Art war targets top galleries
THE Los Angeles art world is booming — with NYCand London galleries, and even a Hollywood agency, opening up spaces in the city’s once-ignored downtown — but not everyone’s thrilled.
Anti-gentrifcation activists accuse the hip, high-end spaces of so-called “artwashing.” “Galleries can afford to hold a space in a low-income neighborhood for a long time and make it appear more hip and desirable to much-higher-income buyers until increasing real-estate prices make more lucrative development possible,” reads a new flier circulated by the Boyle Heights Alliance Against Artwashing and Displacement.
It urges a boycott of UTA Artist Space, the 4,500-square-foot spot opened last summer by the talent agency that reps stars such as Angelina Jolie and launched a fine-art division, as well as Ibid Gallery, the London firm that’s moved to LA.
“Keep Beverly Hills out of Boyle Heights,” read a protest banner last year. Another group, Defend Boyle Heights, calls for the boycott of “all the new art galleries,” which “range from either being ignored or hated by most of our community.”
Galleries targeted by the local radicals include New York collector/dealer Adam Lindemann’s Venus LA; an outpost of cool West Village gallery Maccarone; and 365 Mission, a nonprofit space launched by artist Laura Owens, gallerist Gavin Brown, and indie bookseller Wendy Yao.
The protests have shut down one gallery this year, PSSST, which explained on its site: “Theongoing controversy surrounding art and gentrification in Boyle Heights caused PSSST to become so contested that we are unable to . . . proceed.” 365 Mission said on Facebook: “We want to stay in Boyle Heights, however weunderstand that in order to do so we have a responsibility to our community.”
But even the lefty Guardian wrote of the dispute: “Artwashing. What a great new political watchword . . . Just look how Tate Modern has wrecked London and how the Guggenheim trashed Bilbao. Get away, ye galleries! Let’s keep urban wastelands as bleak as they already are!”
An established LA art insider told us of all the hubbub, “It is fascinating.”