SCAN MAGAZINE SPRING 2021
A PAST RENEWED Art review of Via Café’s exhibition
Written by Carlos Nunez Illustrated by Tia Nagaraj I drove for hours, motivated by an odd, singular hunger for art, through 80 miles of kudzu and Family Dollars to get here: Comer, Georgia, a place where “middle of nowhere” is an understatement and compliment. For here, in the outskirts of outskirts and the suburbs of suburbs, is where Tif Sigfrids’s new gallery location stands. Via Café walks us through the early 2000s art scene in Los Angeles. The booming new century was fresh — California fresh. UCLA students would hang out around Chinatown and the artwork shown in the galleries started frequenting Via Café as
much as the artists. The shop operated as a place for artistic minds to meet, laugh and decompress over espressos and banh mis. I entered the space to find myself staring at the bedecked counter wall: all works, zero negative space. Tif Sigfrids & Jasmine Little have curated a tale from the first-person perspective. The surrounding walls were packed with nostalgia that resembled an inside joke that the audience was willing to watch, learn and dig to unravel.
