Excerpt from Vernissage TV page:
"In this video, we sit down with Stefan Simchowitz to discuss the launch of Hill House, his new art space in Pasadena, and his other projects, including his recent move into politics. We first met Stefan in 2010 during Portugal Arte 10, a major international contemporary art exhibition in Lisbon, Portugal, where he served as artistic director. Since then his ventures in the field of contemporary art evolved considerably. He started the a pop-up exhibition program called The Newsstand Project, provides industry specific art services via Creative Art Partners, and runs artist residencies in Los Angeles and Cape Town. There’s also Simco Shop, Simco Editions, Simco Drops, Simco’s Club – and Simco Audio, which plays a significant role in enjoying art at Hill House.
This video is the third in our series about Hill House. See also the video about the opening of Los Angeles-based artist Shaina McCoy’s exhibition at Hill House and the Hill House Tour with Stefan Simchowitz.
Interview with Stefan Simchowitz. Pasadena, October 20, 2024.
Right-click (Mac: ctrl-click) this link to download Quicktime video file."
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Un-edited digital transcript of interview:
H. Schmidt: Stefan, thank you so much for having me. You're amazing, Hill House. We just did a tour of Hill House where I showed you several structures. What I would like to know is you have a lot of different interests, a lot of different things going on. What I would like to know is how do you put all this together? Or the other way around, how did it all come together? How did it start?
S. Simchowitz: So I think, you know, we're at Hill House and we're on a structure that has eight different structures, all different. Each one functions like a chessboard; they do different things and can do multiple things. I think I built an art business that functions in a very similar way. The traditional art business is very linear and expected in its ambitions, outcomes, and desires. I've had to think about building a structure to support artists, to distribute art, to generate revenue and income that's not completely different but has aspects beyond the traditional business.
I think Hill House is an aesthetic expression of that; it’s a physical manifestation of those ideas. There are eight separate buildings, all disjointed but connected by a pathway, so they can come together. Different people can do different things in different zones. We're in a room that serves as an office space during the day and becomes an exhibition space when there's an exhibition. The front room, which we call the garage, is also an exhibition space. There's audio equipment everywhere, so you can listen to beautiful music, making art inhabit a living and working space rather than a static environment.
Typically, art is static, objectified, commodified in a sort of perfect state. Out of necessity and creativity, we've been forced to develop a very different structure for how the business operates for several reasons. One, I have not accepted what I call the "rules of the game." There’s this rule book you receive when entering the art business, and you're like, boom! Every business has a rule book, different from a set of laws. It defines social engagements among people in the business, not the legal operation of it. In fact, sometimes it contradicts legal operations. It’s like a code. And when I read that book—proverbially—I thought, "This doesn't make sense to me." So I tossed it aside and decided to write my own rules, engaging with artists and culture in a way I believe is better, more equal, humane, open, and less homogenized—a heterodox approach as opposed to an orthodox one.
Slowly, systematically, we’ve done this. You met me 15 years ago when I was at the beginning of that journey, always striving to do things that were ambitious, large-scale. This is where we are today. Around 2014-15, I was approached by Ted Shervin, an old friend and a very powerful movie agent. He had taken over a company called ICM, moved into new offices, and needed artwork. Mark Selwyn, from a traditional gallery in L.A., realized he couldn’t meet the need because they required 800 works of art. He introduced me to Ted, and I ended up renting art for their offices in Los Angeles and New York.
This was the beginning of an innovative business called Creative Art Partners, which I founded with a partner, Brian Ludlow. Today, hundreds of people rent art from us across divisions, with thousands of works in the field being rented, seen, and distributed efficiently. We looked at the cost structure, asking, "How can you provide people with art inexpensively?"—a polar opposite to the typical art world, which tries to capture huge margins. Instead, we sought to offer art as a service, with slim margins but high volume, bringing art into homes without forcing people to view it as a significant financial decision.
As the art business has become more expensive, galleries have customized their solutions for a wealthy clientele. This shift has exaggerated inequality within the industry, with smaller galleries giving way to larger and "mega" galleries, based on the idea that career success requires moving up the gallery hierarchy. I don’t believe this is true, nor do I think big galleries show the best art. Instead, art has become increasingly illegible to most people, reduced to a language understood only through money.
The irony is that the system now functions like a financial ratings agency. Institutions rate artworks as "buys" or "sells," similar to financial stocks. This system has become entrenched, aligned with global inequality, which I consider the greatest threat to the West—greater than geopolitical rivals like China or Russia. This inequality expresses itself in an art world that feels absurdly homogenized, resembling scenes from *The Hunger Games* more than anything else.
I'm interested in how we can cut through this "jungle of capital" to get art out there. We need to turn the capital-driven art system on its head, like giving a child medicine disguised as candy. By lowering the price, people can engage with art for enjoyment rather than investment, returning to its roots as a source of beauty and ideas. I want art to be accessible without the need for high stakes, where it’s okay for art to be decorative as well as intellectual.
Hill House embodies this idea; it’s a curated lifestyle space where art lives among music, audio, furniture, and other aesthetic elements. This concept aligns with Creative Art Partners, our rental business, and Simco Audio, where we sell and manufacture audio equipment. Additionally, we support artists not by managing them but by providing financing for their studios, which are, essentially, artisanal factories. Artists need capital, and I’ve been honing this complex, personalized approach to artist financing since we first met.
That’s the big-picture view of what we’re doing.
H. Schmidt: Yes, it’s not only that; you’ve brought together so many things over the years. It feels cohesive, not like something odd. It’s something that you miss in traditional galleries. Here, you can take your time and don’t feel watched or observed by anyone.
S. Simchowitz: Yes, you’re not organized into a social hierarchy. The white box gallery format, useful for context, turns into an empty social space when capital enters. Instead of being about the art, it becomes a place for hierarchy and power. The presence of money turns the white box into a space where visitors organize themselves by perceived status, creating an uncomfortable hierarchy. People leave feeling observed and categorized, with only a select few receiving attention from prominent gallery owners.
Our space is different. Here, you can interact privately and intimately. The shift in art spaces mirrors the broader societal inequality we’re seeing everywhere. These are the questions I hope to address at a meta level.
H. Schmidt: I think it's a genius idea to focus on audio. You know, it goes very well with watching art because you can really relax; you can listen to the music, sound for maybe half an hour, maybe more. You can take your time and then watch the art comfortably, and then it's a much better experience than if you walk in a white box and you're okay. Most people spend five seconds in a white box and then they go out.
S. Simchowitz: Yeah. It distracts you. It engages you again. The one thing that is very legible to people is music, because it's a language that we all understand. We live with it as children. People know how to read music almost as well as they know how to read money, which is a good thing. And I think by providing music, it fills the empty space. Even if you're alone in a room with music, you are having a conversation and you're not alone. You're not being watched because you're listening. And I think one of the interesting things about watching is that I sometimes don't even tell people, "This is so-and-so; sit down, listen." And then, 20 minutes later, they ask, "Who's that artist? I really like it." You don't have to tell them.
I went to a gallery, and the first thing I did was walk in, and the gallerist sort of walked up to me and gave me a PDF and said, "This is so-and-so, and he's in a museum show." I'm like, I haven't even had a chance to look at the work, and you haven't even asked me if I like it. Because if I say I don't like the work, after you've told me it was exhibited in museums, I sound like a moron. So immediately, they've put me in this situation where if I don't like the work and they've told me about its museum status, I can't even tell the truth. So I think letting people discover the work and engage with it, flipping everything upside down, disrupting that linear transaction point, is interesting.
H. Schmidt: What I also like is that I think you have residencies or give residencies here, but also you've not left.
S. Simchowitz: Yeah, we do. We have a couple of residency programs. Have you met Cameron Platter, who arrived today? You should interview him before you leave. He's in MoMA, an amazing artist. He's here for a month on residency. We have a gallery and a residency space in Pasadena, five minutes away from here, so artists can stay here and work there. We also have the Cape Town art residency that's run by David Altman, who's here. Maybe you could interview him and Ben Johnson—Ben's my lead designer, he designs all the creative assets for us. Cameron Platter is an amazing artist who just came in last night, and David Altman runs that. We bring international artists from England to South Africa, so it's not just for African artists. It’s also to bring foreign artists to Africa to engage. It's a great program; it's very beautiful, and David should speak to you about it. So we have the residency program here and others as well.
H. Schmidt: You also have an addition business...
S. Simchowitz: Yes, we have an additions business. These are all additions that we produced. This is a UV-dimensional addition, which is textured. This is just a print; this is a screen print, so we have an additions business. We've done a number of additions. They don't sell particularly well, but I have built a business where I don't need to sell art to stay in business. This is the trick because selling art to this class of people is extremely difficult in the sense that, in order to do so, you need the ratings agencies, the institutions, and the art fairs on board, and if you don't have their buy-in, you're in trouble. And I will never, ever fight for their buy-in. I will never degrade myself to their obsequiousness and their structures. I'll build my own business, my own distribution system. It'll be parallel to the system, and eventually, I believe it’ll be big enough that it will become the new system, and that's my goal. See if I can execute it, or if I'm Don Quixote chasing windmills. History will tell.
H. Schmidt: Another question: I think you have an economics background. Tell me about that. Were you always interested in art, or did that come later?
S. Simchowitz: I was always interested in art. My mother’s an artist; I always took pictures. When I was young, I wasn’t really interested in art. I’m from South Africa, so I didn’t imagine being a guy in the art world. I was interested in the movie business. I went to boarding school in Connecticut when I was 15, went to Stanford for undergrad, and when I was there, I got bored. They had laser discs then, and I started watching movies. A friend gave me some John Woo movies—the Hong Kong stuff. I fell in love with movies and decided to go to AFI and make movies. The movie business happened first, then I got into a company called Wireimage and learned about distribution and content. Art was always in the background but felt inaccessible. I lived in New York, worked for a guy managing his family’s money, and started going to galleries, like Jeffrey Deitch’s. That’s when the art business started to emerge.
It took time. I assembled a bunch of skills in different, content-related, creative industries, and they slowly came together. I was telling someone yesterday that for me, business works by impulse, instinct, and a feeling, like being in a jungle and slowly seeing a little light. My son, who's 16, asks what he wants to do in life, and he talks about the values he wants to have rather than a specific goal. I say, "You build the values, and then you can build the ‘what.’” For me, the path has always been aesthetic and idea-driven, but figuring out in a world, especially in America, that tends toward cheap and large-scale business models has always frustrated me. I’ve always thought there’s a war on culture, and the art business often fights over small things instead of expanding. It’s about making the culture more engageable, even if it’s within the elite structure.
H. Schmidt: You talked about values. That leads me to another question. You ran for Senate?
S. Simchowitz: Yes, the United States Senate.
H. Schmidt: Did you do that?
S. Simchowitz: Yes, my friend Jack Kimball, who’s a smart guy, told me that Dianne Feinstein was giving up her seat, and it was an open race. I figured I’d just try it. Why not? You only live once. No chance of winning, but I like learning, and I believe learning is a contact sport. If you’re going to vote, having an opinion by experiencing the process makes you more informed. The greatest threat to democracy, in my view, is inequality, and I love America and South Africa, so I want to contribute. I'm relatively young at 54, and I have this feeling that I'm going to build something big. I constantly learn and keep myself informed, just in case I’m ever called to do something significant.
H. Schmidt: Until then, you have this...
S. Simchowitz: Yes.
H. Schmidt: It’s really impressive.
S. Simchowitz: Thank you.
H. Schmidt: I also spoke to several artists and visitors, and they are all along the way because this is a unique experience. It’s a great space to relax and not think about anything.
S. Simchowitz: Yes, you can be here for hours. I mean, you came here at 11, and you see a lot of people. It’s very nice, giving people time and providing a holistic experience.
H. Schmidt: Thank you very much.
S. Simchowitz: My pleasure.
H. Schmidt: Do you have anything you’d like to add?
S. Simchowitz: Not really. I just want to be of service.
H. Schmidt: Almost asked if you have a political statement to add?
S. Simchowitz: I want to see a fairer world where culture is valued. Culture enables creative and logical thinking, and that’s my calling. So, I’m figuring out that path, step by step.
H. Schmidt: Okay, hey, thanks so much.
S. Simchowitz: Thank you, Heinrich. And just to say, my political statement is: watch Vernissage TV. It’s an amazing resource.
H. Schmidt: Thank you.