Michael Kohn Gallery

Since its founding in 1985 by former Flash Art editor Michael Kohn, the Michael Kohn Gallery has been a leading showcase for modern and contemporary art on the West Coast. Located in the heart of Hollywood, the gallery presents historically significant exhibitions alongside exciting shows by emerging and mid-career artists, creating meaningful contexts that link the art to the greater continuum of art history.

The gallery represents an impressive roster of artists, from prominent West Coast figures with long, rich histories like Joe Goode, Lita Albuquerque, and the estates of Bruce Conner, Wallace Berman, and John Altoon, to a rising generation of talents like Ilana Savdie, William Brickel, Alicia Adamerovich, Chiffon Thomas, and Jinbin Chen[13]. This mix of the established and the new is a hallmark of the Kohn Gallery program.

In 2014, the gallery moved into an expansive 12,000 square foot space designed by architect Lester Tobias. The building features immense exhibition spaces with 22-foot ceilings, allowing for shows on a monumental scale, as well as massive windows and skylights that bathe the galleries in natural light[3]. It’s a spectacular venue to experience art.

Some of the most notable exhibitions in the Kohn Gallery’s history include:

• Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Boxes in 1986, presented just weeks before the artist’s untimely death[5]
• Bruce Conner: CROSSROADS in 2014, featuring Conner’s iconic 1976 film of declassified footage of an underwater atomic bomb test along with related drawings[8]
• Wallace Berman: American Aleph in 2016, a major retrospective positioning Berman as a central figure of the Beat Generation and postwar American art[14]
• Nir Hod: 100 Years Is Not Enough in 2023, showcasing the Israeli artist’s signature chrome paintings and monumental candle wax sculpture[12]

The gallery has also organized important shows contextualizing West Coast art history, like The West Coast Avant-Garde, 1950 – Present in 2015[11]. As a leading advocate for California artists, Kohn has stated “As museums and collectors explore the rich history of American art produced during the last quarter of the 20th Century, they are discovering a period of intense creativity on the West Coast, from ‘Light and Space’ to pioneering Conceptual works.”[8]

In addition to its exhibition program, the Kohn Gallery is very active at major international art fairs. It has participated in Art Basel Miami Beach, The Armory Show, Expo Chicago, and Frieze Los Angeles, among others[16]. The fairs provide a prominent platform to showcase the gallery’s artists to a global audience of collectors, curators, and art lovers.

The gallery also produces scholarly exhibition catalogues and vibrant limited edition prints to support its artists and program[14]. These publications serve to document and widely disseminate the work of the gallery’s artists.

Some of the most acclaimed artists represented by the Kohn Gallery include:

Joe Goode, a key figure of the California Light and Space movement known for his ethereal paintings of skies, oceans, and milk bottles that explore perception[3]. The gallery has presented many exhibitions of Goode’s work over the decades and now represents his estate[17].

Bruce Conner, the pioneering avant-garde filmmaker and artist who worked in collage, painting, drawing, and sculpture[8]. Conner was the subject of a major retrospective co-organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Modern Art in 2016. The Kohn Gallery has been instrumental in bringing renewed attention to Conner’s massively influential oeuvre.

Ilana Savdie, a rising Colombian-American painter known for intricate, mixed-media canvases that explore identity, sexuality and the body[13]. Savdie’s first solo show at the gallery in 2021, Entrañadas, garnered wide critical acclaim.

Mark Ryden, a leading figure in the Pop Surrealist movement, whose paintings of big-eyed dolls and nostalgic 1950s imagery have made him a cult favorite[9]. Ryden’s 2014 show inaugurating the gallery’s new Hollywood space drew collectors like Leonardo DiCaprio and set record prices.

Heidi Hahn, a New York-based painter of expressive, gestural portraits and nudes, often of women, that explore the female body and experience[12]. Hahn curated the group show Myselves at the gallery in 2022, which examined shifting identities and the construction of the self.

Chiffon Thomas, an emerging artist who creates intricate figurative collages and tapestries that explore personal identity, nostalgia and longing[11]. Thomas’s sold-out first show at the gallery in 2022 announced them as a major new talent.

Throughout its nearly 40-year history, the Michael Kohn Gallery has been a vital advocate for both established and emerging artists, giving them a prominent platform to show their work in Los Angeles and beyond. By presenting museum-quality exhibitions that create dialogues between contemporary art and art history, the gallery has made a major contribution to the cultural landscape of the city and the appreciation of modern and contemporary art globally. With its roster of visionary artists, scholarly yet accessible approach, and spectacular Hollywood space, the Kohn Gallery is poised to continue its influential program well into the future, championing art that inspires, provokes, and endures.

Citations: [1] https://www.kohngallery.com/contact [2] https://www.artsy.net/partner/michael-kohn-gallery [3] https://www.kohngallery.com/goode-exhibitions [4] https://www.artnet.com/galleries/michael-kohn-gallery/ [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohn_Gallery [6] https://www.kohngallery.com/heizer-1 [7] https://www.kohngallery.com/myselves-1 [8] https://www.kohngallery.com/conner-exhibitions [9] https://www.kohngallery.com/news/2014/4/24/michael-kohn-goes-to-hollywood-art-in-america [10] https://www.kohngallery.com/edges [11] https://www.kohngallery.com/exhibitions-2 [12] https://www.kohngallery.com/hod [13] https://www.kohngallery.com/artists [14] https://www.kohngallery.com/shop [15] https://www.kohngallery.com [16] https://www.kohngallery.com/art-fairs [17] https://www.kohngallery.com/goode-twenty-years [18] https://www.kohngallery.com/news [19] https://www.kohngallery.com/the-west-coast