Giovanni Intra, 34; Chinatown Artist

Giovanni Intra, an artist, writer and pioneering entrepreneur in Los Angeles’ burgeoning Chinatown gallery scene, died Monday in New York. He was 34.

The cause of death has not been determined, according to his business partner, Steve Hanson.

Born and raised in New Zealand, Intra made a name for himself as a conceptual painter while he was a teenager and soon developed skills in writing about art. He moved to Los Angeles in 1996, after winning a Fulbright fellowship to study at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

The college awarded him a degree in critical studies in 2001, but he had already taken on the challenge of running an avant-garde gallery.

He and Hanson, whom he met at Art Center, opened the gallery in January 1999, in a storefront formerly occupied by a shop called China Art Objects. They kept the name and set an example that helped transform Chung King Road into an edgy showcase for contemporary art.

Intra “had a lot of energy and enthusiasm for young artists,” Times art critic Christopher Knight said. “The gallery was a catalyst for Chinatown and for introducing a lot of younger artists to the public.”

China Art Objects is still a shoestring operation, but it has gained a national reputation. Earlier this month, the gallery was represented at Art Basel Miami Beach, a prestigious art fair. At the time of his death, Intra was in New York for an exhibition of the work of Eric Wesley, one of the gallery’s artists.