My time in sunny Los Angeles is coming to a close, and I have plenty of stray thoughts and observations to share from a summer spent trying to understand the whole thing out here, which had previously always evaded me. Some of what I’ve learned has been cohesive enough to write into full columns. Other wisdom is a little more scattered. Below, a selection of some tips and tricks I picked up from pounding the pavement in La La Land, before I head back to New York:
- Accept every party invite you get to an event at a private residence, especially if it’s in Brentwood or up in the Hollywood Hills. Decline every invite you get to Tenants of the Trees.
- In a sense, Melrose Hill is to Los Angeles what Tribeca is to New York. The only caveat being: The development in Melrose Hill is actively and flagrantly gentrifying a mostly Latino neighborhood with a high concentration of HUD housing. Did you hear that the new LA Grocery & Cafe announced it would accept EBT for $10-an-ounce cherries? (That’s a real price. The jokes write themselves.) I think the collective groan that elicited caused a 4.0 earthquake to rumble down Melrose. Rumor has it a members-only boutique gym is up next, down the street.
- Speaking of Melrose Hill, don’t be fooled into thinking this is a walkable stretch of galleries. It’s a weird place for foot traffic. But if you insist, I advise parking in the neighborhood behind Cafe Telegramma, which is central to most of the action.
- Keep an eye out for a clandestine artwork by Lucy Bull in the back of El Prado, a suite of sexy paintings by Kelli Vance at The Benjamin, the mesmeric Andie Dinkin mural at Gigi’s, and the Tom of Finland drawing amongst other rotating work on the walls of Stir Crazy.
- But if you really want to drink with intention around some art, stop by Sean’s Room, a gallery that only shows one piece at a time. Its owner, Martin Elder, will make you a bespoke cocktail to accompany your viewing experience.
- I perceive a lot of power and promise in Los Angeles’s impressive cohort of young female gallerists. Emma Fernberger, Megan Mulrooney, and Sara Hantman (whose gallery is called Sea View) are all names to keep a very close eye on.
- Cheap real estate has allowed a very compelling group of scrappy young spaces to develop. We’ve already seen some of these spaces get some real traction, like Gaylord Apartments and Chateau Shatto. Ehrlich Steinberg, Castle Gallery, and Stars seem to be the next generation.
- In the same way that a lot of art sales happen in bars and over cigarettes in New York, there are some elite tennis tournaments and hikes out here that shift the balance of power. A tipster once told me he overheard Jonas Wood broker a deal while hoofing it up the incline of Griffith Park.
- Want to break into the art scene here? It’ll be a lot easier if you learn to play poker.
- There is a very New York impulse to host all power lunches and gallery dinners at Musso & Frank (for the uninitiated, it’s basically The Odeon of L.A.) or the red sauce Italian joint Dan Tana’s. These are dignified moves, if a bit safe. My short list of stylish locations for impressing art people includes Yamashiro, the sprawling Japanese restaurant in Hollywood where the fight scene in Kill Bill was filmed; the rotating bar at the top of the Marriott Bonaventure, a dark and brooding place that literally rotates on an axis, with a delightfully kitschy 1990s aesthetic; and Sal’s Place, which is only seasonal, but well worth trying to catch.
The view from the pool at Sunset Tower, where very important work gets done.
11. If you want to place a piece in a celebrity’s home, it’s a no-brainer to cozy up to an advisor who lives here. Most advisors worth their salt in Tinseltown have at least one client in showbiz.
12. Do not sleep on the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena or the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation in Beverly Hills. World-class collections await you with a third of the foot traffic at The Broad or LACMA.
13. I’ve written a bit about this before, but the real art world celebrities in L.A. are the museum directors. Having Michael Govan or Johanna Burton arrive at your opening is equivalent to a visit from the Pope.
14. Commercial galleries in residential spaces are a huge trend here—Half Gallery, Parker Gallery, etcetera. But be sure to have your zoning laws figured out. I’ve heard of a few people who have gotten unceremoniously dinged.
15. Your best friend in New York is your friend with a place in the Hamptons. Your best friend in Los Angeles is your friend with the right number to call at the Chateau Marmont.
16. One of the best dives in Los Angeles, HMS Bounty, is at the basement level of the Gaylord Apartments. Uber there, and you can have a very full evening on one city block.
17. Last but not least: People in Los Angeles expect New Yorkers to be snobby and flippant about L.A. They know all the reasons why New York is better, and smile politely when you list them. Then, once you’re gone, they laugh about how most people in New York are either always drunk or accustomed to a baseline level of misery. Often, they mention that we pay outrageous amounts of money to endure that discomfort. They are not wrong! But I am headed home.