Established by David Kordansky—a CalArts graduate-turned-gallerist—Los Angeles-based David Kordansky Gallery is firmly rooted in the burgeoning and increasingly internationally revered Californian art scene. Presenting the work of a diverse range of Californian artists, the gallery traces the Golden State’s cultural development across several generations. It showcases a lineage from Los Angeles’ growth as an art centre after World War II to today’s emerging talent making its mark on the globalised art world.
Read MoreKordanksy established his gallery amidst a growing artistic community in Los Angeles’ Chinatown district in 2003. With a strong local focus from the start, the gallery engaged with a diverse group of emerging artists from across the city. When it relocated to Culver City in 2008, David Kordansky Gallery was beginning to show more work by international artists. The inaugural exhibition in the new space, Serpent (2009), was British sculptor Thomas Houseago's first solo exhibition in the United States—a show featuring works with the appearance of primitive masks and figures. Since this period,the gallery has grown an international presence while working with an increasing number of artists who have exhibited works in major art institutions across the globe.
In 2014 David Kordansky Gallery moved to its current premises on Edgewood Place in Los Angeles, opening with Rashid Johnson’s solo show Islands (2014): an exhibition of the international artist’s new floor and wall sculptures. Embracing new avenues for exhibition, in 2019 the gallery launched its Online Viewing Room with Artists for Climate Action (2019), for which many of the gallery’s artists produced new works addressing the global issue of the climate crisis. In 2020 the gallery will expand its current space—designed by Kulapat Yantrasast of wHY Architecture—to create a connected indoor-outdoor, multi-space, multi-use block to accommodate the growing diversity of its programmes.
Representing a broad range of artists across media and methods—and across several age groups—David Kordansky Gallery’s roster of artists is more noticeable for their individuality and diversity of styles than any unifying themes. It covers a wide spectrum, from the nearly 100-year-old African American abstract painter Sam Gilliam—an innovator hailing from the mid-1960s post-war American art movement—to the young contemporary American installation artist Lauren Halsey. Many of the gallery’s artists, both old and young, have featured in solo and group shows in major art institutions across the globe—artists such as Huma Bhabha, Andrea Büttner, Rashid Johnson, Tala Madani, Anthony Pearson, Mary Weatherford, and Jonas Wood. While each is unique, they collectively create an impression of a vibrant and surreal Californian style.
Projecting the Californian art scene onto the international stage, David Kordansky Gallery participates in a number of major international art fairs. David Kordansky Gallery has exhibited artists at, among others, Art Basel in Miami Beach, Basel, and Hong Kong; FOG Design+Art, San Francisco; The Armory Show, New York; Art Los Angeles Contemporary; West Bund Art & Design, Shanghai; and Frieze London and New York. Contributing to the available literature and material on its artist the gallery publishes an increasing number of exhibition catalogues and limited-edition artists' books.
Ocula Insight Art Basel Viewing Rooms: Editorial Selections By Ocula Magazine, Basel NS Harsha, Ascent or Descent to Reality (2018) at Chemould Prescott Road NS Harsha 's discordant compositions interrogate systems of knowledge, power, and belief. Reworking the tradition of Indian miniature painting, surfaces are filled with figures performing repeated actions, their seriality recalling the artist's childhood interest in...
Ocula Photolog ADAA The Art Show 2020 Members of The Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) joined forces for The Art Show at the end of February (27 February–1 March 2020). The 2020 iteration saw more than half of its presentations dedicated to a single artist and 19 exhibitions focused on female artists, in addition to vibrant thematic and group surveys.
Ocula News ADAA: Artwork Highlights at the New York Art Fair New York, 28 February 2020 Neither the biggest nor the boldest New York art fair, The Art Show nevertheless presented in-depth exhibitions by wonderful, often overlooked artists.
Ocula Report Frieze Los Angeles: Shows to See By Tessa Moldan, Los Angeles Los Angeles' art scene has a lot to offer during Frieze Los Angeles, with galleries, non-profits, and museums gearing up for the fair's second edition between 14 and 17 February 2020. In this Ocula Lowdown, Tessa Moldan lists a selection of the city's must-see shows.
Related Press SAM GILLIAM with Tom McGlynn 5 September 2019, The Brooklyn Rail At its very core, the intrinsic value of art—which can be disruptive, unpredictable, and at the very least challenging—has tremendous transformative and healing incentives. Whether it occurs at the first encounter or over time, the implications for the viewer, be they formal or emotional, are simultaneously simple and complex, generous...
Related Press Invasion of the Styrofoam monster: the sculpture startling shoppers in Wakefield 19 July 2019, The Guardian She has commanded the rooftop of New York's Metropolitan Museum, and has exported her distressed sculptures around the world, but only now is the UK waking up to the work of Huma Bhabha. It's not the first time she has been late to the party. 'It took me a long time to get any recognition at all,' says the artist, who was into her 40s before she...
Related Press Betty Woodman: the ceramic artist with a painter’s touch 10 July 2019, Wallpaper* What do I do now?' the late Betty Woodman – who passed away last year – wondered, at 75, when her 2006 retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art had closed.
Related Press Huma Bhabha at Institute of Contemporary Art 1 June 2019, Art in America A cast bronze sculpture of a commanding figure enthroned like an Egyptian pharaoh greeted visitors to Huma Bhabha's midcareer survey, They Live. The figure's body—originally modeled in chicken wire, polystyrene foam packing blocks, and wood—had a damaged, incomplete look to it, while the bronze gave it an aura of enduring power.
Related Video & Audio An Inside Look at Jonas Wood’s Studio 26 April 2019, Sotheby's In this video, step into the studio of artist Jonas Wood as he reflects on his move to Los Angeles, the importance of the Hammer Museum and his unique approach to creating art. Jonas Wood and his wife, artist and studio mate Shio Kusaka, have donated their works Shio Butterfly Still Life and (Line 65) to be offered as highlights of Artists for the...
Related Video & Audio Huma Bhabha's Monumental Bronze | The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston 8 April 2019, ICA Boston See how artist Huma Bhabha created the monumental and surprising bronze sculpture Benaam, on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston March 23 – May 27, 2019, and featured on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2018. Benaam is part of the exhibition Huma Bhabha: They Live, the largest survey of the artist's work to date.
Related Video & Audio Huma Bhabha’s "We Come in Peace," Contemporary Art | Met Exhibitions 17 April 2018, The Met In this video, artist Huma Bhabha and curator Shanay Jhaveri discuss her sculpture We Come in Peace, the 2018 site-specific installation for The Met's Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, the sixth in a series of commissions for the outdoor space. Bhabha's work addresses themes of colonialism, war, displacement, and memories of place. Using...
Related Video & Audio Torbjørn Rødland: A Different Type of Sensibility 5 February 2018, Louisiana Channel 'Of course, this is shallow material, but can I find something of value there?' Meet the Norwegian photographer Torbjørn Rødland, whose photos transcend and defamiliarise their seemingly ordinary motifs.
