The Old Santa Monica Post Office Re-Opens as Art Gallery – The Hollywood Reporter

The previous Santa Monica Publish Workplace on Fifth Road, which closed in 2013, is now an artwork area.

For the approaching months, New York-based gallerist Vito Schnabel will probably be presenting exhibits within the grand Despair-era construction, which has 15,000-square-feet of exhibition area. The 1938 Moderne-style constructing is at the moment owned by Alexander Dellal of U.Ok.-based Allied Business Exporters Ltd. (A.C.E.), which purchased it in 2018 from David Ellison’s Skydance Media for $30 million.

A.C.E. additionally owns the historic Venice Publish Workplace, which it bought in 2019 for $22 million, and is creating it for an undisclosed use; the constructing had beforehand been owned by producer Joel Silver, who had deliberate to show it into workplaces.

Schnabel’s first Santa Monica present, which runs by way of Jan. 16, is Francesco Clemente: Twenty Years of Portray, 2001-2021; it spotlights the 69-year-old Naples-born, New York-based painter’s colourful, large-scale works which are replete with dream-like symbolism.

Says Francesco Clemente, “Each picture needs to be memorable but in addition ought to give a way that the picture is transitory,” as a result of, he provides, “the spirit world is just not some form of refuge the place you’ll be able to lastly anchor your self to one thing everlasting. No approach — it’s impermanent, identical to the whole lot else.”

The Clemente present additionally contains new watercolors; a self-portrait of the artist with pink antlers sprouting from his head; and portraits of writers Fran Lebowitz and Toni Morrison. It’s Clemente’s first solo present in Los Angeles in practically 20 years.

1248 Fifth St., Santa Monica; gallery visits by appointment solely, Thursday by way of Sunday, by way of vitoschnabel.com.

This story first appeared within the Nov. 10 subject of The Hollywood Reporter journal. Click on right here to subscribe.