When it comes to Los Angeles art world news lately, it’s been mostly about museum closures—both temporary and permanent. But here’s a bit of optimism, at least in terms of real estate: One of the biggest names in international galleries is moving into a cavernous former museum on Wilshire Boulevard.
Variety reports that Larry Gagosian, of Gagosian Gallery fame, has reached an exclusive occupancy arrangement to take over programming at a large portion of the former Marciano Art Foundation. Dubbed the Grand Theater Gallery, it’ll occupy the ground floor of the space with plans to kick off programming in January 2021 for an open-ended run.
The venue has had a bit of a rocky recent history. The Millard Sheets-designed building (Sheets was best known for his bank mosaics) was opened in 1961 as the Scottish Rite Masonic Temple. In 2013, Guess founders and brothers Maurice and Paul Marciano bought the then-vacant building. In 2017, they finally opened it to the public as the Marciano Art Foundation, a free contemporary art museum. But in late 2019, the museum’s docents and visitor services associates were laid off shortly after announcing that were readying to file a petition to unionize; the Marciano brothers then announced that the museum was abruptly and permanently closing (the former employees filed a lawsuit that the museum settled last month, according to the New York Times).
The Marciano Art Foundation still owns the building and it had been up for sale for $13.9 million but, according to Variety, there were no interested buyers (the building is no longer listed for sale). The entire building comes in at 90,000 square feet; Gagosian will occupy about 13,000 square feet.
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Gagosian was leasing the ground floor of the museum. However, representatives for both parties clarified that Gagosian is not leasing the space, but has instead reached “an exclusive occupancy arrangement” with the Marciano Art Foundation.