Gagosian, San Francisco.
Megagallery Gagosian has closed its San Francisco outpost after just four years and is instead seeking to elevate its profile in Los Angeles, where it recently struck a deal to occupy space in the former Marciano Museum, where it is to begin programming early this year. The addition complements its established Beverly Hills outpost. “To consolidate and strengthen Gagosian’s presence in California, we are concentrating our efforts based in Los Angeles, for the time being,” said the gallery in a statement.
Gagosian’s Bay Area gallery, which opened in 2016 on Howard Street across from the newly renovated San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, hosted shows by Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, Jonas Wood, and Jay DeFeo, among others, and partnered with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the Parks Conservancy to install two large-scale sculptures by Giuseppe Penone at Fort Mason, where they remain on view through March of this year.
“They ran a terrific program with many memorable exhibitions and were great neighbors,” said SF MOMA director Janet Bishop, speaking with the San Francisco Chronicle. “I can only begin to imagine the toll of the pandemic on our city’s galleries and other arts organizations at a time when it feels like we need culture more than ever.”
“We felt a great amount of support from local collectors, institutions, and the public,” former Gagosian SF codirector Kelly Huang told Artnet News, noting that the gallery “helped expand access to contemporary art in the Bay Area.” Huang described the appetite for contemporary art in San Francisco as “growing, active, and engaged,” reflecting “the huge potential for the next generation of collectors here.”
Gagosian remains the largest art gallery in the world, with seventeen spaces in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Geneva, Athens, Rome, and Hong Kong.
