Art On Location In Hollywood

By Elizabeth Sobieski

Many art aficionados have recently been suffering, not from Coronavirus or flu, but from an insistent nagging outbreak of art fair overkill. But this past President’s weekend, the burgeoning Hollywood art fairs proved a delight instead of blight. Hollywood is not only the classic setting for filmmaking, but also a spectacular new location for the art of the now.

For ten years I have attended ALAC (Art Los Angeles Contemporary) and while some incarnations were preferable to others as far as my assessment of the art on view, the Barker Hanger in Santa Monica was a sometimes chilly venue with port-a-potties instead of bathrooms. This year, perhaps to be closer to the world class Frieze Los Angeles Fair (yes, these hot Friezes are spreading like viruses from London to NY to LA, but the quality and production are the best sort of contagion), ALAC has taken up residence in the venerable Hollywood Athletic Club, founded in 1924 by Charlie Chaplin, Cecil B DeMille and Rudolph Valentino. Since then, the stained glass and painted beamed Sunset Boulevard structure, with its uniquely crafted mirrors and fixtures, has experienced numerous incarnations. (I was last here a dozen years ago when it housed Jeffrey Chodorow’s excellent Moroccan restaurant, Social.)