Los Angeles According to: Alex Tuttle of David Zwirner
The Melrose Hill gallerist (and born and bred Angeleno) loves Koreatown and the space and light of her home city
The Melrose Hill gallerist (and born and bred Angeleno) loves Koreatown and the space and light of her home city
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This interview took place before the Los Angeles fires of January 2025.
David Zwirner opened two spaces on N Western Avenue in Los Angeles’s Melrose Hill district in May 2023, and followed them the next year with a new adjacent flagship designed by Selldorf Architects. The area, once home to light industry and artists’ studios is now a cosmopolitan mix of cafés, bars and galleries, including The Brick, Château Shatto, Clearing, James Fuentes, Hannah Hoffman and Southern Guild. Director Alex Tuttle explains her lifelong love for the city of her birth, and offers visitors some local recommendations.
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Chris Waywell: What’s your personal relationship to Los Angeles?
Alex Tuttle: I was born here; I grew up here. I lived in New York for a long time, and when I found out I was having a child, I just was like: Oh, I have to go back to LA. It’s a very comfortable space for me. It’s changed, and it hasn’t changed, and it’s always changing. It’s a pretty amazing place and it still has the character it had when I grew up here.
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CW: How do you define that character?
AT: Sprawl. Sprawling. That’s always how it has been. It has all these different neighbourhoods and that’s the most exciting part about it for me. You go into these tiny, different worlds and each has its own distinct and interesting history. It makes it difficult sometimes to feel like you’re in just one city. Also, it can be easy to stay in your own neighbourhood and not travel out as much, so where you choose to live makes a big difference. That’s where your restaurants are, where everything you do is.
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CW: What’s the neighbourhood around the gallery like?
AT: The gallery is located at this meeting point of Koreatown, Hollywood, East Hollywood and Hancock Park. It’s changed a lot over the years. It used to be home to a lot of artists’ studios: Ed Ruscha, Bill Leavitt, Chris Williams. It has always been this intersection: Western Avenue cuts through the entire city. Now it’s become a more walkable area. More galleries are opening here: Château Shatto; Hannah Hoffman just opened a small space that’s beautiful. There’s so much energy: we’re smack in the middle of the city, it’s a thoroughfare.
CW: Are you seeing a similar change in the kind of people who visit the gallery?
AT: Well, that’s a good question, because I don’t know what it was like before. I only know since we’ve been here. I would say we get a really nice mix of people. Saturdays here are just incredible: it’s like a whole cross-section of people in LA. There are collectors and artists, but then there are all different kinds of people, tourists, students and just people out and about. That’s been exciting to me, meeting different people who come to the gallery.
CW: What about the art scene in LA in general?
AT: What characterizes it is the artists. And that artists, studios and galleries have space, and with that space so much can happen in a different way than in other cities.
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CW: What impact do you think that Frieze Los Angeles has on the city’s art scene?
AT: It’s a great unifier. I love all the different neighbourhoods in the city, but it can feel too spread out as well. Frieze brings everyone together in one spot. For me, it’s about bringing and consolidating all the energy in Los Angeles.
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CW: What’s your favourite museum or gallery in LA?
AT: O-Town House: it’s in the Granada Buildings, which feels like this full LA experience. It’s an old Spansih Revival building with an interior courtyard. Scott Cameron Weaver has a gallery upstairs with such a rigorous, artist-driven programme. It’s always a treat when I go there. I also love visiting Nonaka-Hill. I always get a big education when I’m there. It feels very much like an LA story: it still has the old drycleaner’s sign. And, luckily, The Brick, which was formerly LAXART, just moved in right down the street from us. Also, the New Theater Hollywood is doing really interesting performances.
CW: What was the last show you saw in Los Angeles?
AT: I took my children to ‘Lumen: The Art and Science of Light’ at the Getty, their PST ART show. It’s mainly looking at the medieval period, CE 800 to 1600. It was spectacular and super-interesting. Light is a big part of LA art and culture, and this show is looking at light in terms of science and religion.
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I’m also super-excited that the Hammer is doing an Alice Coltrane show during Frieze. I’ve always been a fan of hers.
CW: What are your top tips for going out in your neighbourhood?
AT: We’re so close to Koreatown. I love how urban and dense Koreatown is. When I moved back here, it reminded me of New York: you can walk from place to place, and it has these amazing malls with corridors that go back and back and back. And there’s some of the best food in LA. For breakfast, I love the pancakes at Café Telegrama, which is a new café near the gallery. For lunch, my favourite spot is BCD Tofu House. I could go there every day. LA Grocery just opened: they do a really great job for lunch as well. For dinner, Western Doma Noodles is so delicious. Also nearby is the small Filipino restaurant Kuya Lord.
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In terms of bars, there’s a dive bar nearby, Thai Angel: I sometimes go there with people after work. Bar Étoile just opened right next door to the gallery. You can sit at the bar and have french fries and a drink, so that’s been a great addition.
CW: What’s the best thing about LA?
AT: The best thing is the light, the sunlight. And hiking. And fruit trees growing in people’s yards that overflow into the sidewalk. Then definitely the depth and variety of food in all the different neighbourhoods.
CW: And the worst thing?
AT: I feel so clichéd saying this, but it’s just the traffic. It makes it harder to do more than one thing in a day.
David Zwirner, 606, 612, and 616 N Western Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90004. At Frieze Los Angeles, 20 – 23 February 2025, the gallery is showing paintings from the 1990s to early 2000s, including works by Noah Davis, Dana Schutz, Lisa Yuskavage, Luc Tuymas and Josh Smith.
Further Information
Frieze Los Angeles, 20 – 23 February 2025, Santa Monica Airport.
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