Photo: Joshua Targownik / targophoto.com
The international gallerists Iwan and Manuela Wirth and Ursula Hauser, along with Paul Schimmel, former Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, have opened an impressive new gallery in DTLA - yet another sign of LA's growing importance in the art world. The gallery, which is as much a public art space as a commercial art gallery, is located on East Third Street in a former flour mill and food manufacturing facility, a collection of buildings that were constructed between 1896 and 1929.
The gallery complex, which consists of several exhibition galleries, a bookstore, restaurant, office space, a central courtyard and open breezeway, comprises 116,000 square feet of fairly open space and was designed by architects from Creative Space in Los Angeles and Selldorf Architects in New York. Situated along the Arts District strip on Third Street, the Hauser, Wirth and Schimmel Gallery is sure to become an anchor for the burgeoning area.
The opening exhibition features work by both established and emerging artists. The main gallery space presents sculptural works by women artists from 1947 to the present, and includes the work of Louise Bourgeois, Lee Bontecou, Claire Falkenstein, Eve Hesse, Hannah Wilke, Sheila Hicks and Louise Nevelson, among others. Hauser and Wirth, who represent more than 60 artists and estates, including LA artists Mark Bradford, Thomas Houseago, Richard Jackson and the late Mike Kelley, brings a distinguished gallery presence to the LA art scene.