A new dawn is lighting up the Los Angeles art world. Once upon a time in Hollywood, New York was the center of culture and commerce (as far as the art market was concerned). Now, LA has its own healthy art market, one focused on showcasing artists, and less centered on churning out the big bucks associated with New York. And guess what, collectors and curators are paying attention! Think of LA as your talent pool, with artists cast in the starring roles.
What’s happened in the past 20 years for this sea change to occur? Trust me: as recently as two decades ago, LA was basically the boonies to New Yorkers, namely the cultural intelligentsia that powered the art market (looking at you: art dealers, museum curators, critics, collectors, and auction houses!).
Still don’t believe me? This clip from Annie Hall sums it up—just press ▶️
Old School New York
After World War II, the art market shifted from Paris, where it had been based since the 1920s, to New York. Why?
New York was just across the pond from Paris, a safe distance away
Key European artists immigrated to NY during the war, mingling with American artists to create a vibrant scene, fueled by Wall Street money
New York had a tradition of philanthropy and patrons to support cultural institutions, which was perceived as lacking in Tinseltown
Post-War New York offered a dense art ecosystem (the intelligentsia I mentioned earlier), solidifying the art market’s long-standing presence in the Big Apple
…until now, that is! Obviously LA was just waiting for her close up all along
LA Waits in the Wings 🦋
While NY was busy being the center of the universe, a Post-War art scene driven by surrealism* was bubbling up in LA
New York had Marcel Duchamp, the radical thinker who emigrated from France, bringing Conceptual art to America (pssst: check out the Snack on Conceptual art for a deeper dive)
Los Angeles had Man Ray, a Surrealist who emigrated to Los Angeles from France because he was drawn to Hollywood, sur-real for sure!
Ed Ruscha, one of the most successful artists from LA since the 1960s, was deeply influenced by Surrealism, as were a host of other artists like Ed Keinholz, one of Ruscha’s peers, as well as David Hammons, also living and working in LA early in his career
*sur·re·al·ism /səˈrēəˌlizəm/: noun
A 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature that sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images.
Hot tip: Surrealism is an image-based movement, perfect in a town obsessed with movie-making, i.e. Hollywood! 🎥
East Coast Ideas vs. West Coast Imagery
Not surprisingly, much of LA’s artistic output has been image-based (spoiler alert: imagery is trending big time in today’s art world)
The consensus was that Post-War New York was the hub of intellectuals, where the cultural elite gathered to discuss big ideas
Meanwhile in LA, artists were more chill, inspired by the landscape, the water, sunlight, and movies (and the good vibes, duh)
A few key practitioners based in LA who redefined art in the second half of the 20th Century, but it took time for everyone else (aka the market) to notice, and take them as seriously as their East Coast contemporaries.
David Hockney (b. 1937) moved to LA from London in 1966, observed the light dappling the water of his swimming pool and painted portraits of friends and lovers
Richard Diebenkorn (1922 - 1993) was based in Santa Monica; made abstracted compositions inspired by light, water and the architecture of his surroundings, which were the inspo for his masterful Ocean Park series
The crew known as the “Light & Space Movement” (think artists like James Turrell, Mary Corse, and Larry Bell) created sculptures and paintings about phenomenological effects: air, fog, refracting Pacific light
John Baldessari (1931 - 2020), an influential artist and teacher at CalArts, appropriated photos from movie stills to question the nature of perception. His shadow looms large over the dominance of Photographic imagery in Contemporary art
Show You the 💰
Until recently, art made in LA consistently underperformed at auction compared to work by NY artists. What’s the deal, you ask?
Since the beginning of the Contemporary art market, which is generally regarded to be the Sotheby’s auction of Robert and Ethel Scull’s art collection in 1973, New York-based artists like Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns commanded the highest prices
That changed in 2018, when David Hockney’s Portrait Of An Artist (Pool With Two Figures), 1974 sold for $90 million at Christie's, making Hockney the most expensive living artist on record
…talk about making a splash!
In 2019, Ed Ruscha’s Hurting the Word Radio #2, 1964 achieved an auction record of $52.5 million at Christie’s (bought by Jeff Bezos, btw)
Big number, right? Just to put that in perspective, it’s still less than half the value of Jasper John’s Flag, 1958, which sold for $110 million in 2010 (and today would sell for way more)
That’s why many (including moi) believe Ruscha is probably undervalued, simply because he was insulated from the market for many years because he lived in LA!
In 2018, Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park #126, 1984, sold for a record-breaking $23.9 million, catching up to the bigger numbers generated by his NY peers for similarly sized abstract canvases
Pro tip: the market always follows the money, so it’s no coincidence that Frieze, the first major art fair to ever take place in La-La Land, followed suit. The inaugural Frieze LA took place on Paramount’s backlot in 2019—does it get more Hollywood than that? 🎬
The Art World Goes West
A few factors that helped LA steal the scene:
The weather and the vibes—’nuff said 😎
Real estate is cheaper than in New York and more 💥 for your 💵
Crème de la crème art schools—Cal Arts and UCLA to name just two—produce talent who can afford to rent studios and stay put
Galleries have opened (see #2) that can afford to represent these emerging artists, because rents are lower than in New York
The art ecosystem is anchored by museums that support these emerging artists and collect locally, i.e. UCLA’s Hammer Museum, whose Made in LA biennial offers artists career-defining big breaks, and LACMA (currently in the middle of a mega expansion led by Herzog & de Meuron)
Takeaway: Collectors of Contemporary art always seek out the new, and LA is newly trending, putting emerging artists in the spotlight.
LA the Influencer: Then and Now
Painting the Everyday
Inspired by David Hockney, artists like Jonas Wood captured a new way of depicting the LA lifestyle: from local flora and fauna, to friends and family (and plenty of potted plants).
Atmosphere as Art
Sterling Ruby’s spray paintings focus on toxic sunsets, similar to how Larry Bell, a member of the 60s Light & Space Movement, captures psychedelic color that he observed refracting through the clouds of LA’s formerly smoggy skies. Ruby is an environmentalist, whose work uses recycled materials and whose pioneering ceramic sculptures helped to revitalize the tradition of ceramics that’s always been prominent in LA.
Glowing Up
Mary Corse, another Light & Space artist, explores refracting light on canvas using glass microspheres, used to illuminate the freeways, which she embeds in paint. Overlooked until recently, Corse’s paintings now feature prominently at Dia, an East Coast museum that focusing on artists of the Minimalist and Conceptual generations. Mary Weatherford, an abstract painter, nods to the Light & Space lineage, as she recreates light in her paintings that is inspired by the neon illumination of highway billboards.
Media Hot Take
Hollywood advertising dominates billboards in town and on freeways, inspiring John Baldessari to appropriate media-based imagery. His sharply ironic paintings and photographs question the nature of perception. Alex Israel, inspired by Baldessari, creates paintings using his own profile as a shaped canvas, positing the artist as visionary. Both artists works feature prominently in the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary art, and elsewhere.
Off-the-Wall Conceptual
Chris Burden, an influential professor at CalArts in the 70s, created art installations and environments, using low-tech sources (think toy store aesthetic). Marvels of engineering, these works offer alternative realms for the imagination, like Lauren Halsey’s assemblages that focus on her community, inspired by the inner city, South Central. Lauren Halsey will produce a rooftop sculpture commission for The Met NY in summer of 2023.
Urban Abstraction
Mark Bradford, from South Central LA, made it to CalArts as an adult after teaching himself to make abstract paintings using square foil papers from his mother’s hair salon, where he worked. Bradford, a queer Black man, took on the white male-dominated world of abstract painting, bringing a different voice to its history. In 2018, he represented the US at the Venice Biennale, and his work is prominently on view at The Broad (a must-visit in LA—read on for our full breakdown).
The Westward Wave
With the rise of LA’s influence as an art center with top art schools, prominent galleries, major collectors, museums, biennials, and a global art fair to boot, turns out New York has been paying attention all along, and wants in on the action!
Check out our snackable cheat sheet of the scene below. And watch as the wave rolls on… 🌊
…and scene.
