Our Story
Most studios begin with a focus on making work, but over time, something interesting started happening inside our studio.
Projects would begin as paintings or exhibitions, but they would quickly expand into much larger conversations, about human performance, systems and civilization and how culture and design evolve.
We realized that the studio itself was functioning like a small research environment. Each project became a way to explore bigger questions. A painting might explore symbolism and cultural memory. An exhibition might examine global sports as a dataset of human excellence. A collaboration might explore design, technology, or environmental systems.
nstead of trying to force these ideas into traditional categories, we embraced the studio as what it had naturally become a place where art, research, and experimentation intersect.
That realization is what led to the creation of Vanguard Projects, a studio designed not only to produce artwork, but to investigate the cultural and systems questions shaping the future.
Ali and her studio team
Ali has built a practice centered around the ideas of the conversation between the classic and the ancient and the the hyper-modern, throwing parties, and collaboration on a global scale. While the Vanguard Projects studio headquarters is based in North County San Diego, the studio is comprised of thinkers and artisans dedicated to marrying business with visionary and forward thinking creative solutions and expressions working across continents, in many fields and mediums, we are honored and excited to have collaborators across the globe. We are committed to sustainability and our mission of integrity, and visionary development.
Some organizations we donate to include: The Endangered Species Coalition, The Women’s Earth Alliance, The Nature Conservancy, The Earth Island Institute and UNICEF.
She has hung works next to Le Corbusier, Picasso, Shepard Fairey, Alexander Calder, Barbara Kreuger, Alma Allen, Rick Owens, Pia Camil, Isamu Noguchi and featured in the Vogue and fashion director Eva Chen’s collection, as well as among the collections of sophisticated collectors around the globe Ali’s work Soapstone Fire Bowl was recently featured in his LA Frieze week exhibition “Vessels” curated by Alexander May, celebrated by fair director Christine Messineo, as well as in Cultured Mag, Wallpaper and Interior Design Mag as shows not to miss during LA’s Frieze art week.
THE STUDIO
The studio was founded to both to develop works that promote experiences outside of our normal human experience and share that with the world in various capacities, while simultaneously developing new visions in the worlds of art, parties, fashion, innovation, business and music. The mission is centered around vanguardism, celebration, peace, sensuality, shared ancestry, participating in a citizen of the earth perspective - all from a positive proactive forward thinking light.
Explore our work as each body of work becomes a chapter in our larger worldview. The studio is grounded in a longer view: reimagining urban and ecological systems for the next 10 generations, designed to be abundant, resilient, and regenerative rather than extractive. We are currently focused on solving immediate, real-world constraints across energy, water, food, and materials, as well as expressive reimagining of systems and urban environments that no longer serve civilization and our larger earth ecosystem.
It was founded to both to develop works that promote experiences outside of our normal human experience and share that with the world in various capacities. The mission is centered around vanguardism, celebration, peace, sensuality, shared ancestry, participating in a citizen of the earth perspective - all from a positive proactive forward thinking light.
ABOUT THE FOUNDER AND THE TEAM
From the outset of her career as an artist and musician, Ali has rebelled against convention, juxtaposing editorial, personal narrative and vanguardism.
Her artwork includes creating and hosting large scale experiential installations, Vanguard Parties, Earth Art Ceremonies and Environments as well as traditional gallery shows - all intending to create evocative experiences for the modern art community to have access to celebration, party as ceremony, ancient emotions, latent instincts and 360 degree sensual experiences.
Her paintings and sculpture have been featured in Architectural Digest, Vogue, Ignant, My Domaine, The Zoe Report, Vogue Paris, Elle, Goop, Iron & Air, Tiny Atlas, Best Magazine, Paper Sea (Australia), Anyone Girl (New Zealand), My Chameleon (France), La Mignonette (France), Velvet Dust, Hullabaloo, LVL3 and Range Magazine as well as the cover feature of La Motocyclette (New York) debuting over at MOCA Los Angeles. She was included in Domaine Home's and rapidly emerging artists to watch next to Alex Israel and James Franco.
She has hung works next to Le Corbusier, Picasso, Shepard Fairey, Alexander Calder, Barbara Kreuger, Alma Allen, Rick Owens, Pia Camil, Isamu Noguchi and featured in the Vogue and fashion director Eva Chen’s collection, as well as among the collections of sophisticated collectors around the globe Ali’s work Soapstone Fire Bowl was recently featured in his LA Frieze week exhibition “Vessels” curated by Alexander May, celebrated by fair director Christine Messineo, as well as in Cultured Mag, Wallpaper and Interior Design Mag as shows not to miss during LA’s Frieze art week.
She has been featured by guest curators including Alexander May, Ariel Orkin, Olivia Kim, Maya Erskine, The Brownstone Boys, Jenny Kayne, Gillian Segal, Cara Woodhouse, Alyssa Coscarelli, Serena Goh, Kristine Paige, Kara Smith, Hilary Matt. Her works have been among the iconic over at the Surfrider Hotel, the Rosewood and at new art-wise posh hotel Hotel Laguna, the Soho House, JTHAR, Boxo Projects, Human Gallery New York, The Painting Center (New York), as well as a part of the collections at Casa Shelter Half.
She produces music, as well as sculpture, environmental works and paintings in conversation with both the music world and the art world as a representation for us to experience, dialogue and celebrate our shared, pluralist and global lineages of humanity. Utilizing the canvas and context of the music world to create an atmosphere and spirit where we can broadly dialogue between a more modern “self-aware” and informed version of ourselves, and a deeper more latent archaic sense of humanity that is intertwined with the natural world. She recalls, what Charles Olsen dubbed the “Archaic Post-Modern”. Naturally, this leads her to mixed use of materials, pitching primitive percussion against 808’s, self made tape loops against catchy melodic sensibilities, juxtaposing clays with spraypaints, soapstone and fire with brass, or building and lighting highly articulated post-Judd boxes installed into the center of the desert as a rain catchment for a conversation with the broad scope of the natural world and then throwing a party around them with drummers hidden throughout the desert as a ceremonial party celebrating that very moment. Her practice leaves nothing sacred to be unexplored and throws lineages of art and music and modern mash up in juxtaposition, reflecting her pluralist philosophy: ancient, pop, abstract expressionism, current cultural movements, and even throwing parties to be thrown in conversation with one another, just as vast and broad as we are today.
She released her debut record, Legends of These Lands Left to Live, which New York Magazine’s the Cut noted “has been uncommonly well-received by critics, at least one of whom compared her to James Dean (among a host of living rock legends)." NPR compared her music to Patti Smith and Cat Power, while Vice compared her music to early Dylan. The Guardian included her in their artists to watch in 2016 and New York Magazine’s the cut called her ‘the real deal’. It was also celebrated by writers from Stereogum, The Revue, LA Weekly, Impose and Consequence of Sound.
Gearing up for an exciting 2022, Ali is launching several new painting series with her LA Gallery Tappan, planning a solo exhibition with the Gallery En Blanco in the Baja, releasing her new musical project Alivenique including collaborations with the dance pop duo Crush Club, the English (by way of Mexico City and Paris) DJ and producer El Búho, new Peruvian electronic artist QOQEQA. She is also currently working on a new branded side featuring her studio as a place to both shop modern objects and participate in new global ventures.
With the latest development of her Alivenique project, she turns her eyes towards a more extroverted, tropical, story, in step with global currents.
Alivenique is the new conceptual brainchild of the musical and visual artist Ali Beletic. Self-described as a “meta-pop-art musical project”, it delves into her unique take on artistic vanguardism, hyper mixing a vast sonic and visual sensual assualt, digging into cinematic narratives alongside post-genre feminine meme-able moments, yet deeply underneath translating a pluralist sincerist invitation.
Ali is a member of BMI and SAG/AFTRA and studied film and physics at NYU and trained as a classical vocalist in both New York, and Los Angeles. She has also studied as a vocalist, guitarist, and as a vocal producer at Berklee. She mentored under the prestigious production designer, Rob Pearson.
She is the co-founder of Lightning—a print/online platform that explores various subcultures of rocknroll, art, surfing, motorcycles and other related creative and spirited scenes. She is passionately creating a like-minded community of explorers, creatives, and freeriders inspired by her adventure driven lifestyle and her studies with master trackers Tom Brown Jr., and Jon Young.
GET INVOLVED
join our
newsletter
-
We offer a range of solutions designed to meet your needs—whether you're just getting started or scaling something bigger. Everything is tailored to help you move forward with clarity and confidence.
-
Join our research-led special projects and concept development and visual world building across industry and today’s problem solving.
-
Host an exhibition, public programming, or investigation into one of our current initiatives.
-
We'd recommend booking your transportation to and from the event as soon as possible, to ensure you can arrive without any complications or delays.
-
Now all that's left to do is pack your bags and get excited for your new adventure.