Category: Gallerists
Nationality: American
Last Year: 48
It’s said of Larry Gagosian that he always expands in a recession. He’s not the only one. LA dealers Blum & Poe are moving into what will be one of the West Coast’s biggest commercial galleries, a 2,000-square-metre space on La Cienega Boulevard featuring three exhibition spaces and a 225-square-metre project space. Then again, Blum & Poe have been bucking trends for years, not least by being the first gallery to settle in the consequently booming Culver City area, in 2003. What’s collateralizing the trade-up is their stellar list of artists, from blue-chip names like Keith Tyson and Takashi Murakami to current golden boy Mark Grotjahn and the increasingly ubiquitous Sharon Lockhart. Coming up on 15 years, theirs is a dealing team that knows about happy returns.