Dennis Hollingsworth

Michael Kohn's New Gallery

Michael Kohn's new gallery building opened this month with a show of Mark Ryden's paintings. Ryden did put on a splash, heightening the carnivalesque stosphere with a squad of friends dressed in costumes in the theme of the "Gay 90's", the center of gravity of his paintings, the effect of which bordered on performance.

After a year of investment and problem solving, Michael and his team enjoyed a well deserved homecoming, a reinvestment of hard earned assets into a passionate vision. Construction is always a dramatic event, every architectural creation is always larded with surprising problems with patience and budget pushed to the limit. Located in the center of Los Angeles on Highland Avenue and Lexington, the new gallery is beautiful. Michael has put all his chips on the table and the new space is wonderfully proportioned and spacious, almost-but not too large, a space that stages artwork on a museological scale that concentrates the minds of his artists. Isn't this what every gallerist should aspire to?