, all creating programs sharing a love for that city, DS&WC will see many different audiences of equal passion walking through your doors.
For six years, Think Tank Gallery has hung its hat on our internationally-covered installation work. Featured as one of Vice's Top 25 Most Instagrammable alongside the Broad Museum and the Whitney, we take pride in creating a scene that we know will get widespread coverage for our artists and our partners. We've begun hosting our events outside of our walls, and now with DS&WC will share one of our largescale productions with a handful of other venues.
Various theaters, concert halls, and pop-up spaces will share in the concert love, and one site will see the lion's share of media attention as our decked-out HQ to host all artworks and smaller nightly events. With hundreds of artworks on display, there will be something for everyone, but we like to create a few anchors for photo opps to achieve that Think Tank signature. See below for DS&WC concepts.
Cirque du Soleil x Think Tank Gallery Present: Break Bread
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PBR x éS x Think Tank Gallery Present: Chilled Air
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Stumptown Coffee x La Marzocco x Think Tank Gallery Present: Coffeegraph
With an aim at widespread accessibility, Think Tank Gallery knows its target audience. Over the years we've produced merchandise in the markets of skate, street, horror, and even porn culture, and we've always partnered in such a way to give our audience something to take home with them. Whether that's giveaway items or limited edition collectibles for sale, we're all about dope takeaways. To start DS&WC we've teamed up with Valley Cruise Press to produce a 6-pin and 1 patch package and limited run wine can series with Nomad Wine Co. with partner opportunities. See below.
While the exhibit, concerts, and merch will have the most lasting impact on our audiences directly, it's the documentation and promotional content that will spread from the Best Coast to Bangkok. With that in mind we focus heavily on creating solid and creative material that we're excited for fans and media to share. Past shows have seen over 100 million impressions in various online outlets, so we take our content seriously.
See some of our audience information below, our reach, online content for previous activations, and mood content for DS&WC.
Want to get involved? Contact our Director:
Jacob Patterson • thinktankgallery@gmail.com • 916.670.3801