Goulds’ SoHo Louver Closes as Venice Gallery Adds Space

Peter Goulds, the only major Los Angeles art dealer to open a New York gallery during the art market boom in the late 1980s, is retrenching.

Louver Gallery, Goulds’ elegant show space in SoHo, will close around the first of July, but L.A. Louver’s Venice gallery will get a new home, scheduled to open in September, 1994, with a show of Richard Deacon’s sculpture.

“This was not an easy decision, and there’s no question that it is related to the economy,” Goulds said, “but it is also a positive move. I have decided to focus on Los Angeles, which is where my history and my future lie.”

Goulds, who opened his Venice gallery in 1975, branched out in New York about four years ago. “I accomplished a great deal,” he said, noting that New York exposure probably facilitated retrospective museum exhibitions for some of his artists, including Ed Moses and Edward and Nancy Kienholz, and led to major museum shows for others. But after the art market plummeted in 1990-91, he became “encumbered by facilities in an environment that is, frankly, hostile,” Goulds said.

The artists he currently represents, among them David Hockney, Michael McMillen and Peter Shelton, will show their work in his new gallery, and they will be joined by a group of young and mid-career New York painters, he said.

Goulds’ Venice operation currently occupies about 6,000 square feet of space in six rented facilities--two galleries (at 55 N. Venice Blvd. and 77 Market St.), two offices, a warehouse and a private viewing space. The new 8,000-square-foot building, already under construction next door to the Venice Boulevard gallery, will consolidate the business under one roof.