Los Angeles might be most readily associated with Hollywood’s celluloid dreams, but it’s also heaven for art collectors. The city is dotted with a panoply of contemporary galleries, ranging from purpose-built spaces to converted studios and strip-malls. Here you’ll find emerging American artists side-by-side with the best international talent, and museum-quality collections vying for room beside urgent and thought-provoking street art. Los Angeles, famously, is a patchwork of contrasting scenes and neighbourhoods, but one thing that unites them all is that this has always been a place to see and be seen. That’s never been more true than at these trailblazing art galleries.
See what's on this month with our up-to-date guide to Los Angeles exhibitions.
Jeffrey Deitch
Former MOCA Director Jeffrey Deitch returned to Los Angeles with a bang in September 2018, opening his eponymous gallery in Hollywood with an Ai Weiwei solo show. The maverick art dealer tapped star architect Frank Gehry to renovate the 15,000-square-foot space, which was formerly a cinematographic lighting equipment warehouse. Natural light now streams in through UV-filtered skylights, illuminating solo shows by the likes of Judy Chicago, Robert Longo and Rammellzee as well as carefully-curated thematic exhibitions (People, 2018, Punch, 2019, and Shattered Glass, 2021). Deitch is also known for providing free space for LA’s underground artists. A second, smaller nearby space on Santa Monica Boulevard has featured installations from George Clinton and Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova.
The Jeffrey Deitch Gallery is located at 925 N Orange Dr.
Hauser & Wirth
Opened in March 2016, Hauser & Wirth is arguably the most important and influential commercial art gallery in Los Angeles and sits at the heart of the burgeoning downtown Arts District. The former site of the Globe Grain & Milling Company flour mill sprawls over more than 100,000-square-feet and was converted into a buzzy contemporary art centre in a project led by Selldorf Architects. Multiple galleries of varying scale are connected by interstitial corridors, while the central courtyard is regularly used for large-scale installations and social events. As evidence that ‘sustainability’ is more than a buzzword, a chicken coop and vegetable garden are used to support the on-site restaurant, Manuela. In February 2023 Hauser & Wirth opened a second smaller gallery in West Hollywood, located in a 1930s Spanish Colonial Revival building that was formerly a vintage car dealership on Santa Monica Blvd.
Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles is located at 901-909 East 3rd St.
Blum
It’s well worth making the journey to Culver City to take in the work at this taste-making gallery, which has earned a reputation for bringing the best of international art to Los Angeles. Originally opened as Blum & Poe in Santa Monica in 1994, the gallery made the move to a 5,000-square-foot former industrial warehouse in 2003 and helped spawn an entire art district in the surrounding area. Today, Blum represents over 50 artists working across various different mediums, and has carved out a niche displaying cutting-edge work from artists based in Korea, Brazil and Japan.
Blum is located at 2727 S La Cienega Blvd
Subliminal Projects
He may be best known around the world for creating Barack Obama’s ‘Hope’ campaign poster and the Obey Giant, but in Echo Park street artist Shepard Fairey’s greatest claim to fame is bringing Subliminal Projects into existence. This vibrant gallery regularly plays host to mixed-media shows that champions local artists and displays work influenced by street art and often shot through with a powerful activist or social message.
Subliminal Projects Gallery is located at 1331 Sunset Blvd.
David Kordansky Gallery
David Kordansky made his name as one of Los Angeles’ leading art dealers in the 2000s, and opened his eponymous gallery in Chinatown in 2003. The 20,000-square-foot space was once a martial arts studio and a car dealership before being converted into one of the city’s most significant gallery spaces. Three exhibition spaces spread across two buildings separated by a landscaped courtyard. Shows are balanced between artists rooted in the local Southern Californian scene and those from further afield.
David Kordansky Gallery is located at 5130 W Edgewood Place.
The Mistake Room
Located in a renovated industrial warehouse on the southern edge of the downtown Arts District, The Mistake Room has been operating since 2014 displaying artists from around the world with a particular focus on the Latin American diaspora. The space takes its name from the idea that mistakes can be generative moments that rupture the status quo and propose new ways of seeing, being and knowing. It’s a fittingly daring title for a gallery that has hosted eclectic group shows and recently provided a home for a first institutional solo show from Guanajuato-born artist Felipe Baeza’s mutilayered explorations of bodies and migration.
The Mistake Room is located at 1811 E 20th St.
Beyond The Streets
The art dealer Roger Gastman curated the Art in the Streets exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 2011, and the success of that show led to the first Beyond The Streets show in 2018 that was headlined by street artists including Banksy and Lady Pink. Since moving into a permanent space on La Brea in 2022, the gallery showcases work on loan from private collectors and sits alongside Gastman’s Control Gallery, which focuses on artists who haven’t come from a street art background.
Beyond The Streets Gallery is located at 434 N La Brea Ave.
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