LA Art Market Heating Up

Here is some good news for appraisers on the West Coast in general, and those in the LA area in particular. The Financial Times is reporting the Los Angeles art market is quickly expanding and drawing interest from many international gallerists. There have been many reports of pop up galleries and exhibitions in the area, but this FT reports focuses on more galleries looking at LA as a permanent home with local sales and also international appeal. With more galleries, art sales and interest in collecting should rise, and that should be good news for art appraisers.

The Financial Times reports

The buzz around the Los Angeles art scene is growing ever stronger. Hauser Wirth & Schimmel is opening a huge gallery downtown in 2016 while, next spring, the Berlin and London gallery Sprüth Magers will launch its new space at 5900 Wilshire Boulevard in West Hollywood with a show by John Baldessari. This week, meanwhile, the London-based gallery Ibid is inaugurating a warehouse space downtown with a show of the Brazilian-born, Vienna-based abstract painter Christian Rosa.

“We have been thinking about this move for some time,” says Ibid director Magnus Edensvard, “and we had already held pop-up shows in LA. A number of our artists are thinking of moving there, or anyway want to show there. So we are responding to their desires.”

I asked him what is stimulating the current rush to LA, a city known for its artists but, until recently, less for a strong collecting community. “Things are changing there. Indeed, the art schools and the local artists’ community are very strong,” he says. “And while the collector scene is growing as well, I am not relying on them alone – I hope to attract an international audience to the new space.”

The Rosa show opens on September 19 and features 12 large-scale paintings with the artist’s characteristic squiggles, marks and blocks of colour. And Edensvard is busy in London as well: on October 13 he launches Ibid’s new gallery space in Margaret Street with a show of three artists: Michael van den Abeele, Flora Hauser and Maria Taniguchi.

Source: The Financial Times