Putting the Fair Back Into L.A.

No sooner did ART/LA, Los Angeles’ annual international art fair, collapse under the weight of the economy than a replacement rose on the horizon.

John Natsoulas, who owns a gallery in Davis and has organized several art conferences--but never an art fair--has announced plans for Art Los Angeles 1994, the International Contemporary Art Fair of the West Coast.

The event is scheduled for Dec. 2-4 at Spartacus Square in Universal Studios. Natsoulas hopes to enlist 100 contemporary art dealers to display their wares. In addition, he plans to organize a concurrent Educational Conference on the Arts, including demonstrations and lectures by artists.

While his inexperience and the depressed art market may work against him, Natsoulas says he has an insider’s energy and determination in his favor. But most important, he says, is that the cost of participating in the fair will be realistic in these days of gallery shrinkage.

“This fair will be affordable,” he says. “I rented a booth last year at ART/LA for $25,000. The top price at this fair will be $9,000, and booths will be available for as low as $2,000, with $7,000 being about standard.” The difference isn’t that Universal Studios charges less for its space than the Los Angeles Convention Center, the home of ART/LA, according to Natsoulas.

“I don’t have a staff of 20 people. This will be a more efficient, cooperative thing. And it isn’t about making money. The fair will benefit me in many ways. I don’t have to make money on it. I’m fortunate in having a gallery in Davis, where my expenses are low,” he says.

A veteran of 25 art fairs, Natsoulas believes the way to make a fair work in Los Angeles is for dealers and artists to get involved. As to why he is organizing the event in Southern California instead of closer to home: “People look to Los Angeles. It’s in the forefront of art on the West Coast,” he says.

Natsoulas has no commitments from dealers but hopes to enlist an international array of participants. Unlike last year’s ART/LA, his fair will focus exclusively on contemporary art. “Anything that’s 30 years old, I don’t want,” he says.

All four galleries in the building at 170 S. La Brea Ave.--Jan Baum, Neil Ovsey, Paul Kopeikin and Garth Clark--are tentatively planning to participate in the new fair. They will probably rent adjacent spaces, according to Baum. “We like the idea for its simplicity and economy,” she says, “and we thought it would be great to do the fair together, to reinforce the image of the 170 building.”

CAMDEN COMEBACK: In decades past, Camden Drive in Beverly Hills was the home of prestigious art showcases such as Paul Kantor, Frank Perls, P. N. Matisse and Charles Feingarten galleries. If two major New York galleries’ plans materialize, the street will once again attract the art crowd.

Larry Gagosian, a high-profile contemporary art dealer who got his start in Los Angeles, plans to open a gallery at 456 N. Camden Drive, in the space formerly occupied by Salander-O’Reilly and Fred Hoffman Fine Arts.

Richard Meier, architect of the J. Paul Getty Trust’s new Getty Center in Brentwood, is designing Gagosian’s 5,000-square-foot gallery. Meier’s plans call for a new facade, a pyramid-shaped skylight and a loft for offices. The exhibition program will feature a few Los Angeles artists as well as blue-chip figures shown in Gagosian’s Manhattan galleries, according to Hoffman, who will direct the new gallery. He’s hoping for a December opening, but says a later date is more likely.

Meanwhile, a commercial space at the corner of Camden Drive and Wilshire Boulevard, formerly occupied by Gump’s, is expected to be the home of a Beverly Hills branch of PaceWildenstein--a powerhouse created in 1993 when Wildenstein & Co., a Paris-based dealer of Impressionist art, merged with Pace Gallery of New York, a major contemporary art dealership. An announcement of the new gallery’s leadership and location is imminent, according to Marc Glimcher, PaceWildenstein’s director of operations.

The gallery will have three directors, specializing in photography, contemporary art and Impressionism, he says. “The team method will work better for us than having one super-senior person. We expect to have a group of younger, charged-up people.”*