Los Angeles Beverly Arts (LABA) International Arts Festival Interview

TV host Joey Zhou, founder of the Los Angeles Beverly Arts and Tina Liu, Director of the International Chinese Department at The Beverly Arts (TBA) News

Episode 1: "LABA's Ultimate Goal and Future." 

Date: September 23, 2025 

Location: 801 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90017 

Host: Tina Liu, Los Angeles Press Club member, Director of the International Chinese Department for TBA News 

Guest: Joey Zhou, Founding President of the LABA International Art Festival

Interview Consultants: LABA Advisors Douglas Ivanovich, Harrison Engle, Cedric Lebert, and Jonathan Zhang of Real World Assets (RWA) 

Tina: What is the ultimate goal of hosting the LABA International Art Festival? 

Zhou: We will carry out this profoundly meaningful art and cultural event with an international perspective, professional insight, mainstream engagement, commercial operations, authoritative support, and a public welfare purpose. We will discover and nurture the future of the world's most influential and valuable artists.  

Tina: That's a very smooth answer, but I'm curious if there are any more specific plans.  

Zhou: Yes. In the next 3-5 years, we plan to build a 900-room art museum-style hotel in Los Angeles. Our American colleagues have already chosen the name: "The LABA Arts and Culture World Center." 

Tina: Amazing! Building a hotel like this would require at least $100 million. $500 million is certainly possible in a prime location in Beverly Hills. How will we address the funding issue? 

Zhou: First, Douglas Ivanovich, who leads this project, is a world-class fundraising expert. His partner, Rayn, is a blockchain expert and Ethereum's partner and lifelong senior advisor. So... we will introduce blockchain technology to LABA. Once everything is ready, we will issue LABA tokens with RWA features. Secondly, to accomplish the first step, we must first conduct offline fundraising. Douglas is already working with his partner, Mr. Momo, on some asset investment planning offline, and they should be holding such an investment seminar soon. 

Tina: I know that RWA (Real World Assets) tokenizes assets. What assets does LABA currently own that can be tokenized? 

Zhou: First, over the past five years, LABA has accumulated a large number of artworks by outstanding artists. These include works by LABA Blue-chip artist Jiannan Huang and neon sculptures by Lisa Schulte, one of the top American artists. In particular, the cross-disciplinary oil painting and sculpture "Golden Valley and Silver Stream," a collaboration between Lisa Schulte and Jiannan Huang is worth over tens of millions of dollars per piece. According to a valuation report by Mohtarhei, a leading art appraisal agency in Beverly Hills, the value of the 100 artworks we currently own exceeds $100 million. These artworks can all be used as RWA tokenized assets. Of course, LABA's intangible assets are far greater than $100 million. This is why Cedric Lebert, a renowned American cryptocurrency expert, has repeatedly urged our LABA board of directors to issue a LABA-exclusive RWA token. 

Director/filmmaker Harrison Engle, neon artist Lisa Schulte, LABA Blue-chip artist Jiannan Huang by video conference (on iPad), and TV host Joey Zhou, founder of LABA

Tina: How do we interpret and define LABA's intangible assets? 

Zhou: LABA has paid particular attention to the operation and management of its intangible assets from the very beginning. For example, TBA NEWS, has attracted over a million followers since its launch in March 2019. Furthermore, we've participated in two LABA-MIMV global top 10 rankings and four LABA Icon Awards events. These events, which have attracted celebrities and elites from various industries, have garnered widespread influence in mainstream media and social media. Whether you search for LABA on Baidu's Chinese version or Google's English version, you'll find thousands of articles and video reports. Just one of our contracted artists has garnered over 100 million views in the past three years. Thousands of Chinese and English media outlets and websites have reprinted the news, and these reports have garnered hundreds of millions of hits.

Tina: But based on my understanding of RWA, intangible assets cannot be directly converted into RWA assets.

Zhou Zheng: You're absolutely right. But intangible assets can indirectly drive the market issuance of RWA tokens. 

Tina: Besides the asset value of LABA's paintings in market circulation, what other methods does LABA currently have to convert these artworks into direct assets?  

Zhou: Yes! First, we can continue to hold cross-border art exhibitions and auction the artworks during the exhibitions. Second, we can loan the artworks to hotels, high-end clubs, nightclubs, and even well-known restaurants on a regular basis. Third, we can create derivative products from well-known artworks worth millions, such as prints and other well-known derivative products. However, artist Lisa Schulte, has created neon artworks for celebrities like Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Mariah Carey. The copyright of these works belongs to the artists, so we can create similar derivative products. For example, the Dragon Year logo designed by Jiannan Huang for Courvoisier Cognac is worth $5 million, and the copyright remains with the artist. We can all create related derivative products. 

Tina: I see! You want to circulate the artwork owned by LABA, so that RWA's assets can be fully consolidated! 

Zhou: I understand exactly. 

Tina: Thank you.

The Beverly Arts News is sponsored by World Peace One, VTGO, MDSUN, XAVVI, BYC International Holdings, Shennel Trading, InLight Foundation, Cynthia Clarté, Jiannan Huang Art Institute, Galaxy Community, Xiuwen Wang Art Studio, and The Beverly Arts Foundation