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.
Curated by Venus Lau, the section is dominated by Chinese new media artists.
Rising star Derek Fordjour discusses his latest solo exhibition at Pond Society in Shanghai.
Ocula Magazine previews a selection of highlights showing with galleries at Art Basel Hong Kong, running between 19 and 23 May 2021.
See eight of the most collectible art works made during a hard but historic year.
Ocula Advisory present a selection of highlights on view in OVR: Portals—the first curator-led edition of Art Basel's Online Viewing Rooms.
The Ocula Advisory team select their picks from Art Basel Hong Kong, running between 21 and 23 May 2021, with preview days on 19 and 20 May 2021.
Lucy Bull's visionary synaesthetic works are now showing with David Kordansky Gallery.
Ocula Advisory select their favourite works on view among the 100 gallery presentations at Art Basel OVR: Pioneers.
With his career on the rise, Derek Fordjour, a critically acclaimed painter known for images which grapple with the complexity of race in American society, has joined a new gallery: the Los Angeles–based David Kordansky, which will represent him alongside the likes of Deana Lawson, Rashid Johnson, and Sam Gilliam, among others.
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...
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...
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.
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...
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.
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...
'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.
