LOS ANGELES—For a brief moment a couple of years ago, it seemed like Culver City was becoming a West Coast playground for New York dealers. Elizabeth Dee partnered with David Quadrini, of Angstrom Gallery in Dallas, to open the contemporary-art gallery Q.E.D., and Michele Maccarone and Christian Haye opened project space MC together. (Those partnerships have since dissolved, with Quadrini and Haye both now going it alone.) But today Culver City’s gallery district, located halfway between downtown and the beach, has grown into something wholly its own.

The biggest news this season comes from L.A. mainstay Blum & Poe, pioneers on the neighborhood’s La Cienega Boulevard in 2003, when the strip was still known as Tire Alley because of the auto supply shops. “We thought maybe one or two galleries would follow,” says Timothy Blum. “Sure enough, they started coming like dominoes.”

Recently, Blum & Poe announced its purchase of a 27,000-square-foot building across from its existing, rented one. “It was a manufacturing space—they used to make weird light triggers for missiles,” says Blum. For the build-out the gallery has hired L.A. architectural firm Escher GuneWardena, which oversaw work on one of the city’s most famous homes: the Chemosphere, designed by John Lautner and now owned by German collector-publisher Benedikt Taschen.

While Blum & Poe waits for its new home to be ready, around 2009, Roberts & Tilton is preparing to move by May into a space next to Susanne Vielmetter on Washington Boulevard, which crosses La Cienega. Why the rush? The dealer’s landlord at 6150 Wilshire—the complex across from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that has long housed 1301PE, ACME, Marc Foxx, Paul Kopeikin and other galleries—decided not to extend its lease. The reason given, says Julie Roberts, who owns Roberts & Tilton with her husband, Bennett, and New York dealer JackTilton, was that ACME is absorbing the space.  The latter confirmed that it is taking over the lease, with plans to expand this summer. Meanwhile, photo dealer Paul Kopeikin got the same news, as Marc Foxx also wants to spread out. (Kopeikin is staying in the area, moving this spring to 6030 Wilshire, just down the road.)

By all accounts, the mood in the complex, previously known for its collegiality, has become ugly. “It was an uncomfortable situation for all of us,” says Julie Roberts. “But now we’re just happy we have found a wonderful space in a wonderful neighborhood.”

The new  venue, she notes, is twice the size of her previous location. To gut and rebuild it, the husband-and-wife dealers hired local husband-and-wife architects Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, who just finished carving out a space for Honor Fraser’s gallery in Quadrini’s building.

The only thing that’s missing in the area, dealers say, is a good restaurant. Gallery-goers can get a sandwich at the local art bar Mandrake, run by artists Flora Wiegmann and her husband, Drew Heitzler, who will appear in this year’s Whitney Biennial with collaborator Amy Granat. And collector Susan Hancock, who famously let a New York Times reporter follow her around the Armory Show last year, just opened a gallery/shop/café called Royal/T, showcasing her holdings by the likes of Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara and Lisa Yuskavage. But her place is in the Culver City design district, a bit of a hike from gallery row, and it’s more concept than restaurant. So visitors to La Cienega should be prepared to go hungry—though certainly not for art. 

"The Land Grab" originally appeared in the February 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's February 2008 Table of Contents.