In February 2019, Ki Smith at 27 years old, opened a gallery at 712 West 125th St. in Harlem—a space donated to him for a year by David and Pernita Avital, co-founders of MTP Investment Group, whom he met through friends and collectors, Lisa and Noam Bardin. Smith plans to continue championing young artists like his brother, Sei, by giving them a space to exhibit, and even stipends for solo shows of about $1,000 each to offset expenses. Although young to own a gallery, Smith notes he’s been in the art world for 10 years, beginning when he dropped out of high school to work at a gallery and then at an architecture firm. After a stint at the California College of the Arts, he dropped out again, landing eventually in Barcelona, Spain, where he learned how to work with artists and transform spaces at the elbow of Lucas Cappelli, one of the owners of StudioP52 Barcelona, an artist residency program. At Ki Smith Gallery, he hopes to continue working with some of the Base 12 artists—those who partnered with him and Sei to stage the guerilla pop-up events the brothers orchestrated at the Whitney Museum of Art, MoMA PS1, and a subway station in Brooklyn which garnered significant media attention previously.

Watch one of the pop up art shows here: