We had the good fortune of connecting with Mat Gleason and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mat, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I started an underground newspaper at Cal State L.A. when I wasn’t selected to be editor of the University Times there. It was an easy conceptual step to then start an underground newspaper for the art world. That led to curating art shows then opening a gallery. Then curating independently. Then opening another gallery. Now I am back to curating independently and freelance writing.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’ve had it pretty easy. People have responded to what I do with enthusiasm or revulsion and the disgusted ones just go away, they haven’t come with torches and pitchforks, at least yet. The challenges I have had are almost all self-inflicted. Nobody has gotten in my way more than me.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I have a good memory at every intersection in Southern California and a bad one in the middle of every block. Almost all the great places are gone. I would take you to the relics, maybe where places used to be and you wouldn’t care as we stared at some old shell of a building or gaudy storefront as I got weepy about what used to be there.

When I had a gallery in Chinatown I would eat at Blossom, its still there, still great. I lived near Little Tokyo for years, I swear I ate more sushi than if I lived in Big Tokyo, but it isn’t what it once was. Once the “Ten percent off with student ID” signs showed up that was it.

My wife and I love the brunch at The Girl and The Goat in the arts district, she really has the patience of a saint as I ramble on an on that we are eating at where they used to package carrots. The sheet metal fence had a sign painted on it “Home of the Topless Carrot”. Then Eddie Murphy was filming “Harlem Nights” on location there and they painted over the sign. Joel Bloom voiced his displeasure to Eddie. Richard Pryor promised they would paint the sign back, “We have award winning set design people here Mister Bloom.” I went to Kim Dingle’s first solo show at the Double Rocking G Gallery in the Nate Starkman Building on Willow and Mateo Street in like 1989, looked down the road… they never painted it back. I always look to see if a dish at Girl and The Goat has carrots in it, you have to aspire to come full circle in life. In mythology the hero always returns home.

There are only three museums to take someone from out of town to: The George C. Page Museum aka the La Brea Tar Pits – there is nothing like it anywhere in the world. Second is the Academy awards Museum nearby, whatever its official title, it is a museum of movies and if someone is visiting here they are only either here for movies or Disneyland or both. Funny how that museum opened and film production here stopped. That big cement ball of theirs is a tombstone really. The third is the Norton Simon Museum. Best art collection outside of NYC in the USA. The tourists eat it up and so do I.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
People say I am brave for taking on pompous art world parasites and lousy artists but it is really just a numbers game. The shout out is to the hundred people who cheer me on for taking down each blowhard. That is what keeps me going, that I can impact while I entertain.

Website: https://coagula.com

Image Credits
All Pics: Coagula Archives

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