Blum and Poe Gallery I

The 2003 opening of the earlier Blum & Poe art gallery spawned an entire art district around this Los Angeles neighborhood with dozens of galleries opening in the area (now known as the Culver City Arts District). Blum & Poe, one of the leading galleries for contemporary art in Los Angeles, represents artists such as Sam Durant, Anya Gallaccio, Mark Grotjahn, Dave Muller, Takashi Murakami, Dirk Skreber, Nobuo Sekine, and Lee Ufan. Exhibition spaces of the gallery were a composition of pristine white volumes floating within an existing 5,000-square-foot (465-square-meter) industrial building, left in its raw state of concrete floors, brick walls, and exposed roof framing. Surrounding these freestanding “art containers” were areas accommodating circulation: a public path along the south wall connecting the street entrance to the rear parking entrance; and a private circulation path along the north wall, allowing gallery staff access to art storage. The seemingly accidental arrangement of these volumes was carefully controlled by the space requirements of the gallery’s program and art storage areas.