With the Frieze Los Angeles fair around the corner, Pace has announced its merging with Kayne Griffin to open a new California flagship, doubling their West Coast presence and continuing a trend of mega galleries strengthening their position in the City of Angels. Bill Griffin and Maggie Kayne, the founders and partners of Kayne Griffin, will become managing partners of Pace and continue to helm the gallery, which will begin flying Pace’s banner this April.
The partnership seems to follow a trend of larger-than-life galleries attempting to reach the deep pockets that pepper Hollywood. It was reported early last year that David Zwiner had signed a lease on a space in Los Angeles—while Hauser & Wirth and Gagosian staked their claims in 2016 and 2021, respectively.
Pace and Kayne Griffin have a history of working together. They already split representation of several artists, including Mary Corse, Robert Irwin, and James Turrell (in 2020, the galleries mounted a joint presentation of Turrell’s work at Frieze LA).
“Los Angeles has always been magnet for artists, and its position as a center for world-class contemporary art has been growing stronger,” says Pace president and chief executive Marc Glimcher. “For the past five years Maggie and Bill have been our de facto partners in LA. After some serious conversations, we decided to make that partnership official. Besides running our Los Angeles operation, Maggie and Bill will be an integral part of our global team as we continue to reimagine and reinvent Pace for the future.”
This will not be the first time Pace has had a California presence. In 2016 they opened a space in the tech hub Palo Alto. From 1995 to 2000, Pace operated a gallery space on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles under the name PaceWildenstein. Apart from their spaces in New York and California, Pace also has galleries in London, Hong Kong, Seoul and Geneva.
