Gagosian and Jeffrey Deitch Have Joined Dozens of Smaller LA Galleries to Launch a Shared Online Sales Platform as Dealers Fight for Survival

by admin

Apr 21, 2020

artnet

Sixty Los Angeles galleries
from across the commercial spectrum are launching a joint online
initiative called GalleryPlatform.LA, proving
that crises can breed
community and innovation.

The move is a first step toward
the formation of a new professional organization known as Gallery
Association Los Angeles, which will provide shared resources to the
city’s dealers and visitors alike, as well as foster collaborative
shows and projects aimed at capturing global attention for Los
Angeles’s vibrant art scene year-round.

Starting May 15,
GalleryPlatform.LA will feature online viewing rooms for 12 member
galleries each week, all hosted on a communally owned and operated
digital infrastructure. The rotating program ensures that each
dealer will return to the spotlight every six weeks.
A diverse makeup of participants
also guarantees that visitors will see smaller, more experimental
spaces on equal footing with some of the art market’s blue-chip
sales champions.

Rather than a single chairman,
the platform will be governed by a 15-dealer operating committee.
One member, Various Small Fires director Sara Hantman, described
this collaborative ethos to Artnet News as a “natural”
manifestation of Los Angeles, which encourages “a much more open
system” than older, more rigid arts capitals. Subcommittees will
manage individual aspects of the infrastructure, such as
administration and editorial content.

The platform’s editorial section
will feature virtual visits with LA artists, dealers, and
collectors. It will also host a robust archive documenting the
city’s gallery scene dating back to at least the 1950s, delving
into the history of early standard-bearers such as Ferus Gallery
and the Brockman Gallery, as well as more recent titans such as
Margo Leavin. While the sales offerings will disappear after each
week-long cycle, the editorial section will remain online
permanently.

The seed of the initiative was
planted by renowned gallerist and former Museum of Contemporary Art
Los Angeles director Jeffrey Deitch. Reached by phone, he told
Artnet News he found it “surprising” that LA did not have its own
gallery association by the time he opened his gallery in Hollywood
in 2018. Although he says overtures about forming one were met with
enthusiastic responses from several local galleries at the time,
day-to-day business pushed the effort down the priorities list for
months.

Then the shutdown
happened.

“With the challenge of the
current situation, I’ve been talking to a number of my friends who
have more experimental galleries—people who say, ‘I haven’t sold an
artwork in a month, and I don’t know how we’re going to get
going,’” Deitch says. “So I decided now is the time to launch this
initiative.”

In early April, Deitch presented
the concept to 65 LA galleries comprising a cross-section of the
city’s scene. Two weeks
later, GalleryPlatform.LA was announced with its 60-strong lineup
of participants, including A-listers like Gagosian and Blum & Poe,
rising hometown forces like Various Small Fires and David
Kordansky, and progressive emerging spaces like Chinatown’s Bel Ami
and Santa Monica’s Five Car Garage, a venue converted from its
namesake. Membership remains open and ongoing.

“This is not at all an exclusive club,” Deitch
emphasizes. “It’s open to every serious gallery”—no matter their infrastructure, budget, or market
profile.

GalleryPlatform.LA has two main
goals. The first is to generate sales for its members by offering
resources and reach that smaller dealers can’t muster on their own.
Although each gallery controls its own offerings, the vast majority
of works will be “accessibly priced,” according to
Deitch.

The second goal is to build
community within Los Angeles’s art ecosystem, strengthening
connections not just between galleries, but also between
collectors, curators, nonprofits, and others who play a role. All
of which leads to the forthcoming Gallery Association Los Angeles
(enabling the fitting acronym GALA).

The group will extend
GalleryPlatform.LA’s communal vision offline by creating joint
programming throughout each year. GALA will also enhance the local
gallery sector by producing practical resources such as citywide
gallery maps and suggested routes for visitors. Other possibilities
include job listings, organized educational or charity events, and
studio and collector visits.

“We want to develop a new system
beyond just the current crisis, which has really showed how much
was not working about the old gallery model,” Hantman
says.

Although GalleryPlatform.LA
won’t officially launch until mid-May, observers can already get a
taste of what’s coming. The initiative’s shared Instagram
(@galleryplatform.LA) is live now.

See the list of participating
galleries below. Bolded
galleries are part of the operating committee.

Anat Ebgi
Blum & Poe
Bel Ami
Charlie James Gallery
Château Shatto
Commonwealth and Council
David Kordansky Gallery
Diane Rosenstein
Fahey/Klein Gallery
Five Car Garage
François Ghebaly
Gagosian
Gavlak Gallery
Gemini G.E.L.
Hannah Hoffman
Hauser & Wirth
Jeffrey Deitch
Jenny’s
Karma International
Kayne Griffin Corcoran
Kohn Gallery
Kristina Kite Gallery
L.A. Louver
LTD. Los Angeles
Luis De Jesus
M+B
Maccarone
Make Room Los Angeles
Marc Selwyn Fine Art
Matthew Brown
Matthew Marks
Meliksetian | Briggs
Morán Morán
Moskowitz Bayse
New Image Art
Nicodim
Night Gallery
Nino Mier
Nonaka-Hill
Ochi Projects
O-Town House
Overduin & Co.
Parker Gallery
Park View/Paul Soto
Philip Martin Gallery
Pio Pico
Regen Projects
Residency Art
Roberts Projects
Shulamit Nazarian
Smart Objects
Sprüth Magers
Steve Turner
Susanne Vielmetter
Tanya Bonakdar
The Box
The Lodge
The Pit
Various Small Fires
Wilding Cran