Art review: A Catherine Opie gem from Liz’ closet

The opening of Regen Projects’ impressive 20,000-square-foot building on an unlikely block of Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood tilts the city’s always peripatetic gallery scene eastward a notch. The new space, beautifully designed by architect Michael Maltzan, provides a large, light-filled main gallery and several smaller auxiliary spaces that can accommodate a wide range of work.

That range is on full display in the inaugural exhibition, which surveys recent paintings, sculptures and installations by 32 of the 36 artists in the gallery’s stable, from Doug Aitken to Andrea Zittel. Among them are a few estimable artists new to the roster, including Gary Simmons and the team of Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch. The heavyweight display of firepower is only reasonable, since artists made the new place possible.

Of special note is a teaser for a forthcoming suite of photographs by Catherine Opie. It focuses on the late Elizabeth Taylor’s closet.

Outing Liz’s closet is apt, given Taylor’s status as a gay icon. But a remarkable portrait of the star emerges in an unexpected place — Opie’s queer photograph of La Peregrina, the famous giant pearl that Richard Burton bought for Taylor in 1969.

The necklace is laid on a sharp Baroque diagonal across a pristine white field. Opie photographed it with the overblown setting of rubies and diamonds Taylor had designed for it. Way out of focus and with diffusion highlights blooming into rainbow hues, the image of the legendary jewel is ravishing, mysterious, slightly vulgar, funny, extravagant, showy, voluptuous — a more fully faceted portrait of the movie queen than just about any photograph that displays her actual face.

Regen Projects, 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, (310) 276-5424, through Oct. 27. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.regenprojects.com