Isaura, a recent college graduate whose younger self would dress as an artist for career day and who today aspires to teach printmaking at a community college, believed that showing her work at the week-long show, alongside bigger names, was a dream come true. Over 150 days since the short-lived exhibit concluded, she sits disappointed, betrayed, and $1,248 short of sold artwork.
Deeply researched and vulnerable pieces got lost in this temporary Los Angeles exhibit that featured over 100 artists. Whether sold to a collector, stolen, or abandoned, various artists who featured work in the show are left with questions about where it now resides, along with unanswered emails from the show’s curators while they’re still yet to see a cent from their sold pieces, they say.
In collaboration with U.S. artist Barry McGee, “The Hole” presented an artistic hysteria inside a former 99 Cents Only Store from February 22 to March 1, for the making of "99CENT." Artists north and south of greater Los Angeles found themselves squeezing their original pieces into the show—whether they were personally invited from the curating crew, or tagging along with a friend who was.
“I thought it was fucking dope because it was the most anti-gallery show,” airbrush painter and Channel 5 News reporter Polo Cutty tells L.A. TACO. “It felt super chaotic, do-it-yourself. ”
Cutty, an L.A.-based artist who airbrushes mockingly educational artwork—like his piece called "Corruption" and another inspired by a Nigerian billboard ad—knew what he signed up for, but didn’t expect to be five months without pay from his sold work through the gallery. Invited to feature art in the show by a friend himself, and seeing as different artists flew in and out of the store to set up their work before opening day, Cutty gained the impression that the show would resemble more of a “graff party” for artists and their friends rather than a gallery with art sales.