Although Los Angeles has been an art capital for quite some time, it’s only now getting its first major corporate international art fair. That means visitors to the inaugural edition of Frieze LA might only know some of the big names who make up the LA gallery and museum scene, such as gallerist Shaun Regen, Museum of Contemporary Art director Klaus Biesenbach, and ex-MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch. So we’ve rounded up some of the lesser known—but no less integral—young curators, gallerists, collectors, and writers to get to know in Los Angeles.
1. Ceci Moss
Ceci Moss. Photo courtesy of Suzy Poling.
Who she is: After serving as the assistant curator of visual arts at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco from 2012 to 2016, curating several well-received group shows (“Alien She,” about riot grrl culture, was a particular hit), as well as solo shows by the likes of Samara Golden, Metahaven, and Shana Moulton, Moss is going it alone with Gas, a gallery in the back of what looks like a food truck.
Why you should know her: Moss is an accomplished writer, having contributed to Artforum, Art in America, and The Wire. She’s also hosted a popular experimental music radio show and served as senior editor of Rhizome. But it’s her mounting of extraordinary exhibitions out of a mobile truck—usually parked outside of spaces like Night Gallery for the duration of each exhibition—that makes her one to watch.
What she’s up to next: Gas’s current group show, “Common Survival,” featuring works from more than 40 artists and collectives. It runs through April 14 and will be parked at the SPRING/BREAK art show during Frieze. Her book Expanded Internet Art: Twenty-First Century Artistic Practice and the Informational Milieu (Bloomsbury Academic) drops in September.
2. Lauren Mackler
Lauren Mackler. Photo: Santi Hurtado.
Who she is: Mackler’s Public Fiction project, which had a physical space in the Highland Park neighborhood from 2010 to 2015 and now calls itself “nomadic,” has been around for nearly a decade. It’s a nebulous beast: Public Fiction is not just a vehicle for intricately curated shows, but also a journal and a producer of editions.
Why you should know her: Mackler’s curatorial clout is growing. She was recently named a co-curator of the Hammer’s Made in LA 2020 biennial, alongside Tunisian-French writer and curator Myriam Ben Salah.
What she’s up to next: Well, the fifth edition of Made in LA will be quite an undertaking—it has over the previous iterations established itself as the most important West Coast biennial going. But, before that, Mackler had just teamed up with Triple Canopy to curate “Parts of Speech,” an exhibition and lecture series about public speech at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (through June 9).
3. Scott Cameron Weaver
Scott Cameron Weaver.
Who he is: Weaver is the founder of O-Town House, an exhibition space housed inside the Granada Buildings, a weird 1927 revival architecture cultural landmark in the Westlake Neighborhood.
Why you should know him: O-Town House has put on four impressive shows since they opened in mid-2018, with artists including James Benning, Gerry Bibby, and Juliette Blightman.
What he’s up to next: An exhibition of works and archival material by legendary Savannah-based artist Suzanne Jackson, who ran her Gallery 32—which showed works by Emory Douglas, Betye Saar, and David Hammons—in the 1960s in the Granada Buildings.
4. Seymour Polatin
Seymour Polatin.
Who he is: Polatin founded Gallery1993 in his champagne-colored 1993 Ford Crown Victoria. Email him, and he’ll come pick you up, and tell you about the work as you view the show.
Why you should know him: Exhibitions by Chanel Von Habsburg Lothringen and Paul Pescador were well-received, and an amazingly uncomfortable performance by L.A.-based artist Ann Hirsch (in which Hirsch utilized Polatin as a performer) have made those in-the-know (and The Guardian and ArtForum) take notice of Polatin’s projects.
What he’s up to next: A show of works by artist Julienne Fusello called “Under the Sun, Nothing Can Hurt Me,” will be driving around town through April 7, 2019. A new issue of Polatin’s journal, Ant, will publish in February, and he’s working on a roaming curatorial project that “involves scaffolding.”
5. Erin Christovale
Erin Christovale. Photo: Paley Fairman.
Who she is: One of the newest members of the Hammer curatorial team, Christovale joined the museum in early 2018.
Why you should know her: Christovale’s feet were immediately put to the fire when she was tapped to co-curate the Hammer’s Made in LA 2018 biennial with the Hammer’s senior curator Anne Ellegood. Things worked out: The show got universally rave reviews. Christovale then co-organized the Los Angeles leg of the blockbuster show “Adrian Piper: Concepts and Institutions, 1965-2016” with Hammer chief curator Connie Butler late last year.
What she’s up to next: Christovale is curating a show in the Hammer Projects section of the museum for Miami-based performance, video, and installation artist Jamilah Sabur, which will run concurrent to Frieze.
6. Beth Redmond
Beth Redmond at Betty Tompkins installation “WOMEN Words, Phrases, and Stories” at the FLAG Art Foundation. ©Patrick McMullan. Clint Spaulding/PMC.
Who she is: A young collector with a sizable Instagram following.
Why you should know her: Redmond was called one of Cultured magazine’s Top Young Collectors of 2018. She owns works by Marilyn Minter, Tracey Emin, Daniel Arsham, and Gregory Siff. She’s also a member of LACMA’s Director’s Circle and Collectors Committee and MOCA’s Director’s Forum.
What’s next for her: We’ll no doubt see her strolling Frieze and the concurrent satellite fairs, such as the Felix Art Fair at the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel and Art Los Angeles Contemporary, looking for her next score.
7. Beau Dunn
Beau Dunn. Photo: Anais Ganouna.
Who she is: Although she’s also known as an artist, model, and actress, Dunn is also a collector.
Why you should know her: As an actor, she’s been on shows like Entourage and CSI. As an artist, works from her series, “PLASTIC,” have been collected by the likes of Kylie Jenner and Claudia Schiffer. As a collector, she owns works by German artist Niclas Castello, the street artist RETNA, and apparently has a strong penchant for art that’s pink.
What’s next for her: She has her eyes set on a Damien Hirst. Perhaps we’ll see her strolling the aisles of Frieze for one.
8. Ikechukwu Casmir Onyewuenyi
Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi. Photo: Ben Filo.
Who he is: After holding curatorial positions at PERFORMA, the Kitchen, and the African Artists’ Foundation in Nigeria, Onyewuenyi has joined the Hammer as a member of its dynamic young curatorial team.
Why you should know him: Onyewuenyi writes as well as he curates. He’s profiled artists like Maurizio Cattelan, Awol Erizku, and Simone Forti, which is saying something because his curatorial efforts are as thrilling as they are nourishing, including co-organizing M. Lamar’s “Demon Rising” (2016) at the Kitchen, and the one-night only performance show “Sexual Fragments Absent” (2017) at the New York sex club Paddles. Most recently he worked with Hammer curator Aram Moshayedi on the show “Stories of Almost Everyone.”
What’s next for him: He’ll team up with Moshayedi again on “Allen Ruppersberg: Intellectual Property 1968-2018,” which opens at the Hammer February 10 and runs through May 12.
9. Megan Mulrooney
Left: Megan Mulrooney. Right: The exterior of Nino Mier’s Los Angeles gallery.
Who she is: After stints in the auction world at Sotheby’s and Paddle8, Mulrooney moved to the primary market as a director at Nino Mier Gallery.
Why you should know her: Mulrooney was known for helping shape many collections during her time at Paddle8, and she’s no doubt doing the same at Nino Mier Gallery. She also oversaw the launch of the gallery’s third location in West Hollywood, a 5,000-square-foot space with a solo exhibition by Whitney Biennial alum Celeste Dupuy-Spencer. And she helped launch the gallery’s artist residence program in Köln in January.
What’s next for her: After Frieze, she’s on the art fair circuit, heading to ARCO Madrid, where she’ll represent the gallery as a fluent Spanish speaker, and then to the Armory Show, Art Brussels, and Art Cologne, before heading home to focus on a summer group show revolving around the idea of “body language.”
10. Maggie Kayne
Maggie Kayne. Photo © Annabel Mehran.
Who she is: Kayne is the co-founder of Kayne Griffin Corcoran gallery.
Why you should know her: She is the co-founder, but also the public face of the gallery and really runs the show. Her exhibitions include those by James Turrell, who helped design the gallery and built a skyspace into the conference room, as well as Ken Price, Mary Corse, Peter Shire, David Lynch, and Liza Ryan.
What’s next for her: A show by Beverly Pepper, a 96-year-old sculptor based in Italy, will run concurrent with Frieze. The gallery will also have a booth at the fair, and will be taking works by Turrell, Corse, Price, Huguette Caland, Paul Feeley, and Kiki Kogelnik.