{"id":402150,"date":"2026-04-28T21:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T21:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/402150\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T21:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T21:40:09","slug":"the-box-la-beloved-risk-taking-art-space-closes-after-19-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/402150\/","title":{"rendered":"The Box LA, Beloved Risk-Taking Art Space, Closes After 19 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2014 The Box LA, the risk-taking experimental space that nurtured unconventional art forms, is closing after 19 years. Although it was established as a commercial gallery, The Box\u2019s programming often evoked the freedom of a nonprofit, presenting work not typically embraced by the market, especially performance art. Its final exhibition, a retrospective of the mercurial artist Wally Hedrick<\/a> presented with Parker Gallery<\/a>, ran through April 4. A closing celebration will take place on June 6, with a fashion show of costumes by Johanna Went, in collaboration with Asher Hartman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels right to end this way, with the kind of work we always existed to support: radical, enlightening, and not easily contained by the commercial marketplace,\u201d The Box\u2019s founder, Mara McCarthy, wrote in an announcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Box was founded in 2007 in LA\u2019s Chinatown (later moving to the Arts District) by McCarthy, daughter of the artist Paul McCarthy. From its inception, the gallery defined itself as an \u201cartist-formed space.\u201d It championed the work of influential but underrecognized artists of her father\u2019s generation \u2014 including Barbara T. Smith, Simone Forti, Kim Jones, and Eugenia P. Butler \u2014 alongside younger, emerging artists, such as Naotaka Hiro, Anna Betbeze, Nathaniel Mellors, and Marwa Abdul-Rahman.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, I had confidence in those works, but I had never shown them publicly. The Box had a condition that made it possible to present things before they were fully situated,\u201d said Hiro, who had his first solo show with The Box in 2008, in an email to Hyperallergic. \u201cThat kind of space, where you can present something for the first time without having to resolve it in advance, is not easy to find.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Installation view of Naotaka Hiro, Armor at The Box LA, 2021 (photo \u00a9 Fredrik Nilsen Studio, courtesy the artist and The Box LA)<\/p>\n

Artist Coraz\u00f3n del Sol participated in several exhibitions at The Box with her own work; that of her mother Eugenia P. Butler and her grandmother, pioneering gallerist Eugenia Butler; and organized a group show of artists from Colombia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of saying, \u2018I don\u2019t think we could sell that,\u2019 they would say, \u2018make it weirder.\u2019 There was never a limitation. There was always support for the wildest ideas,\u201d she told Hyperallergic.<\/p>\n

Johanna Went, who got her start in the punk clubs and scrappy art spaces of early \u201980s downtown LA, recalled meeting with McCarthy a few days each week for a year in the lead-up to her 2020 retrospective at The Box, Passion Container<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019d never worked with someone who understands performance art as much as she does,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Alongside supporting transgressive and less commercially viable artwork, The Box also enthusiastically engaged with provocative, incendiary content that many galleries would shy away from. These included Judith Bernstein\u2019s \u201cball busting political works<\/a>\u201d; Burn Me!<\/a>, a show that addressed both the recent LA wildfires and the country\u2019s rising authoritarianism; and Phallus :: Fascinum :: Fascism<\/a>, a radically inclusive exploration of sexual and social states of liberation and repression.<\/p>\n

\"\"Judith Bernstein works at The Box LA, 2009 (photo \u00a9 Fredrik Nilsen Studio, courtesy the artist and The Box LA)<\/p>\n

Like many galleries that have shuttered recently, The Box cited financial struggles as one reason behind the decision. According to McCarthy\u2019s statement, the program had been \u201csustained in large part\u201d by the support of McCarthy Studios, her father\u2019s creative production company. \u201cThe support around my father\u2019s work that has underwritten this space has shifted in recent years,\u201d she said. The devastating Eaton Fire<\/a>, which destroyed her own home as well as her brother\u2019s and parents\u2019, also led McCarthy to conclude that \u201ccontinuing is no longer feasible.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while The Box\u2019s closing may recall other recently closed spaces, for many, it represents a more significant loss. \u201cWhen I moved to LA just over 10 years ago, The Box was universally regarded as one of the very few commercial galleries that championed risky, market-adverse art,\u201d Sam Parker of Parker Gallery told Hyperallergic via email. \u201cIn the past decade, this has felt increasingly necessary, now urgent, as an endangered species. This is a profound loss for the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Stan VanDerBeek at The Box LA, 2009 (photo \u00a9 Fredrik Nilsen Studio, courtesy the artist and The Box LA)<\/p>\n

Despite the gallery’s impending closure after nearly two decades, McCarthy said she has no plans to exit the art world herself. <\/p>\n

\u201cOver the years I have come to understand that supporting artists takes many forms, and exhibitions are only one of them,\u201d she wrote. \u201cWhat many artists need most is conversation, presence, and genuine engagement, and that will not stop for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 The Box LA, the risk-taking experimental space that nurtured unconventional art forms, is closing after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-402150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}