The Kinney Venice Beach, 737 Washington Blvd., Venice
$17–$80
Pro tip: Take advantage of the free shuttle service from here to Frieze.
Returning to L.A. for the first time in six years, Startup Art Fair is part-expo, part-conference, supplementing a diverse spread of California art with workshops aimed at helping artists, and their enthusiasts, navigate the ever-changing art market.
The hybrid structure stems from fair founder Ray Beldner’s longtime mission to better equip artists with the business education necessary to sustain their careers. This is still a critical need, he said, even though social media has gone a long way toward democratizing art-buying. At Startup Art Fair, independent artist exhibitors represent their own work and receive 100% of any sales they make. Beldner said the model is more sustainable for artists and creates the “casual, high-touch experience young collectors are looking for.”
“They don’t want to be competing to buy art, get put on a list,” he said. “They like something, they want to acquire it.”
With 70 paying exhibitors spanning 65 rooms, there’s plenty of gems for visitors to find, Beldner said.
One artist to look out for is Kristine Schomaker, whose workshop on body image will complement her collaborative portrait project, “Perceive Me,” in which she poses nude for other artists. Visitors will also be able to sign up to do the same, “so they can see what that experience is like but also how people perceive them, because often we’re much harder on ourselves than other people are about what we look like,” Beldner said.
Beldner said this year’s edition also mirrors the art world’s “real trend towards craft” with exhibitors working in textiles, quilts and other fabric arts.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com ’
