As numerous art-world players ramp up their West Coast presence, Christie’s is the latest to enter the fray, with a showroom in Beverly Hills set to open in April. The new facility will be sited just a few feet from dealer Larry Gagosian’s neighborhood venue, on North Camden Drive near Wilshire Boulevard.
The westward expansion follows the auctioneer’s announcement in April 2016 that it would shutter its regional offices in Boston, Palm Beach, and Philadelphia. The auctioneer also has an office in San Francisco, along with a dozen salesrooms around the world. Christie’s main rival, Sotheby’s, has maintained an LA location for over three decades.
With the LA gallery as well as an art space in Beijing that it opened in fall 2016, Christie’s is aiming to meet its new buyers where they live, the house points out in a press release, saying that mainland China and the West Coast have accounted for a huge influx of new buyers in recent years. Among the new gallery’s roles will be to host traveling exhibitions of major lots in upcoming sales, so that some of those new customers can see the coming attractions in person.
Christie’s Los Angeles. ©wHY, courtesy Christie’s.
“With its vibrant community of major collectors, artists, tastemakers, and cultural institutions, Southern California has been an important market for Christie’s for nearly four decades and is now one of our most active regions for new buyers,” said Christie’s CEO Guillaume Cerutti in a press release.
Spanning 5,400 square feet over two floors, the new facility will be designed by New York architect Kulapat Yantrasast’s firm, wHY. Yantrasast’s staff is already hard at work on the West Coast, having designed the Marciano Art Foundation, also in Los Angeles, which is due to open this spring, and an expansion and renovation of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.