(Solomon O. Smith / For The Times; James Alan Duran; Josh Schaedel / IZZY Lee; Megan Geckler; Coley Brown / Nice Day Photo and Claire Preston; Victoria Miller)
A new L.A. art gallery in this economy? Here are 15 standouts defying the odds
- Share via
Is L.A.’s gallery scene collapsing? Local and national art world coverage often focuses on that click-bait narrative as proof of “ecosystem collapse” — pointing to high-profile departures like Tanya Bonakdar Gallery consolidating into an expanded Chelsea footprint in New York, ditto Southern Guild, as well as Gavlak doubling down on her Florida space. There’s more: Sean Kelly staying but ceasing public programs, Patricia Sweetow on pause while she looks for a new location, Various Small Fires on the backburner as its owner focuses on politics, and Blum closing after years of economic derring-do and tumultuous palace intrigue.
An imported mega-gallery not renewing its lease after failing to earn a shred of local goodwill is not the most useful metric, and the reality on the ground (or at least in our inboxes) tells a remarkably different story. Over the last year, nearly 50 new commercial midsize galleries have opened across the city, outpacing closures by a factor almost five to one. It seems more like a necessary structural correction than an apocalypse. It might even be a renaissance.
Expect a rich fall season of ambitious, revelatory shows across Los Angeles museums this fall, including blown glass, taxidermy and landmark retrospectives of work by Doyle Lane, Laura Andreson, Roy DeCarava and Mavis Pusey.
Many of these new spaces have taken root in the wake of the devastating 2025 fires in a fearless, life-is-short kind of way. At least five more have opened since we wrapped up reporting for this story. And there’s a parallel renaissance that includes scores of artist-run and hyperlocal nonprofits, as well as initiatives outside the traditional gallery model like the newly announced Vacant to Vibrant partnership with City Hall placing independent artists’ studios in unoccupied storefronts throughout downtown’s historic core.
Back in the commercial gallery world, the focus seems to have finally shifted away from the speculative pressures of mega-galleries and the notoriously bad return on investment – and logistical burdens – of international fairs toward something more sustainable: nimble, human-scaled spaces run by community-minded people in permanent discovery mode.
Here are 15 notable galleries that have opened, expanded or doubled down on Los Angeles this year, and the distinct visions driving them forward.
Showing Gallery Galleries
Official Welcome Gallery
Westlake Art Gallery
(Solomon O. Smith/For The Times)
After more than a decade helping steer major Los Angeles institutions like Vielmetter Los Angeles, Ariel Pittman decided to start over alone for her next chapter. She opened Official Welcome following a turbulent period of personal upheaval and regional crisis, during which she also co-founded Grief & Hope, an artist-led mutual aid initiative providing financial relief, emergency housing coordination and other resources to artists and art workers displaced by the wildfires. Pittman found clarity in all that hardship, saying: “All of the reasons why not suddenly became very good reasons to do it.”
Located in Westlake’s 1927 Granada Building — a vibrant creative hub of revitalization that’s attracting a vital art world presence — the gallery is skeptical about the isolated white-cube setup. “L.A. is a challenging place to build an art market,” Pittman notes, “but I think the history of art in Southern California is proof that this is one of the best places to cultivate artists. I’m enamored with the tangled history of the place and the vast variety of cultures that thrive here.”
Embracing complex urban realities right outside her window, she views the historic neighborhood as an invitation to support the unique character of L.A. A spirit of accessibility permeates her programming as well, which speaks to her omnivorous curiosity. Balancing historically resonant painting practices with narrative textiles, Indigenous craft traditions and sculptural experimentation, Pittman champions a view of art that prioritizes emotional transformation over speculative investment. Her program, she notes, “reflects a real conviction in the value of art because of how it makes us feel, how it changes us, and how collecting and curating is an opportunity to live some of our values — empathy, inclusion, curiosity, community.”
Located in Westlake’s 1927 Granada Building — a vibrant creative hub of revitalization that’s attracting a vital art world presence — the gallery is skeptical about the isolated white-cube setup. “L.A. is a challenging place to build an art market,” Pittman notes, “but I think the history of art in Southern California is proof that this is one of the best places to cultivate artists. I’m enamored with the tangled history of the place and the vast variety of cultures that thrive here.”
Embracing complex urban realities right outside her window, she views the historic neighborhood as an invitation to support the unique character of L.A. A spirit of accessibility permeates her programming as well, which speaks to her omnivorous curiosity. Balancing historically resonant painting practices with narrative textiles, Indigenous craft traditions and sculptural experimentation, Pittman champions a view of art that prioritizes emotional transformation over speculative investment. Her program, she notes, “reflects a real conviction in the value of art because of how it makes us feel, how it changes us, and how collecting and curating is an opportunity to live some of our values — empathy, inclusion, curiosity, community.”
Wilshire / Vermont Station
Member Exclusive
Plan Your L.A. Day
Log in or register for a free account to save L.A. Times recommendations for restaurants, hikes, entertainment and more — all in one place.
induction gallery
Westlake Art Gallery
(Solomon O. Smith/For The Times)
Museum consultant and former Pace and Kayne Griffin director John Zinonos initially founded induction gallery in his own living room. Seeking community after relocating to Los Angeles during the pandemic, Zinonos turned his Echo Park apartment over to artists, tucking away his personal belongings to establish a domestic salon offering home-cooked dinners and complete creative autonomy. “Putting on shows in a home,” says Zinonos, “provided a warmth, relatability and access point into an otherwise cold and oftentimes sterile white-cube space experience.” It worked so well that induction moved into a new space — and Zinonos got his home back.
The gallery’s spirit of fluid exchange remains in its historic Granada Building, where induction joins an evolving lineup of inventive exhibition spaces like Official Welcome. Operating without fixed representation rosters, the gallery program is a rhizome of shared affinities, with Zinonos sourcing talent through studio visits, nightlife and peer recommendations. Following early exhibitions like Ian Smith’s geometric aluminum sculptures and cyanotype studies, the program has continued to pursue visibility and critical dialogue. “What I was really interested in was building a space for community and exchange — gathering artists and creatives together to meet, share ideas, work and collaborate,” Zinonos says.
“I wanted to get the work out of artists’ studios, out of their minds and drawings and plans, and present it in front of others who would be interested,” he continues. This fall, the gallery celebrates its new permanent home with an interactive performance by Severin Hallauer and a solo exhibition of large-scale paintings by New York-based artist Margaret Maclean.
The gallery’s spirit of fluid exchange remains in its historic Granada Building, where induction joins an evolving lineup of inventive exhibition spaces like Official Welcome. Operating without fixed representation rosters, the gallery program is a rhizome of shared affinities, with Zinonos sourcing talent through studio visits, nightlife and peer recommendations. Following early exhibitions like Ian Smith’s geometric aluminum sculptures and cyanotype studies, the program has continued to pursue visibility and critical dialogue. “What I was really interested in was building a space for community and exchange — gathering artists and creatives together to meet, share ideas, work and collaborate,” Zinonos says.
“I wanted to get the work out of artists’ studios, out of their minds and drawings and plans, and present it in front of others who would be interested,” he continues. This fall, the gallery celebrates its new permanent home with an interactive performance by Severin Hallauer and a solo exhibition of large-scale paintings by New York-based artist Margaret Maclean.
Wilshire / Vermont Station
Dominique Porter Gallery
Glassell Park Art Gallery
An interior view of the Dominique Porter Gallery.
(Evan Bedford)
Dominique Porter Gallery can be found in a big, gorgeous building in Northeast Los Angeles shared by working artist studios. Porter finds the immersive, studio-adjacent energy to be both “energizing and nurturing.” For Porter — a generational Angeleno whose background spans NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Christie’s Education in London and years navigating major art capitals — her new space also represents a kind of homecoming. Days after losing her Altadena home in the Eaton fire, an unexpected space opened up, and rather than sitting with unimaginable loss, Porter seized the opportunity to build something new.
Launching with the group exhibition “Soon You Will Be Home,” which mapped the psychological terrain between endings and beginnings, Porter’s program is anchored by a place-making intuition. “I’m interested in artists who are building worlds of their own. I like work that is specific, strange, materially intelligent, and difficult to mistake for someone else’s,” she says. “I’ve spent a long time looking at art and being around artists, and most discoveries still happen in very human ways — studio visits, conversations, seeing an exhibition, or one artist telling me I need to meet another.”
Launching with the group exhibition “Soon You Will Be Home,” which mapped the psychological terrain between endings and beginnings, Porter’s program is anchored by a place-making intuition. “I’m interested in artists who are building worlds of their own. I like work that is specific, strange, materially intelligent, and difficult to mistake for someone else’s,” she says. “I’ve spent a long time looking at art and being around artists, and most discoveries still happen in very human ways — studio visits, conversations, seeing an exhibition, or one artist telling me I need to meet another.”
Thoughts on our guides? Let’s hear it!
We’re gathering feedback on how our guides can better serve you and help you find the next great restaurant, hike or activity in Los Angeles.
Feia Studio
Highland Park Art Gallery
(Coley Brown / Nice Day Photo and Claire Preston)
With a delightfully all-of-the-above attitude, artist Thomas Martinez Pilnik and designer Jake Cavallo (who worked on Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey”) have created one of the most unique and instantly beloved exhibition spaces in Los Angeles.
Taking its name from the Portuguese word for ugly — a favorite colorful catchall utterance of Pilnik’s Brazilian mother — Feia embraces the powerful creative potential that comes with risking failure, radical vulnerability and lifelong curiosity. Embracing the architectural vocabulary of its Highland Park side-street ADU, Feia’s program is an assertively interdisciplinary hybrid of gallery, design environment and social salon, anchored by a materially inventive ethos that champions unconventional materials (wood, ceramic, textile) and narrative objects, functional and otherwise.
While at home in Los Angeles, Feia courts bemusement, novelty and surprise — installing sculptures on the roof deck, as well as treating food as one more creative art and gatherings as essential cultural touchstones.
“We aim to capture all that with Feia,” notes the duo — who are also married. But when it’s time to bring the broader Feia ethos to the art fair circuit, they prove they can play a sophisticated away game too. As veterans of Spring/Break, Untitled, NADA, Future Fair, Felix and more, Feia is a family, and the goal is to keep it growing.
Taking its name from the Portuguese word for ugly — a favorite colorful catchall utterance of Pilnik’s Brazilian mother — Feia embraces the powerful creative potential that comes with risking failure, radical vulnerability and lifelong curiosity. Embracing the architectural vocabulary of its Highland Park side-street ADU, Feia’s program is an assertively interdisciplinary hybrid of gallery, design environment and social salon, anchored by a materially inventive ethos that champions unconventional materials (wood, ceramic, textile) and narrative objects, functional and otherwise.
While at home in Los Angeles, Feia courts bemusement, novelty and surprise — installing sculptures on the roof deck, as well as treating food as one more creative art and gatherings as essential cultural touchstones.
“We aim to capture all that with Feia,” notes the duo — who are also married. But when it’s time to bring the broader Feia ethos to the art fair circuit, they prove they can play a sophisticated away game too. As veterans of Spring/Break, Untitled, NADA, Future Fair, Felix and more, Feia is a family, and the goal is to keep it growing.
Lola Gallery
Chinatown Art Gallery
(Andonis Bertsos/Lola Gallery)
On a bustling stretch of Figueroa Street in Chinatown, Lola Gallery occupies a spot shaped by spatial narrative and contemporary curation. Founded by Tyson Klein (who grew up surrounded by architecture before spending a decade in comedy, and working extensively as a film production designer), alongside gallery director Katie Leavens, who has held positions at LACMA and the Huntington, the gallery approaches exhibitions with a fluid structural instinct and a dedication to elevating local talent.
The project began when a friend toured Klein’s apartment, admired his personal collection and urged him to build a public platform. Opening its doors in April 2026 with the group exhibition “Of Living Deliciously” — curated by Eden Caine and showcased at Future Fair in New York — Lola has quickly established itself as a collaborative anchor for resonant ideas. “There are a lot of uncertainties about the future of humanity,” Klein says, “but it seems to me that art is all we have left; it’s what binds us together.”
Lola works fluidly with independent and underrepresented artists across diverse mediums and at various career stages. This fall, the program expands with “Surface/Tension,” a solo exhibition of Brooks Shane Salzwedel’s psychologically resonant mixed-media landscapes that blur memory and geography. Additionally, the gallery’s participation in Los Angeles Design Weekend remains on view. It’s a group show called “Touchpoints,” celebrating local makers in ceramics, textiles, wood and weaving. They’ll wrap up the year with a curated holiday makers and small works market.
By combining a museological curatorial approach with an independent producer’s unsinkable optimism, Lola joins the increasingly interdisciplinary climate among the city’s galleries.
The project began when a friend toured Klein’s apartment, admired his personal collection and urged him to build a public platform. Opening its doors in April 2026 with the group exhibition “Of Living Deliciously” — curated by Eden Caine and showcased at Future Fair in New York — Lola has quickly established itself as a collaborative anchor for resonant ideas. “There are a lot of uncertainties about the future of humanity,” Klein says, “but it seems to me that art is all we have left; it’s what binds us together.”
Lola works fluidly with independent and underrepresented artists across diverse mediums and at various career stages. This fall, the program expands with “Surface/Tension,” a solo exhibition of Brooks Shane Salzwedel’s psychologically resonant mixed-media landscapes that blur memory and geography. Additionally, the gallery’s participation in Los Angeles Design Weekend remains on view. It’s a group show called “Touchpoints,” celebrating local makers in ceramics, textiles, wood and weaving. They’ll wrap up the year with a curated holiday makers and small works market.
By combining a museological curatorial approach with an independent producer’s unsinkable optimism, Lola joins the increasingly interdisciplinary climate among the city’s galleries.
Chinatown Station
Aabee Bleue Project
Downtown L.A. Art Gallery
Inside Aabee Bleue Project at a popular downtown gallery space.
(The artists / Aabee Bleue Project)
The newest addition to the lineup at downtown L.A.’s popular 1700 S. Santa Fe gallery, Aabee Bleue Project is shaped by a powerhouse trio of women — longtime collector and interior designer Sabrina Younesi, seasoned gallery director Narges Hamzianpour and veteran curator Niloufar Binafard. Born from a natural convergence of shared passions and complementary backgrounds, the gallery establishes a crucial platform for contemporary artists from Iran and the Iranian diaspora, intentionally positioning Los Angeles — home to the largest Iranian community outside of Iran — as a vital nexus for international dialogue. Binafard feels a responsibility to, and a great affinity with, both the Los Angeles art world and the artists of the contemporary diaspora. “I often say, ‘If I can’t go to Iran, I will bring Iran to me.’”
Binafard’s guiding philosophy is at the heart of the program “Trust the Eye,” which prioritizes visceral, unmediated connection over predefined national categories. “I don’t want someone to look at a work because it’s Iranian,” Binafard notes. “I want the work to stop them first — to move them, intrigue them, make them want to know more. Then they discover the artist is Iranian. The art comes first, their identity adds another layer to the story.”
This standard is echoed by both Younesi and Hamzianpour, who adds that over the last 18 years, “I have worked through different economic cycles, including the 2008 financial crisis, which taught me patience, resilience and the importance of staying focused.”
The current exhibition brings together dozens of artists from the gallery’s extended Los Angeles family in a rotating curation that highlights community connections.
Binafard’s guiding philosophy is at the heart of the program “Trust the Eye,” which prioritizes visceral, unmediated connection over predefined national categories. “I don’t want someone to look at a work because it’s Iranian,” Binafard notes. “I want the work to stop them first — to move them, intrigue them, make them want to know more. Then they discover the artist is Iranian. The art comes first, their identity adds another layer to the story.”
This standard is echoed by both Younesi and Hamzianpour, who adds that over the last 18 years, “I have worked through different economic cycles, including the 2008 financial crisis, which taught me patience, resilience and the importance of staying focused.”
The current exhibition brings together dozens of artists from the gallery’s extended Los Angeles family in a rotating curation that highlights community connections.
Washington Station
The Loved One
Historic Filipinotown Art Gallery
(James Alan Duran)
A hybrid collaboration by Wienholt Projects and Hat & Beard Press that serves as both a gallery and an art-forward bookshop, the Loved One is on the border of Echo Park and Historic Filipinotown. It grew out of what its founders, J.C. Gabel and Aubrie Wienholt describe as, “a shared feeling that there was room in Los Angeles for an alternative arts space that operated a little differently.” The vision was not only to bring contemporary art, books and independent publishing together under one roof, but to infuse the whole with live music, literary and film programming. Somewhere, “people could return to, spend time in, discover artists and books, and have in-person conversations. The place is really analog.”
Gabel’s Hat & Beard is a longtime staple of L.A.’s independent publishing scene, while Wienholt’s mission includes championing artists across mediums and career stages. Los Angeles felt to them like “the natural place” to combine their efforts because, as Gabel says, “there is such an extraordinary concentration of artists, writers, photographers, filmmakers, designers and independent publishers here, but those communities can sometimes exist in separate pockets. We wanted to create a space where they could overlap.”
The neighborhood was important to them for the same reason — its strong creative identity offers more freedom to experiment than a conventional gallery district. This is essential since the Loved One’s vision includes generating true interdisciplinary dialogue. “The exhibition program exists alongside books, photography, independent publishing, readings, conversations, music and other cultural programming,” they point out. “We don’t necessarily see those as separate audiences.”
Gabel’s Hat & Beard is a longtime staple of L.A.’s independent publishing scene, while Wienholt’s mission includes championing artists across mediums and career stages. Los Angeles felt to them like “the natural place” to combine their efforts because, as Gabel says, “there is such an extraordinary concentration of artists, writers, photographers, filmmakers, designers and independent publishers here, but those communities can sometimes exist in separate pockets. We wanted to create a space where they could overlap.”
The neighborhood was important to them for the same reason — its strong creative identity offers more freedom to experiment than a conventional gallery district. This is essential since the Loved One’s vision includes generating true interdisciplinary dialogue. “The exhibition program exists alongside books, photography, independent publishing, readings, conversations, music and other cultural programming,” they point out. “We don’t necessarily see those as separate audiences.”
Izzy Lee Gallery
Chinatown Art Gallery
(Josh Schaedel / IZZY Lee)
On the magical pedestrian plaza of Chung King Road in Chinatown — historic and current home to several of the city’s most fascinating galleries — Izzy Lee operates her eponymous space as a bridge between the art communities of the Northeast U.S. and Southern California. A veteran of independent exhibition spaces in Williamstown, Mass. — Poker Flats and North Loop — Lee relocated to Los Angeles two years ago, bringing an academic background spanning Williams College, MoMA’s film department and UT Austin to a warmly received, exploratory gallery she called “North Loop West.”
Like many before her, she came to realize that while you can, in fact, check out any time you like, when it comes to SoCal, you can never leave — which is how North Loop West became Izzy Lee — a fresh program grounded in organic studio and classroom relationships. For example, “Dye Trace” brought together Abby Flanagan, Hai-Wen Lin and Los Angeles ceramicist Marina Darcy Weiner. Lee says that Flanagan, who teaches at Amherst College, introduced her to Lin’s work after Lin led a kite-making workshop for her students. “I don’t do formal representation yet, but my relationships are close and long-running — most of the artists I’ve shown in L.A. I first showed in Williamstown. And it’s equally important to me to show L.A. artists alongside the Northeast community that shaped me,” Lee says.
The November exhibitions are concurrent solo projects by painters Rina Goldfield and Sarai Bustos, who all explore the infinitely malleable forms of memory and abstraction. Per the gallery’s organizing principle, it’s worth noting that Goldfield was Bustos’ painting professor at Boston University’s MFA program.
Like many before her, she came to realize that while you can, in fact, check out any time you like, when it comes to SoCal, you can never leave — which is how North Loop West became Izzy Lee — a fresh program grounded in organic studio and classroom relationships. For example, “Dye Trace” brought together Abby Flanagan, Hai-Wen Lin and Los Angeles ceramicist Marina Darcy Weiner. Lee says that Flanagan, who teaches at Amherst College, introduced her to Lin’s work after Lin led a kite-making workshop for her students. “I don’t do formal representation yet, but my relationships are close and long-running — most of the artists I’ve shown in L.A. I first showed in Williamstown. And it’s equally important to me to show L.A. artists alongside the Northeast community that shaped me,” Lee says.
The November exhibitions are concurrent solo projects by painters Rina Goldfield and Sarai Bustos, who all explore the infinitely malleable forms of memory and abstraction. Per the gallery’s organizing principle, it’s worth noting that Goldfield was Bustos’ painting professor at Boston University’s MFA program.
Chinatown Station
Gallery236
Gardena Art Gallery
Gallery236, a pop of pink in Gardena, hopes to offer a sanctuary for artists.
(Victoria Miller)
The team behind Gardena’s Gallery236 believes its new building chose them, and notes that it took three years to construct their unique exhibition space. For co-founder and painter Russ Bryant, fulfilling a lifelong dream after decades immersed in the arts represents, “a deeply personal milestone.” Co-founder Victoria Miller, who brings a lifelong dedication to fostering community through creativity, adds that the gallery was designed to transcend a purely transactional model. The founders envisioned, “an environment, a home, a welcoming place for all manner of society to gather in the name of art.” Alongside Director of Operations Rocio Montiel and Asia Pacific Managing Director Orawan Jantasen, the team curates a local and international roster of abstract, realist and figurative painters, as well as innovative designers and ceramicists.
Following Bryant’s inaugural exhibition, “Beyond the Veil: A Dialogue With Silence,” the gallery transitioned this autumn to “Sights Unseen,” featuring the serene, textural abstractions of Indigenous and Latinx artist Brenda M. Grajeda, on view through Nov. 21. Summarizing her tactile process, Grajeda notes, “Color, movement, texture and intuition find their way into the quiet places of the soul — this is my work.” Infused with genuine warmth and hard-earned resilience, her pieces are emblematic of Gallery236’s offer of a sanctuary for art to foster true human connection.
Following Bryant’s inaugural exhibition, “Beyond the Veil: A Dialogue With Silence,” the gallery transitioned this autumn to “Sights Unseen,” featuring the serene, textural abstractions of Indigenous and Latinx artist Brenda M. Grajeda, on view through Nov. 21. Summarizing her tactile process, Grajeda notes, “Color, movement, texture and intuition find their way into the quiet places of the soul — this is my work.” Infused with genuine warmth and hard-earned resilience, her pieces are emblematic of Gallery236’s offer of a sanctuary for art to foster true human connection.
Mek Contemporary
Glendale Art Gallery
Attendees view Rafael Megall’s “Idols in Bloom” on opening night at Mek Contemporary on Sept. 24, 2026.
(SimonCardozaPhotography)
Mek Contemporary was established in Glendale “as the culmination of something we had been working toward for a long time,” says founding Director Vic Hovsepian. “A physical space where we could develop exhibitions with greater depth and intention, and give greater visibility to artists we believe in.” Located alongside local landmarks like the Glendale Public Library and the forthcoming Armenian American Museum, the gallery shares a deep connection to the region. “Los Angeles is home, and there is still a real sense of possibility here,” says Hovsepian. “Its mix of cultures, artists, institutions, collectors and communities makes it a natural place to build a program that brings together artists from different backgrounds and parts of the world.”
That expansive outlook anchors the program in a perpetual sense of discovery. “Our program is grounded in the belief that meaningful conversations in art often begin with a singular encounter,” Hovsepian notes, prioritizing work that navigates memory, place, identity and cultural inheritance across diverse geographies. “We are also interested in the context around the work, whether that comes through an artist’s background, process, or the ideas that have shaped their practice.”
The gallery’s September opening was “Idols in Bloom,” artist Rafael Megall’s first Los Angeles solo exhibition, which allowed the founders to introduce themselves to the world through Megall’s unpacking of inherited imagery, decorative porcelain motifs and collective memory.
That expansive outlook anchors the program in a perpetual sense of discovery. “Our program is grounded in the belief that meaningful conversations in art often begin with a singular encounter,” Hovsepian notes, prioritizing work that navigates memory, place, identity and cultural inheritance across diverse geographies. “We are also interested in the context around the work, whether that comes through an artist’s background, process, or the ideas that have shaped their practice.”
The gallery’s September opening was “Idols in Bloom,” artist Rafael Megall’s first Los Angeles solo exhibition, which allowed the founders to introduce themselves to the world through Megall’s unpacking of inherited imagery, decorative porcelain motifs and collective memory.
Blue & the Muse
Downtown L.A. Art Gallery
Outside Blue & the Muse, which hopes to inspire visitors with new ideas after they step inside.
(Megan Geckler)
Founded by “lifer Angelenos” Magal Nagar (an organic nutrition entrepreneur) and Gil Tepper (a retired spine surgeon), both of whom have spent decades creating and collecting art, Blue & the Muse resurfaces a uniquely multifaceted energy in the Arts District. Working alongside veteran gallery director Dale Youngman, the founders envisioned a roomy two-story space built on community and creative freedom, blending personal and professional reinvention with a deep love for the city.
Eschewing a fixed commercial roster in favor of an expansive, ideas-driven sanctuary for local culture, Youngman anchors the program in concept-first, thematic group exhibitions. “L.A. has no shortage of galleries built around a specific artist or aesthetic,” Youngman notes. “I want to build something different for Blue & the Muse — a space where the concept comes first, so every show can go somewhere new.” Drawing on two decades of wide-ranging curatorial experience, she brings together regional, emerging and established artists across painting, sculpture and photography to explore rich, narrative-driven ideas rather than chasing market trends. “I want visitors to leave with ideas in their head, not just a list of names,” she says.
The gallery’s fall exhibition, “Structure/Substructure: An Invitation to Look” investigated the visible and hidden patterns and realities of life in Los Angeles. Following a mid-November holiday pop-up market, the group show “Still Becoming – the Journey Through” opens in partnership with Women Painters West.
Eschewing a fixed commercial roster in favor of an expansive, ideas-driven sanctuary for local culture, Youngman anchors the program in concept-first, thematic group exhibitions. “L.A. has no shortage of galleries built around a specific artist or aesthetic,” Youngman notes. “I want to build something different for Blue & the Muse — a space where the concept comes first, so every show can go somewhere new.” Drawing on two decades of wide-ranging curatorial experience, she brings together regional, emerging and established artists across painting, sculpture and photography to explore rich, narrative-driven ideas rather than chasing market trends. “I want visitors to leave with ideas in their head, not just a list of names,” she says.
The gallery’s fall exhibition, “Structure/Substructure: An Invitation to Look” investigated the visible and hidden patterns and realities of life in Los Angeles. Following a mid-November holiday pop-up market, the group show “Still Becoming – the Journey Through” opens in partnership with Women Painters West.
Pico / Aliso Station
Diversions Fine Arts Gallery
Manhattan Beach Art Gallery
(Genie Davis)
Bringing a needed contemporary arts hub to the South Bay’s beach cities, Diversions is run by veteran arts writer and curator Genie Davis, whose lifelong passion for art — sparked by a childhood visit to the National Gallery to see Fra Filippo Lippi paintings — has culminated in a physical space to champion independent artists in a new way.
Stepping away (but not that far) from traditional commercial structures, Davis explains, “I am trying something a bit different than a standard gallery or collective, more a hybrid between the two. I think the time has come for a fresh model.” The gallery takes a mere 10% sales commission from exhibiting artists, but charges an annual membership fee, which pays for curation, promotion and dedicated coverage on DiversionsLA.com. “We have a beautiful mix of mediums from neon to photography, oil, acrylic, and watercolor painting, graphite and pencil drawings, sculpture — including technology-based installations and mixed media,” says Davis.
Positioned in Manhattan Beach to serve local collectors who don’t have very many local galleries to visit, the space anchors a monthly Gallery Hop along with the Manhattan Beach Arts Center and Bluerider Art. This fall sees the debut of an expanded initiative for the gallery, which will take over a space on the same block for events, classes, studios and new mural commissions with an eye toward sustaining a long-term presence for the arts – and proving that a thriving contemporary community can take root anywhere.
Stepping away (but not that far) from traditional commercial structures, Davis explains, “I am trying something a bit different than a standard gallery or collective, more a hybrid between the two. I think the time has come for a fresh model.” The gallery takes a mere 10% sales commission from exhibiting artists, but charges an annual membership fee, which pays for curation, promotion and dedicated coverage on DiversionsLA.com. “We have a beautiful mix of mediums from neon to photography, oil, acrylic, and watercolor painting, graphite and pencil drawings, sculpture — including technology-based installations and mixed media,” says Davis.
Positioned in Manhattan Beach to serve local collectors who don’t have very many local galleries to visit, the space anchors a monthly Gallery Hop along with the Manhattan Beach Arts Center and Bluerider Art. This fall sees the debut of an expanded initiative for the gallery, which will take over a space on the same block for events, classes, studios and new mural commissions with an eye toward sustaining a long-term presence for the arts – and proving that a thriving contemporary community can take root anywhere.
Redondo Beach Station
The Beach
Downtown L.A. Art Gallery
The exterior of the Beach, a gallery for art and poetry, was founded by a poet and an artist.
(The Beach)
The Beach co-founders Sophie Appel, a poet, former gallery owner and head of literary press Five Thirty Four; and artist-writer Hannah Tishkoff were both born and raised in L.A. They reconnected after organizing shows and readings separately, and launched the Beach in downtown L.A.’s Fashion District. “It felt less like deciding that now was the strategic moment to open a gallery,” Tishkoff explains, “and more like: we’re here, we’re making work and shows. ... So why would we wait?”
The Beach is a “gallery for art and poetry,” says Appel. “We’re interested in what can happen when those things aren’t treated as separate worlds, when exhibitions can include writing, performance, readings, music, conversation, or other forms of gathering.”
Organic collaborations rooted in their respective backgrounds — Appel’s San Francisco Art Institute and publishing roots alongside Tishkoff’s Oberlin art history degree, UC Riverside MFA and a stretch at David Zwirner Gallery — are the organizing principles of the space. “A lot of the program grows out of relationships with artists and writers whose work we care about, and we want the gallery to be a place where people can experiment and make something that might not fit neatly into another context,” Tishkoff says.
Following the summer’s inaugural show “Civil Twilight,” the fall program features “Life Is With People,” which brings over 20 artists together to construct a house inside the gallery. “It’s been a beautiful and strange collaborative process, with each artist figuring out what they might contribute to this shared structure,” Tishkoff says. The exhibition will be up through December, with programming throughout the fall that uses the house as “a space to spend time together.”
The Beach is a “gallery for art and poetry,” says Appel. “We’re interested in what can happen when those things aren’t treated as separate worlds, when exhibitions can include writing, performance, readings, music, conversation, or other forms of gathering.”
Organic collaborations rooted in their respective backgrounds — Appel’s San Francisco Art Institute and publishing roots alongside Tishkoff’s Oberlin art history degree, UC Riverside MFA and a stretch at David Zwirner Gallery — are the organizing principles of the space. “A lot of the program grows out of relationships with artists and writers whose work we care about, and we want the gallery to be a place where people can experiment and make something that might not fit neatly into another context,” Tishkoff says.
Following the summer’s inaugural show “Civil Twilight,” the fall program features “Life Is With People,” which brings over 20 artists together to construct a house inside the gallery. “It’s been a beautiful and strange collaborative process, with each artist figuring out what they might contribute to this shared structure,” Tishkoff says. The exhibition will be up through December, with programming throughout the fall that uses the house as “a space to spend time together.”
San Pedro Street Station
Des Artistes
Culver City Art Gallery
(Philippe Browning)
Occupying a storied Culver City address at 6006 Washington Blvd. — the former home of Vielmetter Los Angeles — Des Artistes (sometimes known as 6006 Arts) was founded by Los Angeles collector and arts patron Philippe Browning. The team behind the gallery was inspired by hybrid public-private spaces like super-collector Beth Rudin DeWoody’s the Bunker in Palm Beach. “Browning shaped the platform organically out of his own collection,” notes Yiwei Lu, an independent gallerist and curator who has been working with the space, “and his desire to create a place for art to be shown and discussed, rather than kept in a private home or worse, in storage.”
Des Artistes is a private arts organization open to the public, centered on big concepts with intimate interfaces like “artistic exchange, patronage and community.” Browning saw an opportunity to bring artists together at differing points in their careers, from MFA students to renowned artists, “to underscore the way they are influencing each other’s practices. As many of these artists are handled by competing galleries, apart from an occasional museum or trade show, they are generally not shown together.”
Complete with a built-in Steinway grand piano for live music and performances, the space operates with structural freedom and a spirit of radical generosity — as defined by its inaugural exhibition, “Post-Fire 1,” which united 22 regional artists affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires, with 100% of proceeds going directly to the participants. This fall the space presents “80s,” an exhibition curated by longtime collectors and friends Cliff Einstein and Suzanne Ponder, celebrating Los Angeles artists over the age of 80 who continue to push their practices forward.
Des Artistes is a private arts organization open to the public, centered on big concepts with intimate interfaces like “artistic exchange, patronage and community.” Browning saw an opportunity to bring artists together at differing points in their careers, from MFA students to renowned artists, “to underscore the way they are influencing each other’s practices. As many of these artists are handled by competing galleries, apart from an occasional museum or trade show, they are generally not shown together.”
Complete with a built-in Steinway grand piano for live music and performances, the space operates with structural freedom and a spirit of radical generosity — as defined by its inaugural exhibition, “Post-Fire 1,” which united 22 regional artists affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires, with 100% of proceeds going directly to the participants. This fall the space presents “80s,” an exhibition curated by longtime collectors and friends Cliff Einstein and Suzanne Ponder, celebrating Los Angeles artists over the age of 80 who continue to push their practices forward.
La Cienega / Jefferson Station
Jeni Abramson Gallery
Larchmont Art Gallery
Contemporary photography, multimedia and conceptual art are at the heart of Jeni Abramson Gallery.
(Jeni Abramson Gallery)
“L.A. is a city of conflicting realities,” says gallerist Jeni Abramson, and she likes it that way. Evolving directly from Don’t Look Projects — the residency and project space Abramson ran alongside Omar Yousif from 2024 through early 2026 — her eponymous gallery establishes a rigorous, intellectually charged platform dedicated to contemporary photography, multimedia and conceptual art. “I’m drawn to artists whose work examines how political, economic and technological systems operate through images, whether that’s an artist working with archives, surveillance, AI, or the accumulated weight of decades spent looking at the world through a lens,” she says. “My own formation, moving between very different political and economic systems, shapes how I read that work.”
The gallery inaugurated this vision with “Remains of the Day,” presenting more than 50 years of work by Michel Auder — capturing unvarnished, intimate fragments of Andy Warhol’s Factory, his marriages to Viva and Cindy Sherman, and decades of well-chronicled and timelessly sensual bohemian life — organized with support from Hamza Walker, Abramson’s neighbor at the nearby kunsthalle the Brick, and an exceptionally talented archive-wrangler.
The gallery’s November-December presentation is “Meat Ghost,” a solo exhibition of new work by research-based multidisciplinary artist Jen Liu.
Shaped by coming of age in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, where underground electronic music offered a vital bridge between fractured systems, Abramson approaches visual culture with a sharp, systems-aware lens. That critical framework finds a natural home in Los Angeles, particularly when it comes to the city’s complex legacy of CalArts conceptualism, the entertainment industry’s image machinery and the city’s enduring subterranean countercultures. Operating outside the speculative frenzy of the ultra-high-end marketplace, Abramson says, “The collectors I work with don’t approach art as an asset class. They collect for deeply personal reasons.”
The gallery inaugurated this vision with “Remains of the Day,” presenting more than 50 years of work by Michel Auder — capturing unvarnished, intimate fragments of Andy Warhol’s Factory, his marriages to Viva and Cindy Sherman, and decades of well-chronicled and timelessly sensual bohemian life — organized with support from Hamza Walker, Abramson’s neighbor at the nearby kunsthalle the Brick, and an exceptionally talented archive-wrangler.
The gallery’s November-December presentation is “Meat Ghost,” a solo exhibition of new work by research-based multidisciplinary artist Jen Liu.
Shaped by coming of age in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, where underground electronic music offered a vital bridge between fractured systems, Abramson approaches visual culture with a sharp, systems-aware lens. That critical framework finds a natural home in Los Angeles, particularly when it comes to the city’s complex legacy of CalArts conceptualism, the entertainment industry’s image machinery and the city’s enduring subterranean countercultures. Operating outside the speculative frenzy of the ultra-high-end marketplace, Abramson says, “The collectors I work with don’t approach art as an asset class. They collect for deeply personal reasons.”
No matching entries.
Please reset filters to see all entries.
No matching entries.
Please reset filters to see all entries.
More From the Los Angeles Times
Most Read in Entertainment & Arts
Top
