Caring about Art is Currency in a Commodified Culture
“He’s not like other art advisors — he really cares about the art!”
[THE ART ADVISOR BLUSHES]
This is a genuinely flattering compliment I got twice while showing art to people in Los Angeles last week on different days from different gallery directors.
Jeffrey Gibson, The Great Spirit is in All Things (2024), acrylic on watercolor paper, acrylic felt, glass beads, silicone adhesive, found objects (unknown artist[s], beaded belt buckle and bolo tie, 21st century; unknown Columbia River Plateau artist, bag with lane-stitch beadwork, late 20th century), currently on display at The Broad in Los Angeles as part of his 2024 Venice Biennale exhibition The space in which to place me.
Indeed, something powerful happens when you put the mantra because I care at the center of a business model.
This simple but profound notion of caring guides me as I work with each client to chart a unique course through the complex, oversaturated and often opaque marketplace of contemporary art.
Charting Transcendence sidesteps art world noise (commodification, burnout, ethical shortcuts, etc.) to focus on:
1) art that makes you care about art;
2) artists whose visions challenge us;
3) collectors hungry for transformative encounters.
Some Recent Bad News from the Art World
Sculpture by Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959) at BLUM (formerly Blum & Poe), one of Los Angeles’s most accomplished galleries, which in just a few weeks will close its doors after a run of over three decades. Nara, who also shows with mega-gallery Pace, is a great example of one of many artists that gallerist Tim Blum managed to cultivate into international art world superstars.
Charting Transcendence’s doubling down on personal commitment to caring about art comes in the wake of several recent troubling and newsworthy industry announcements.
On the gallery front, Tim Blum’s decision to close his influential Los Angeles gallery after three decades sent shockwaves.
Crucially, Blum didn't cite financial failure, but a profound disillusionment with the system, stating: "This is not about the market. This is about the system... I’m burned out... I didn’t have one meaningful conversation” at the latest edition of Art Basel, the world’s most prestigious fair.
Simultaneously, the advisory world faced its own reckoning. The high-profile implosion of Guggenheim Asher Associates laid bare disturbing allegations. Former partners Barbara Guggenheim and Abigail Asher, representing elite clients, are now embroiled in lawsuits accusing each other (and the firm) of financial mismanagement, including claims of undisclosed kickbacks and misappropriated funds.
This scandal highlights the corrosive potential when trust and ethical stewardship are compromised by opacity and self-interest.
In a market driven by money, hype and prestige, Charting Transcendence places deep, authentic care for the complexity, conceptual rigor, transformative potential of the art itself at the center of its advisory practice.
Navigating California’s Cultural Capital with Care
The iconicity of downtown’s skyline is dominated by the new Sixth Street Viaduct, completed in 2022, that crosses over a freeway, railroad tracks and the Los Angeles River towards the Arts District.
I’m a prolific, life-long traveler who crafts itineraries carefully and intentionally.
Yet I’m not one of those advisors who lives beyond his means like several of those who have made art world headlines recently.
Nevertheless, it’s nice to have just enough means and purpose to be able to easily hop on an easy five-and-a-half-hour flight from Miami to Los Angeles (as I did last week) to hunt for art, have meaningful conversations, and exercise a growing fluency in navigating throughout town.
Choosing my engagements carefully in order to avoid burnout or exhaustion (after all, there is so much art to see), I dove into some magnificent summer exhibitions that refreshed familiar names and introduced me to new practices, the most interesting of which (to me, at least) I’m delighted to share below.
LA Summer Art Scene Highlights
Venice Beach stalwart LA Louver is celebrating 50 years in business with a magnificent group show including this painting by Gajin Fujita (b. 1972), Snake in the Grass (Year of the Snake) (2025), 12k white gold leaf, 24k gold leaf, paint markers, acrylic, spray paint and acrylic clear gloss on wood pane.
Dreamlike and mystical as well as having (been) influenced (by) the legendary late Matthew Wong (1984-2019) are paintings by Shara Hughes (b. 1981) at LA’s David Kordansky Gallery, which will be debuting a show of new work at its New York outpost in September.
With January’s wildfires still fresh on LA’s mind, this metal sculpture by Saif Azzuz (b. 1987), Rooted in it (2025) resonated with me as I’ve learned more about indigenous people’s controlled burn techniques. Roberts Projects included it in its terrestrial-themed summer group show Back to the Earth,
There’s something a bit magical about the work of Canadian artist Marcel Dzama (b. 1974) now on display at David Zwirner’s space on Western Avenue in Los Angeles.
The life of the LA-based Black painter Noah Davis (1983-2015) was cut short by cancer, after which his market took off. UCLA’s Hammer Museum is presenting the first institutional survey of his poignant figurative work.
Marisa J Futernick’s (b. 1980) exhibition at the Skirball Cultural Center cleverly transforms Dirty Dancing-era archival family photographs of Borscht Belt vacations into conceptual artworks infused with Jewish humor.
Su Su (b. 1989) is a Beijing-born American artist whose Van Gogh inspired, oil-on-silk painting Girl with Straw-hat (2025) caught my eye at The Journal Gallery in West Hollywood.
Anat Ebgi showed me this Cindy Sherman-inspired photo by Alex Prager (b. 1979), a classic contemporary LA photographer.
This photo stopped me dead in my tracks: Deadhead at the Maine State Fairgrounds, Lewiston, ME, 1980 (2025) by Jay Blakesberg (b. 1961) showing in the tribute show An American Beauty: Grateful Dead 1965–1995 at David Kordansky Gallery
Intricately embroidered portraits of Black women by Bahamian-born, Toronto-based Gio Swaby (b. 1991) are a seductive highlight at Vielmetter’s light-filled space near downtown.
Avis Charley (b. 1976) is a Spirit Lake Dakota / Diné artist who creates contemporary ledger drawings. Her work is shown by Chinatown’s Charlie James Gallery, in my opinion LA’s top curator of work by a diverse, local set of upcoming artists, some of whom, such as Mario Ayala (b. 1991) and Alfonso Gonzales Jr. (b. 1989) now show with larger galleries.
I’ve had my eye on Hannah Murray’s (b. 1994) figurative portraits for a little while. Classically inspired, several of them were included in a group show at Anat Ebgi’s space on Wilshire Boulevard.
Takako Yamamuchi (b. 1952), who came of age as a painter in the 1970s, is enjoying a show of recent work at MOCA described as reverse-abstraction seascapes, meaning they derive nature from abstraction rather than the other way around.
Similarly, Anthony Miler (b. 1982) also paints in a way that derives abstraction in reverse, with delightful results emerging from a unique visual language. He currently has a show on at The Pit in Glendale, CA.
Alteronce Gumby’s (b. 1985), In the Light of a Miracle (2025) angel aura cluster, selenite, glass, and acrylic on panel, 72 x 72 inches, is included in the excellent group show The Abstract Future at Jeffrey Deitch.
A very good painting by Katherine Bernhardt (b. 1975) - her signature Pink Panther character being one of the most popular motifs in her oeuvre - in the collection of the Marciano Art Foundation on Wilshire Blvd.
As always, thank you for reading, and please feel free to forward this email to others who might be interested in art and Charting Transcendence!
Charting Transcendence, Inc.
125 NE 32nd St. #715
Miami, FL 34145
USA
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