Exploring LA’s Creative Edges on a Day’s Drive

Christine Messineo We’re off!

Essence Harden I’m happy I picked you up.

CM This is a little how our relationship started.

EH I know. Me in the car saying, ‘I have a quick question.’

CM Our calls quickly turned from five minutes to at least half an hour, but I think that’s the nature of Los Angeles. Driving is the only quiet time. I lived in LA for almost seven years, and remaining connected to my friends and family back home so often happened over the phone while driving.

EH Absolutely. A lot of my thinking happens in the car, too. It’s my creative thinking space – for others, it might be the shower. While working on the ‘Made in L.A’ biennial at the Hammer Museum, I’ve been driving across the city all day, almost every day, for six months, going from Alhambra to CalArts, to the edge of the county.

CM When did you move to LA?

EH Almost ten years ago.

CM Around the same time as me.

EH Where did you first live when you came here?

CM I had a very iconic experience when I came to LA. My husband and I were searching for a place to live. All our friends lived east, but an old friend told us about a house on Benedict Canyon Drive, this palm tree-lined street just west of the Beverly Hills Hotel. We drove up there and it was one of the most gorgeous days, like today, actually  –  perfect temperature, blue skies. The road starts to get curvy as you head closer to Mulholland Drive and, as we approached, we felt like we were having an out-of-body experience.

We were coming from Brooklyn, where we had a miniature apartment. The sky and trees felt momentous. So, we ended up in this sweet home in Beverly Hills. We used to throw crazy dinners and parties there. It was my way into the art world in LA. We’d be at a show at the Hammer, say, and lots of people had come from the east side and they’d ask, ‘What are we going to do for dinner?’ And I’d just invite them all over. I’d be cooking for 20.

EH I feel like I did the same thing. I lived in East Hollywood when we first moved here, and we would make dinner and invite over anyone who wanted to come. I think that’s a really strong com­ponent of making community here:  offering up your home, food and a gathering space because folks are coming from all across town.

But I think you have to go out, you have to get out, and you can’t be too beholden to a particular neighborhood. What’s the point of being here if you’re not willing to extend yourself and your boundaries of where you eat, play and have a good time.

LA is a bunch of connected suburbs. I was saying to you earlier that something I really like to do is go to Atwater. I live in Leimert Park in South Central, so not by Atwater, which is on the Eastside by Los Feliz, before you get to Glendale and Burbank. But I love it over there because it has my favorite bakery, Proof, and I still get my nails done there.

CM I love Proof. And I love the place across the street from it: Dune. We actually first connected when I invited you to curate the Focus section at Frieze Los Angeles last year. And now you are returning for a second year. What are you especially excited about?

EH There’s going to be a strong contingent of LA spaces: Bel Ami, Make Room, Sow & Tailor, Superposition Gallery (now in New York) and Tyler Park Presents. And Dominique Gallery, run by one of my favourite LA gallerists. What’s coming up in the rest of the fair?

CM Galleries are still finalizing their presentations, but we had proposals for something like 30 solo stands outside of Focus itself. Several of the solos are by Indigenous and Native American artists, which feels timely, and a number also shed light on LA’s own history, like Judy Chicago at Jeffrey Deitch and Noah Purifoy at Jack Tilton.

The other day, we were talking about Santa Monica – its history, the artists you’re visiting there – and the Westside more generally.

EH I think Santa Monica is cool for lots of reasons – historical ones, such as the city’s long public art and mural history, but also programs like 18th Street Arts Center, which is really vital in providing residencies that are held within the city centre.

CM Judy Baca is a longtime resident and, of course, she was one of the co-founders of SPARC [Social and Public Art Resource Center] back in the 1970s. Last year, she moved to Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station Arts Center to take on more space .

EH Carl Cheng’s studio is west, too;  he’s in his 80s now and has been there a long time. He went to UCLA. So, there’s an extensive history that lives on. I love that people still value the Pacific Ocean and the vibe it brings.

CM The vibe of the edge.

EH Yes, the vibe and energy on the edge is nice. There’s a Toni Morrison quote, in an interview from 1983, where she’s talking about jazz and how it’s ‘on the edge’ and that edge is the thing that keeps you wanting. You feel as if you’re going to fall off and it can make you experience a really deep tension, but that edge is what develops the work.

CM In LA, you’re surrounded by different edges. You’ve got the hills on one side and then you have the water on another.

Coming from the East Coast and thinking about what studios and art-making look like there, you realize artists are limited by scale and real estate. Just getting material delivered in New York is incredibly expensive. Here, you can go pick up what you need and bring it to your studio.

Also, I’ve known so many New York artists, particularly women, who work at home because that’s a safe space, as opposed to getting off the train at 6pm and then walking 15 blocks at night. Here, you drive door to door. Your space can be more expansive, so there’s a history of making large-scale work. It seems to me that there’s so much more sculpture, particularly by women, that comes out of LA.

EH Alicia Piller is a great example of that. She makes gigantic sculpture. Her studio is not the biggest in the world but, because it doesn’t really rain here, you can use your outside space year-round. You can take things apart and hide them outside while you’re building something else inside.

But above all, for me, the beauty of California is definitely the many different ecosystems that exist within the state. The tensions from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, the sense of things being just out of reach. People are always driving towards something, attempting to unravel something. I think that’s a really productive environment for making art.

This article first appeared in Frieze Week Los Angeles magazine under the title ‘Drivetime’. 

Christine Messineo and Essence Harden wear Stone Island and drive the BMW 760i xDrive.

Focus is presented in collaboration with Stone Island, whose bursaries further aid young galleries’ participation in the fair alongside Frieze’s existing support. 

Further Information

Frieze Los Angeles, 20 – 23 February 2025, Santa Monica Airport.

Frieze is proud to support the LA Arts Community Fire Fund, led by the J. Paul Getty Trust. In addition to Frieze’s contribution, 10% of the value of all newly purchased tickets is being donated to the fund. 

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Frieze Los Angeles is supported by global lead partner Deutsche Bank, continuing its legacy of celebrating artistic excellence on an international scale.

^{Main Image: Christine Messineo and Essence Harden wear Stone Island and drive the BMW 760i xDrive. Photo: Nick Brinley}