Santa Monica’s Copro Gallery is celebrating a milestone: 20 years of THE BLAB! SHOW, the acclaimed pop-surrealist exhibition curated by Monte Beauchamp. The anniversary show opened September 6, 2025, and runs through September 27 at Bergamot Station, drawing together more than 70 artists who embody the show’s signature mix of wonder, dread, and wit.
From the beginning, BLAB! has been a space where artists mine the visual language of comics, pulp, and surrealism to create work that feels like both fairy tale and fever dream. Over the years, critics have praised it as a “carnival of imagination” and “an act of creative freedom” that continues to bring together some of the most innovative voices in lowbrow and pop-surrealist art.
The roster for this year’s show is as impressive as ever—featuring Chris Towle, Jesús Aguado, Anthony Ausgang, Glenn Barr, Victor Castillo, Camille Rose Garcia, Kris Kuksi, Travis Louie, Chris Mars, Scott Musgrove, Nouar, Greg “Craola” Simkins, Joe Sorren, Casey Weldon, and many others. Each artist brings their own vision of the absurd, the fantastic, and the deeply human.
My Contribution: Madman in the Corner
For this year’s BLAB!, I am showing Madman in the Corner. The piece explores the psychological charge of edges and margins—the places in a room where attention rarely lingers, yet where unease gathers. Corners, by their nature, are spaces of containment. They hold what is cast off or hidden until it begins to take form on its own.
Why BLAB! Still Resonates
At 20 years, BLAB! is more than an art show—it is an ecosystem. It thrives on the tension between the playful and the grotesque, the decorative and the disruptive. Works here are beautiful, but never passive. They linger with viewers because they engage the unconscious: archetypes of clowns, monsters, doubles, and dreamscapes that echo something inside us.
That mix—spectacle cut with psychological truth—is what makes BLAB! vital, even now. It remains a place where audiences can laugh, shiver, and recognize themselves in the same breath.
Visit the Show
Dates: September 6–27, 2025
Opening Reception: September 6, 6–10 p.m. (and beyond)
Location: Copro Gallery, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave. #T5, Santa Monica, CA
Admission is free, and if you attend, I recommend letting the show unfold slowly. Start with the spectacle, but linger in the quieter corners—those are often where the most interesting conversations begin.
