Dennis Hollingsworth

Leaving LA 4 GLA in NYC

This is a foto from last week, when two lads with a Penske truck collected the work from fifty something artists from Los Angeles and drove the cargo to New York for a survey show in New York City that will open next Sunday at 483 Broadway, SoHo.

The show is called Greater LA. The title recalls the twice a decade survey show called Greater New York and GLA apparently (at least to me) reflects a quiet merger between Los Angeles and New York that is currently underway. The top end of the art world has migrated (Deitch at MOCA) or set up a satellite galleries (Gagosian, L&M, etc.) or bought out controlling interest in various galleries (my lips are sealed) in Los Angeles... I've come to calling LA "the new Williamsburg", with more seriousness than amusement. I know that in art world terms, LA is no equivalent for New York. New York is huge. It has the best high level museums, it has the biggest art market bar none, and it is filled to the brim with brilliant type "A" folks, the best in the world. LA is puny in comparison within these parameters.... but LA does have the advantage of being a magnet for young artists from all over the country.

Why would I match the former with an ante of the latter? Well, I would say that art history turns with a generational, Oedipal shift, with the process of modernization being each generation's need to define the terms of their expression, to reconcile the things they are making with the life they are living. Los Angeles has art schools such as UCLA, CalArts, ArtCenter, USC, Claremont, UCLB, UCR, Otis Parsons (probably an incomplete list) as well as a significant number of grads from art schools across the country who choose to settle into SoCal in order to start their careers (my theory as to why: as one of the few true metropolises with relatively cheap rent, an artist has to find time to make their work outside of market pressures.... remember that time does equal money). Such is my low end theory of art in Los Angeles. At the best of the high, high end, New York is unmatched. At the best of the low end, LA is unmatched. Greater Los Angeles in New York seems to be a match made in heaven.

I'm enroute to Manhattan at the moment, wondering what the coming week will bring.