lil swim

Lil SWIM group show - San Francisco

"The Luggage Store is excited and proud to feature, “Lil SWIM”,  curated by Yarrow Slaps and Auguste Somers of the artist collective SWIM Team. SWIM was founded in 2013 to bring artists and and other creative people together to connect and collaborate, and first participated in the Luggage Store’s “Short Cuts” program, a mentoring program for young artists predominantly of color.

Swim  has since grown and expanded into a dynamic network of mostly young artists who make art, clothing, music.  Swim releases limited edition clothing, runs a blog and drops mix tapes; and they have also gained curatorial experience in the past four years.

“Lil SWIM” is the SWIM Team’s most ambitious exhibition to date, featuring 68 artists, most of the artists they have ever wanted to show in one exhibition.  Some established artists that Slaps and Somers  have known for years such as Retna, Swoon, Os Gemeos, Lydia Fong  will be featured along with and many younger more emerging artists and lesser known artists such as Kezia Harrell, Diego Diego, Sachi Moskowitz and Adrian Mangel.

Slaps and Somers spent the past year and half making studio visits and searching for artists via social media whose work they felt represented their aesthetics and who were authentic searching souls.

Swim has a tap on the art scene and what you will see May 12th is a predominantly group of young contemporary artists from SF and around the country, many whose work contain social commentary in a variety of artistic styles.

SWIM will release its first magazine (designed by Jonathon Freeman’s Cultured Visual Arts) in conjunction with the show at The Luggage Store. The magazine  is both a document of SWIM’s past and exciting new and current endeavors; which will be for sale at the show.

Slaps, a painter, rapper and curator is the son of LSG co founders Darryl Smith and Laurie Lazer and has curated shows in San Francsico, Sacramento and Los Angeles. He  has had solo exhibitions iin SF, LA, New York and Denmark; while August, an aspiring filmmaker and cultural critic is the son of Marsea Goldberg of New Image Art in Los Angeles.  Talented and motivated, they come from opposite coasts of California. They both grew upbreathing art."

- The Luggage Store Gallery