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.
Linda Stark, Cyclops Fountain (2020). Oil on linen over panel. 52.4 x 52.4 x 6.4 cm. Courtesy David Kordansky Gallery.
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