Installation view of Sayre Gomez’s sculpture “Oceanwide Plaza,” 2025 – 2026. Photo: Jeff McLane, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery
Artist Sayre Gomez has built a scale model of Los Angeles’ notorious Oceanwide Plaza tower complex, recently on display in the artist’s Precious Moments exhibition at the David Kordansky Gallery. The development became known in early 2024 when graffiti art appeared on its three skyscrapers.
Image credit: Jeff McLane, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery
Image credit: Jeff McLane, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery
Gomez’s 9-foot hyperrealistic scale model of the megadevelopment is his most ambitious and complex sculpture to date, examining how a single building complex can represent the failures of capitalism, government, and speculative real estate. The three CallisonRTKL-designed towers were abandoned — nearly completed but still unfinished — in 2019 after Chinese investors Oceanwide Holdings Co. ran out of money for the scheme.
Image credit: Jeff McLane, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery
Image credit: Jeff McLane, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery
Late last month, we covered news that a prospective buyer had been found for the ensemble and that their first priority would be to remove the graffiti art on the towers.
“You can read a million books about the end of capitalism, but then you see that, and it’s like, oh they’re right,” Gomez recently told The New York Times about the artwork and building. “A billion dollars just wasted, six years later just sitting there. It’s kind of hard-core.”
Image credit: Jeff McLane, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery
Image credit: Jeff McLane, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery
“It’s hilarious. It’s profound and funny and sad and just like, so crazy,” Gomez told LA’s KCRW. “Everything to me is kind of art… the building itself is art already, but it can’t go in a gallery. So I’m like, how do I problem-solve this? Oh, I’ll just make it smaller.”
Similar articles on Archinect that may interest you…