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THE CLIMATE and light in Los Angeles is not unlike that of many cities in the Gulf. The almost surreal brightness, the endless days of azure skies, swaying palm trees and hazy heat, bordering the desert, has been a draw for artists for many years. Yet, LA has not until recently been completely accepted as a serious art center and has been denigrated in some circles as a satellite city of sun-soaked and disorganized artists. This is no longer the case. In the last decade, in which a seismic shift in the center of gravity in the U.S. art world has brought not just talented artists to this frenetic city, but an infrastructure of high-level art professionals, many art watchers have come to the conclusion that the real action in the U.S. art world no longer rests in New York, but is now firmly planted on the Pacific Coast.

ENTER CHRISTINE Y. KIM

Christine Y. Kim, the animated and intelligent Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is one of the art world professionals who has recently moved to the West Coast. Kim and I sat down several times to talk on a recent trip I took to Los Angeles, where it was very clear to me that things had changed a great deal since my last visit several years ago.

I asked Ms. Kim what she considered to be the main decisions that she made in her life, which enabled her to land in this plum position. We discussed at length the role of the 21st century contemporary curator -- and what sort of academic and intellectual background was required to fill this role. And we pondered the factors that have contributed to Los Angeles becoming new epicenter of the contemporary art world. Finally we discussed her job at LACMA and the uniqueness of that institution.

THE EDUCATION OF A 21st CENTURY ART CURATOR

Kim is a big believer in an inter-disciplinary liberal arts education as the soundest foundation for a career in the 21st century art world. As she laughingly puts it, “One needs a sense of so many disciplines to be able to study and identify good art today. We are in a period of transition where the art world is moving away from the traditional flat canvas, and is branching out into a variety of disciplines and mediums, not to mention the increasing role of technology and digital art”.

Kim studied as an undergraduate at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut, a small prestigious college with an emphasis
on liberal arts and the humanities. She received degrees in French Literature and Art History, with a minor is Asian studies. “It was at
Connecticut College where I began my intellectual journey moving from the Marquis de Sade to Barbara Kruger to Edward Said,” she remembers.

Continuing her intellectual journey, she moved to New York immediately after college. “It was in the mid-1990s, one of the worst art
markets ever,” she laughs. Kim enrolled in graduate school at New York University, where she did graduate work in American Studies. It was at NYU that she encountered some of her first mentors including Andrew Ross, well-known Professor of Cultural and Social Studies and Deniz Sengel, a Turkish-born Professor of Comparative Literature. It was also at NYU that her varied academic background allowed her to explore what she describes as, “mutations of space in art exhibitions. I became fascinated by perceptions in visual culture, and ultimately that became the focus of my work”.

Kim’s first job in the art world was at the Whitney Museum of American art in New York City where she worked on an ambitious breakthrough show called The American Century. She was also very influenced by the 1994 Biennial at the Whitney -- a show which controversially focused on the role of African Americans in American culture and art. The Whitney, known for pushing the boundaries on traditional ways of exhibiting art, was a perfect place for Kim to start with her focus on “space”. Her next career move was to reach out to Lowry Sims, the President of the Studio Museum in Harlem. She had admired the iconic institution’s work over the years, and as a culturally specific museum founded in the late 1960s in the Harlem area of New York City-- a predominately African American neighborhood -- Kim thought it it would be “a great place to think about issues that I had been studying and thinking about in my formative years”. She began at the Studio Museum as a curatorial assistant and left 8 years later as an associate curator.

KIM'S PRESCIENT MOVE TO LOS ANGELES

In the fall of 2008, Kim made her move to Los Angeles, one of many artists, art world academics and museum directors who have moved from New York to Los Angeles in the last five to ten years -- perhaps finding it a more receptive city to innovation.

“Although it was again a terrible economy,” she laughs, “I was fortunate in that one of my close friends and colleagues from the Whitney, Shamim Momin moved to LA at the same time. We got together and started a series of informal salons.” Kim continues.“We invited numerous artists working in the public realm, academics and art professionals to join in discussions focusing on issues including: ‘site and situation projects’; ‘curating at a time of economic crisis’; ‘large institutions versus small nonprofits’,
and others.”

“It was a wonderful time and we had some of the most interesting people in the LA contemporary art world participate including artists like Mark Bradford and Glen Kaino -- a conceptual sculptor with a focus on magic and illusionists”.

“In 2008, Shamim and I founded the LAND Foundation, which stands for the LA Nomadic Division. Shamim was the Director and I was on the board. Although I continue to work on the mission of this and other nonprofits, I had the itch to return to work at an institution which led to a discussion with Michael Govan, the new Director of LACMA”.

OUTSIDE THE BLACK BOX AND THE WHITE CUBE

“In 2009, I joined LACMA with a new team of contemporary curators including Franklin Sirmans and Rita Gonzales. It was, and continues to be an amazing opportunity. With Govan’s stewardship and support, LACMA had been conceptually committed to moving towards exhibitions that are outside the black box and the white cube, yet it was not until Franklin, Rita and I joined that we were able to focus on individual projects and plans and bring them to fruition”.

The trio are considered taste-makers -- a role that is not lost on Kim. When asked who she feels are the most talented and potentially collectible contemporary artists in LA today, she weighs her answer carefully, cognizant that her stamp of approval, or lack thereof, could make or break an artist’s career.

“There are too many artists working in too many disciplines to name just a few,” she answers. “One of the ways in which the art world can see who we are seriously excited about,” she continues, “is through a series of strategies that we have devised to showcase promising emerging talent, while also supporting the museum”.

“For example,” she explains, “a group called ‘Art Here and Now’ grew out of a New Talent Awards program and the group has recognized amazing artists including Mark Bradford, Chris Burden and Aaron Curry.”

“One of the great things about my job is the diverse background of my colleagues.” Kim enthuses. “It is a myth that contemporary art curators all come from a visual arts background. Franklin Sirmans, the head of the department is a writer and a critic. My co-curator, RIta Gonzales is a media artist working in film and digital art, and even outside the museum, colleagues like Douglas Fogle, the contemporary curator at the Hammer Museum at UCLA has a background in political science,”

THE QUIETER PURSUIT

When discussing the many facets of her job, Kim reflects,“It is important to stand back and think about where an institution is and what
the priorities should be. The quieter pursuit of a curator is to decide how to build the collection. And in the case of LACMA,” she continues, “this is not an easy task, but a compelling one. When one includes prints, drawings and photography, the contemporary collection encompasses over 3,500 objects”.

“It is about looking at this period in time,” Kim continues, “with a focus on Los Angeles, of course, looking at global practice in all media, and then factoring in budgets, the desires of artists and collectors, locally and in the world,and balancing these aesthetic and logistical concerns”.

When asked what specific upcoming project she is most looking forward to, Kim does not hesitate. “I will be co-curating, with Michael Govan, a retrospective of the amazing light artist James Turrell that will take place in 2013”.

WHY LOS ANGELES? WHY NOW?

When asked why Kim believes that Los Angeles has gained such critical mass as an art center of late, she muses: “On one level, it is simply a case of the economic conditions necessary for artists to work and flourish. We all watched in New York as first SoHo, and then Tribeca, and then Chelsea, became prohibitively expensive places for artists to rent studio space and keep up with the cost of living. They were effectively gentrified out of one neighborhood after another.

“Conversely, there are still many places in sprawling Los Angeles where space is affordable. In addition, the Los Angeles community made up of professionals in the creative fields of film and theater and music is culturally welcoming to artists. Finally, Los Angeles has always had a thriving contemporary art scene from Judy Chicago to Mark Flores to David Hockney”.

This influx of artists from New York and around the world, in addition to the shift of attention economically and culturally towards Asia -- and China in particular -- coupled with the fact that currently some of the greatest art patrons are in LA are additional factors.

WEALTHY PATRONS FUEL LA RENAISSANCE

This group of extremely wealthy patrons, who have literally given billions in an unbelievably short period of time, include Eli and Edythe
Broad, who donated a huge contemporary gallery to LACMA and are in the process of building their own Broad Museum of Contemporary Art; Gap clothing chain founder, Donald Fisher, who has just funded an addition to the Museum of Contemporary art in San Francisco; Stewart and Janet Resnick, who donated the spectacular new building designed by Renzo Piano at LACMA; and entertainment mogul David Geffen, who recently gave a building to LA MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art)

HEAVYWEIGHT MUSEUM DIRECTORS ALSO HEAD WEST

At the same time, and not coincidentally, world-class museum directors including Jeffrey Deitch, who came from the commercial world --where he operated for decades in New York as a superstar contemporary art dealer - was recruited to run LA MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) in June 2010.

And Michael Govan, considered an old-school Renaissance man with a 21st century vision, has been considered a bit of a savant in the art world since his appointment in 1988 (in his mid-twenties) as Deputy Director of New York’s prestigious Guggenheim Museum. Govan was one of the first of the “serious” art world players to make the move to LA, when he took the helm as CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director of LACMA in 2006

THE VISIONARY AND AMBITIOUS TRANSFORMATION OF LACMA

LACMA itself is not a building. It is a “campus” set back from chic Wilshire Boulevard, in the famed Beverly Hills District of Los Angeles.
A recent, ambitious overhaul called The Transformation Project, in which the entire LACMA footprint was re-designed, has been spectacularly successful both aesthetically and as a draw for visitors.

Attendance at the museum has risen from 600,000 in 2005 to nearly 1,000,000 in 2011.

The nearly completed project revitalized the western half of the campus with a collection of buildings designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop. These include the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, a threestory 60,000 square foot space for the exhibition of postwar art that opened in 2008. In fall of 2010, the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion opened to the public, providing the largest purpose-built, naturally lit, open-plan museum space in the world, with a rotating selection of major exhibitions.

The entire complex surrounds a chic courtyard with an outdoor restaurant, cocktail and espresso bar, named after famed and feared Hollywood Producer, Ray Stark. All of this glitz, however, cannot overshadow the gravitas of the museum’s permanent collection that includes extraordinary Old Master pictures, one of the greatest collection of Asian and Islamic arts in the world, plus surprises including a superb collection of German and Austrian expressionist paintings and decorative objects from the Weiner Werkstatte.

ONLY IN LA....ONLY IN LA......

Kim and I complete our several day-long conversation on Venice Beach at sunset. We are both wearing high-fidelity earphones, black masks and plastic ponchos. We are both participants and viewers of the performance piece, “Monstrance” by artist, Matthew Ritchie. The performance, based on “falling stars”, “the office of the evening” and the “many forms of the sun”, features music by Indie rocker, Bryce Dessner of the Nationals, large monster-like dummies exploding in flames and a woman walking as if in a trance dressed in a ghoulish bride costume. As the performance finishes and I say goodbye and thank you to Kim, who has brought along her toddler-aged daughter -- mesmerized and not the least frightened by the spectacle -- I walk down the beach where I see a raft of surfers silhouetted behind the performance and the lavender and gold sunset. And I think to myself, “Only in LA. Only in LA...”.