Don’t Confuse Hollywood’s ‘Artist Space’ with New York’s Artists Space, Says Director

As you’ve no doubt heard, Hollywood agency United Talent Agency, which has aimed to make inroads in the visual art world, revealed yesterday that it’s opening a Los Angeles exhibition venue, to be called U.T.A. Artist Space.

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This didn’t sit so well with Stefan Kalmár, director of the longstanding, similarly named New York nonprofit Artists Space, who sent out a tart announcement today, clarifying that the two entities are in no way related. It’s worth reading through to the end:

Statement in response to United Talent Agency opening a venue named UTA Artist Space in Downtown Los Angeles

UTA Artist Space is not a joint venture between Artists Space New York and LA’s United Talent Agency.

Artists Space is indeed relocating, but it is relocating within Downtown Manhattan not to Downtown Los Angeles.

Artists Space Executive Director & Curator Stefan Kalmár responded:  “Founded in 1972 in Downtown Manhattan, Artists Space has indeed united many talents, has supported artists early in their career to establish agency: Louise Lawler, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Michael Asher, Jeff Koons, Adrian Piper, Danh Vo, Hito Steyerl and Laura Poitras, to name just a few.

Over the next three months Artists Space, together with Common Practice New York, will be working with art historian Yates McKee, Professor for Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU Andrew Ross and the activist collective MTL to address, under the title Decolonize This Place, the urban reality that artists and not-for-profit organizations facing in New York and elsewhere. United Talent Agency opening a new venue in Downtown LA and calling it UTA Artist Space speaks exactly to this new urban reality.

I have never been more proud of our “s” in Artists Space.”

United Talent Agency declined to comment.