839: Invited Back Again

When we arrived at 839, the door was already open. Gallerists Liz Hirsch, an art historian, and Joshua Smith, an artist, were waiting inside. Their home opens onto an unexpected white-walled gallery. Artwork spills from a narrow hallway into the kitchen, sleek prints hang near family Polaroids, and cookware clinks as conversation hums. Out back, their kids run the “Rock Shop,” selling rocks from the yard in exchange for leaves. Bathed in the late-summer light, 839 felt distinct: both lived in and on display.

Liz and Joshua run 839 in the spirit of what they once imagined as young artists in New York—the cool kind of gallery where artists and gallerists are genuinely friends. While 839 operates within the art market, their program doesn’t follow its rules. They show work and artists they believe in, regardless of trends. For Liz and Joshua, building 839 reminds them of how musicians start their own record labels—like Dr. Dre’s Aftermath, Kathleen Hanna’s Kill Rock Stars, or Greg Ginn’s SST Records. Liz said, “It’s not about rejecting the art world, but creating something parallel that centers on autonomy and trust, where artists can grow beyond short-term metrics.” You’ve heard of an artist’s artist—839 is an artist’s gallery. 

Liz and Joshua moved to Los Angeles in 2017, after living in New York City for much of their adult lives. They had spent years visiting Los Angeles, staying at a relative’s place across the street from the house that would later become 839. They were in awe of the neighborhood: a picket-fenced suburbia right in the middle of Hollywood. When Liz began flying back and forth from New York for her PhD research about cultural intersections within alternative art infrastructure in LA, 839 N. Cherokee Ave. hit the rental market and they couldn’t say no. In a way, the gallery’s space and project sort of found them. 

They arrived in LA just as Trump took office and traded their social life in New York’s art scene for political organizing in LA. Joshua had previously been active in the Occupy Wall Street movement, a left-wing populist movement out of which Essex Flowers, an artist-run cooperative gallery he helped establish, was born. Liz and Joshua set out to build something similar in Los Angeles, merging their creative practices with political engagement. In Los Angeles, Liz co-chaired the housing and homelessness committee for DSA LA, while Joshua joined the mutual aid committee. They regularly hosted meetings for political organizations at their home, which shaped the vision for 839.

839 was inaugurated in Summer 2024 (with a group show aptly titled Summer 2024). Joshua used to stage nomadic apartment shows in New York, making the home gallery vaguely familiar territory. 839 felt like a continuation of the informal exhibitions they had always gravitated towards. The artists 839 represents are people that Joshua and Liz have known between the New York and LA art scenes. They would think of a great artist and ask themselves, “Who is showing them?” If the answer was nobody, they gave that artist a call.

Their latest show, Summer 25, marks one year for the gallery. Like Summer 24, the group show is not fixed by a theme, but is instead shaped by the rhythms of the artists’ practices. Liz and Joshua think of their summer exhibitions as a time to show what 839 artists and friends can do. Stepping into the show, a television placed directly on the floor loops a video installation by choreographer and artist Carolyn Lockhart Schoerner dancing at a dining table. Its feature is made personal by the fact that Joshua got to know Carolyn on their daily work commutes in New York City. A vibrant pink painting by Ruhee Maknojia, a Pakistani and Indian-American artist, sits above the mantel. Joshua’s own work commands the left wall with a bold, black canvas in the form of a giant backslash. A small pop print by Maddy Peters occupies the adjacent wall, with a selection of her zines displayed on a nearby record table.

The kitchen plays host to two amorphic paintings by Yunghun Yoo; the larger of the two is hung between a guitar and a rack of pots and pans. This eccentric combination animates the space, making the surrounding everyday objects feel like part of the artwork. Joshua noted that visiting collectors love seeing these pieces integrated with the rhythms of daily life.

Through a narrow corridor leading toward the back of the house is Olivia Gibian’s lush, biomorphic watercolors on one side and Kyle Knodell’s light bending photographs on the other. Both artists are longtime friends of Liz and Joshua. In the back room is one of Andrés Janacua’s sculptures: a tall, tilted wooden frame filled by woven toquillo. On the wall, a collage by Pau S. Pescador reminds Liz of Hannah Höch: “Höch once cut and reassembled photographic heads, while here Pescador removed them entirely, leaving gaps that point to questions of gender presentation.” Other featured artists are Jesse Benson, Natalie Lerner, and Tucker Neel. 

Living with the artwork changes it. Liz and Joshua experience the pieces after-hours, watching them shift in waning daylight.

Political ideology is integrated throughout 839–in the gallery’s messaging and their artists’ work. Maddy Peters created graphics for campaigns such as NOlympics LA, the Los Angeles Tenants Union, and Albert Corado’s abolitionist city council campaign. Pau S. Pescador’s collage in Summer 25 is part of a larger research project on transgender government employees. Press releases and programming from 839 often double as political interventions: they pledge sales to immigrant defense funds, issue demands like “ICE out of LA,” and stand in solidarity with WAWOG (Writers Against the War on Gaza) on Instagram. At 839, specificity is prioritized over neutrality: “We’re not interested in being a ‘safe space’ that makes non-statements,” Liz says. “We’d rather say something specific and risk losing followers.” Liz and Joshua aren’t explicitly seeking out political artists or pressuring their artists to make political work. They do, however, intentionally position 839 as a space where progressive politics are never censored nor tip-toed around, and where exhibitions respond directly to the urgency of our time.

Up next, 839 will present Echoes, Vanessa Wallace-Gonzales’ first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, opening on Saturday, August 23rd from 5—8 pm. Liz and Joshua first heard about her work through mutual friends and cold emailed Wallace-Gonzales. Arriving just days before the opening, Wallace-Gonzales will take over the gallery, building the show in situ. “We don’t exactly know how the space will come together,” Joshua says. “That’s part of the point.” The color blue will be central to the work she shows, referencing and reclaiming the violent histories of blue in Western art. Wallace-Gonzales invokes Yves Klein’s blue and his anthropometries series, where he conducted naked women as “human paintbrushes” in live performances. Wielded by Wallace-Gonzales, blue is changed: animating a body of work that echoes memory, integration of the body in nature, mythology, and the poetics of visibility. In light of the recent ICE-led kidnappings targeting working-class immigrant communities across Southern California, 20% of all sales from the exhibition will benefit the Immigrant Defense Fund via the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON).

What became unmistakably clear in our time with Liz and Joshua was how much they care for—and champion—the artists they represent. 839 is less a calculated business venture than an evolving community–shaped by political ideals and mutual support that transcends convention.  Being represented or shown by 839 is far more than a one-off exhibition—it’s an invitation to grow with the gallery, whether through a solo show, participation in an art fair, or introductions to their network of collectors, writers, and artists. You’ll be invited back again.