Independent Collectors

Los Angeles

Los Angeles’s chief cultural contribution may still be on the silver screen, but the city’s art scene is booming too. Artists are moving to the city in droves, both from America’s other major art center, New York, and from more artist-friendly metropolises like Berlin. L.A. has no small advantage in attracting them: its rents are still relatively cheap (unlike New York) and its populace is wealthy (unlike Berlin) with a growing cadre who are passionate about contemporary art. The Southland’s institutions are flourishing. Its newest addition, The Broad, opened to the public in September 2015 and houses the Broad Art Foundation’s collection, assembled by real-estate magnate Eli Broad and his wife Edythe. But it’s hardly the only game in town. Just a few steps down from the city’s arts and culture locus of Grand Avenue is the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, one of three MOCA venues in L.A. MOCA’s largest space, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, is just minutes away as well. Head half an hour west by car (traffic allowing) and you’ll hit the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the largest of the city’s art institutions. But L.A. has much more than museums to offer. Fairs like Art Los Angeles Contemporary (ALAC) and LA Art Show in January bring additional collectors to the city each year. And over the past years, outposts of some of the world’s most influential galleries have opened in the city. In September 2015, New York dealer Michele Maccarone opened a multi-use complex in a former warehouse downtown. The following February, London and Berlin’s Sprüth Magers opened a gallery across from LACMA, and one month later, Hauser & Wirth teamed up with esteemed, former MOCA chief curator Paul Schimmel to open Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, in a 9 000-square-meter former flour mill downtown. And, that’s not to mention L.A. stalwarts like Regen Projects and exciting young spaces like Night Gallery, François Ghebaly Gallery, and Freedman Fitzpatrick, which are peppered across the city’s many neighborhoods. As the saying goes, if you want to see what’s next in North American art, go west, young man.

Los Angeles (9)

The Broad Collection

Walking down the Grand Avenue in Los Angeles, right by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), you can’t help but be struck by the angular construction of The Broad and its bright white honeycomb exterior.

Marciano Art Foundation

Maurice and Paul Marciano, founders of the GUESS jeans brand, in their five-thousand-square-meter exhibition space

Donna Huanca – Obsidian Ladder

Skin painting artist Donna Huanca participates in the current MAF project series, exploring gender and sexuality in contemporary life.

Life Cycle

The Marciano Art Foundation hosted Ai Weiwei for the third MAF Project in their Theatre Gallery.

The Wig Museum

LA's MAF was inaugurated in 2017 with a solo show of Jim Shaw, curated by Philipp Kaiser.

www.Simco Web Works

In context of exposing art digitally and exposing digital art, we wanted to present artworks that have only and always existed on the web, as URLs, here in the collection of Stefan Simchowitz.

Stefan Simchowitz Collection

L.A.’s most controversial art collector opens up his private collection of contemporary painting.

Soul Of A Nation: Art In The Age Of Black Power 1963-1983

HEAR this Online Exhibition, exclusively put together with an abundance of images, to view whilst listening to a curated playlist by Quincy Jones.

The Broad Survey Of Shirin Neshat

Downtown L.A.’s The Broad presents Shirin Neshat in an immersive survey.