“I’m a gallery owner and curator exhibiting on one of the most culturally influential streets in America [Abbot Kinney Blvd]. It’s an amazing feeling knowing I can connect to Los Angeles and the greater global art community via my gallery space.”
living like a local
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West Los Angeles
• Bergamot Station Arts Center in Santa Monica is a train station, but it’s also a creative arts complex. It includes more than a dozen fine-art galleries. bergamotstation.com
Must-See Museum
• Hammer Museum has a beautiful location, amazing construction and progressive exhibitions. Connie Butler is my favorite curator there. She does amazing things for contemporary art and feminism in that space. hammer.ucla.edu
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YIWEI LU Curator and Founder of Yiwei Gallery
Put in the Work
• People only see the glamorous side of being a curator, but there is a lot of manual labor involved in running a gallery too. I paint all the walls and the floor at my gallery after every exhibition. www.yiweigallery.com
Back in Time
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Painting the Town
3 FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT BEING AN ART CURATOR:
118 LOCALE MAGAZINE
• Venice has a history of being the most artsy neighborhood in Los Angeles. A lot of thenyoung and broke artists, including Ed Ruscha, Ed Moses and Larry Bell, had their studios by the beach in the 1960s, and they later became super famous, putting the LA contemporary art scene on the map.
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Meeting artists! They are truly the most creative, interesting and purest souls on earth.
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Traveling the world to attend art fairs and visit artist’s studios.
Yiwei Gallery 1350 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice, CA 90291 | www.yiweigallery.com
Meet You at the Beach
• Because Venice Beach and Manhattan Beach are so famous, people don’t know about Dockweiler Beach, which is in between those two. It’s not crowded, and it has something that its more famous counterparts do not: fire pits! Local tip: bring your own firewood, and be sure to pick up your trash. www.parks.ca.gov
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Going to exhibition openings and the come-as-you-are, wearwhatever-you-want culture.
Photos - Yiwei Lu: Po Wei Su | Curator Yiwei Lu with Robert Berman, the owner of Santa Monica Auctions: Yiwei Lu | Illustration - Vicente Martí Solar
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Peaceful Retreat
• I love going to Ojai whenever I feel burnt out. I usually stay at Pepper Tree Retreat while there because it’s affordable, and the energy is super peaceful. I also recommend visiting Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts. www.peppertreeretreat.com www.beatricewood.com