While some of LACMA's contemporary art collection has been moved to BCAM, other buildings in the LACMA complex will continue to mount temporary exhibitions of contemporary art. “There are many profound living artists who call LA home and, in part, the city is emerging as a great art capital for that reason,” reports Michael Govan, director of LACMA. “John Baldessari, Chris Burden, and Barbara Kruger, among others, have created major installations for BCAM and each of these artists is local. There's something to that, I think.”
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles is home to one of the country's finest collections of American and European art created since 1940. “Founded by artists, collectors, and civic leaders, MOCA is the only collecting institution in Los Angeles exclusively dedicated to contemporary art, and the only museum consistently to circulate its exhibitions nationally and internationally,” says Jeremy Strick MOCA's director.
With three separate sites -- the main MOCA on Grand Avenue, the Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo and at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood -- MOCA shows feature artworks from their 5,000 object collection as well as some of the most talked-about special shows in the contemporary art world. Their collection has masterpieces of abstract expressionism and pop art to recent works by young and emerging artists. Selections from the permanent collection are on view in MOCA's galleries throughout the year. The collection has been enriched by acquisitions from major collectors: The Panza Collection contains 80 works of abstract expressionism and pop art including works by Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Mark Rothko, George Segal, and Antoni Tapies. The Barry Lowen Collection includes 67 works of minimalist, post-minimalist, and neo-expressionist paintings, sculpture, photography, and drawings by artists such as Ellsworth Kelly, Elizabeth Murray, Julian Schnabel, Frank Stella, and Cy Twombly. The Schreiber Collection features 18 abstract expressionist paintings, sculptures, and drawings by Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock and others. The Scott D. F. Spiegel Collection focuses on works by established and emerging artists, among them Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mark Innerst, Robert Longo, Susan Rothenberg, and David Salle. The Lannan Foundation's gift of 114 works by 53 artists increases the museum's holdings of several significant Southern California artists such as Wallace Berman, Chris Burden, Mike Kelley, Charles Ray, and Jim Shaw. Three more coups: 10 paintings by Sam Francis and 11 Ed Ruscha paintings given by the artists themselves. Joseph Cornell's estate donated six box constructions and 15 collages.
A very short walk away is the REDCAT Gallery (which is part of the Music Center's Walt Disney Concert Hall complex). The gallery (run by prestigious CalArts, the nation's leading laboratory for the arts) shows cutting-edge works from emerging and mid-career artists. Their 2008 schedule includes drawings and graphic designs by Ed Fella and Geoff McFetridge, and Dave McKenzie's video, performance, sculptural and installation pieces.
The Santa Monica Museum, a non-collecting museum in the Bergamot Station complex, calls itself a Kunsthalle, a German term for an art gallery mounting temporary exhibitions. Their exhibits feature both established LA artists and those with an international reputation.
LA’s gallery scene has become one of the liveliest and most talked about in the world. No wonder -- many galleries show works by BCAM and MOCA artists. Attracting international art collectors with smashing solo and group shows, many galleries are located in convenient clusters so a day of gallery hopping is an art lover's paradise.
Located close to LACMA West, the 6150 Wilshire complex is home to several intriguing galleries. Offering affordable editions, 1301PE bases their choices on their philosophy: “ideas best expressed in multiple form.” Mike Kelley, Charline von Heyl, Fiona Banner are among their artists. ACME has a wide range: paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, video and installation.
A few blocks east of BCAM, one of LA's oldest galleries, Ace Gallery, has a reputation for its museum quality shows, balancing emerging, mid-career and well-known artists. They have exhibited works by Dennis Hopper, Robert Graham, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Mapplethorpe, Julian Schnabel, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol.
There are more galleries worth perusing along nearby La Brea Avenue. Jack Rutberg Fine Arts presents major exhibitions of museum-quality works by modern and contemporary European and American artists such as Arshile Gorky, Kathe Kollwitz, Georges Rouault, Francisco Zuñiga and Alexander Calder. Survey shows have featured German expressionist and LA contemporary art. Iturralde Gallery focuses on contemporary art by Latin American artists. Couturier Gallery exhibits work by Latin American and North American artists. Fahey/Klein Gallery is known for its excellent shows of major 19th and 20th century photographers (Brassai, Annie Leibovitz, Irving Penn, Man Ray, Bruce Weber). Jan Kesner Gallery also concentrates on fine art photography with an extensive collection of vintage photographs and work by contemporary photographers. Jan Baum Gallery's shows include Chris Burden, Betye Saar and Alison Saar as well as African art.
West Hollywood is home to LA's original “gallery row.” Founded almost 40 years ago, Margo Leavin Gallery specializes in contemporary paintings, drawings and sculpture by John Baldessari, Sarah Charlesworth, Dan Flavin, Alexis Smith and others. Gemini G.E.L. is an artists' workshop and publisher of limited edition prints and sculpture. Artists include Josef Albers, Chris Burden, Willem de Kooning, Frank Gehry, Allen Ginsberg, David Hockney and Elizabeth Murray. The editions are hand-printed by Gemini's master printers. The National Gallery of Art owns one edition each from the more than 2,000 editions Gemini G.E.L. has published. Regen Projects shows Anish Kapoor, Catherine Opie, Raymond Pettibon and Lari Pittman. Upcoming exhibitions at M + B include eight solo and one group of photography by surfing photo-master LeRoy Grannis and Hunter S. Thompson.
The largest art gallery complex and cultural center in Southern California, Bergamot Station is located in an 1875 Red Line trolley barn in Santa Monica. More than two dozen galleries (and a cafe) encircle the “yard.” Peter Fetterman Gallery specializes in fine black-and-white photography with an emphasis on humanist imagery. Shows have included Henri Cartier-Bresson, Andre Kerterz and Sebastiao Salgado. Shoshana Wayne Gallery represents more than 30 artists including Yoko Ono, Victor Estrada and Kiki Smith. Rosamund Felsen Gallery of Functional Art offers one-of-a-kind and limited edition objects that are often referred to as art furniture from folk to conceptual to baroque to minimalist created by artists, architects, designers and craftsmen from all over the world.
Reported by The Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau.
