Rajiv Menon Up to date, among the many first industrial galleries within the US to give attention to artwork from South Asia and its diaspora, this week held a gap for its debut exhibition within the gallery’s new area in Hollywood. Exhibitionism (till 30 March) explores the connection between privateness and a spotlight by the lenses of intimacy, domesticity and the operations of the artwork world, based on the gallery’s founder, Rajiv Menon. The present options greater than 20 works by 19 artists of South Asian descent, together with established names like Chitra Ganesh, Sunil Gupta and Jagannath Panda, and rising artists like Tarini Sethi, Mustafa Mohsin and Raghav Babbar, making his stateside debut in a industrial gallery.
The exhibition is the primary on the gallery’s new everlasting area at 1311 North Highland Avenue; Menon initially opened the gallery final 12 months as a pop-up. “I felt extremely impressed by the depth of expertise I used to be seeing popping out of the South Asian diaspora, however I began to get actually annoyed, as a result of there weren’t numerous retailers in North America to see the nice rising work,” Menon says.
Since opening final 12 months in a brief area in Silver Lake, Menon says, the gallery has had an “unimaginable” response from collectors. “We had enormous help from throughout the South Asian diaspora and collectors in India, however we additionally noticed actually sturdy curiosity from simply broad collectors with world sensibilities,” he provides. The Western marketplace for South Asian artwork continues to develop—final 12 months, a Christie’s sale devoted to modern and fashionable South Asian artwork fetched $9.3m (with charges) with a 98% sell-through fee.
Menon says he opted to open his gallery in Los Angeles partially due to the town’s range and big selection of creativity. “I felt it was actually necessary to faucet into a lot of the vitality that was occurring surrounding visibility in Hollywood and different mediums, and to carry that into dialog with modern artwork,” he says.
Opening a gallery simply weeks after lethal wildfires isn’t splendid for any vendor, however Menon says that “greater than something, the gallery being a spot of neighborhood gathering is absolutely necessary. I believe folks need to come and rejoice the town.” The gallery plans to donate no less than $10,000 to wildfire-relief efforts by the philanthropic teams SevaSphere and the California Group Basis.
