Rajiv Menon Modern, among the many first industrial galleries within the US to concentrate on artwork from South Asia and its diaspora, this week held a gap for its debut exhibition within the gallery’s new area in Hollywood. Exhibitionism (till 30 March) explores the connection between privateness and a focus by means of the lenses of intimacy, domesticity and the operations of the artwork world, based on the gallery’s founder, Rajiv Menon. The present options greater than 20 works by 19 artists of South Asian descent, together with established names like Chitra Ganesh, Sunil Gupta and Jagannath Panda, and rising artists like Tarini Sethi, Mustafa Mohsin and Raghav Babbar, making his stateside debut in a industrial gallery.
The exhibition is the primary on the gallery’s new everlasting area at 1311 North Highland Avenue; Menon initially opened the gallery final yr as a pop-up. “I felt extremely impressed by the depth of expertise I used to be seeing popping out of the South Asian diaspora, however I began to get actually pissed off, as a result of there weren’t a variety of shops in North America to see the nice rising work,” Menon says.
Since opening final yr in a short lived area in Silver Lake, Menon says, the gallery has had an “unimaginable” response from collectors. “We had big assist from throughout the South Asian diaspora and collectors in India, however we additionally noticed actually robust curiosity from simply broad collectors with world sensibilities,” he provides. The Western marketplace for South Asian artwork continues to develop—final yr, a Christie’s sale devoted to modern and trendy South Asian artwork fetched $9.3m (with charges) with a 98% sell-through charge.
Menon says he opted to open his gallery in Los Angeles partly due to town’s variety and wide selection of creativity. “I felt it was actually essential to faucet into a lot of the vitality that was occurring surrounding visibility in Hollywood and different mediums, and to deliver that into dialog with modern artwork,” he says.
Opening a gallery simply weeks after lethal wildfires is just not ideally suited for any vendor, however Menon says that “greater than something, the gallery being a spot of neighborhood gathering is absolutely essential. I believe folks need to come and have a good time town.” The gallery plans to donate at the least $10,000 to wildfire-relief efforts by means of the philanthropic teams SevaSphere and the California Neighborhood Basis.
