ART HISTORY
A pioneering force on Los Angeles’s contemporary art scene, Shaun Caley
Regen is as admired for her savvy eye and frank approach as for her mix
of both local and international all-star artists. Her gallery got its
start soon after she moved to the city in 1989 and joined forces with
Stuart Regen, the son of the New York art dealer Barbara Gladstone. In
1991, the year they married, the couple launched a then unknown
24-year-old artist named Matthew Barney; in the 22 years since, Regen
Projects, her gallery, has promoted a veritable who’s who of
cutting-edge talent, including Raymond Pettibon, Anish Kapoor, Catherine
Opie, Doug Aitken, and Walead Beshty. This fall, Regen made one of her
boldest moves yet: She relocated to a giant white stucco Michael
Maltzan–designed space in a gritty section of East Hollywood dominated
by pawn shops and hole-in-the-wall eateries, like the doughnut shop
dubbed Tranny Donut Time by locals. But to Regen, the neighborhood, with
its empty warehouses, is an ideal new frontier. “For years, people said,
‘You can’t have a gallery here because no one will come,’ ” she says.
“But so much has changed with art fairs, and now it feels like it
doesn’t matter where you are.” Next up at the new locale is a solo show
by Jack Pierson (opening January 12), which will include a large word
piece spanning the interior of the gallery. “It says, the end of the
world,” Regen notes excitedly. “It’s going to be propped up like the
Hollywood sign.”
LIFE IS A JOURNEY
The daughter of two students at the University of Washington, Regen was
born in Seattle but grew up in Denver, where every Friday night her
family would gather at her grandparents’ house to perform chamber
concerts. (Her grandfather was first violinist for the Denver Symphony.)
A serious kid, she longed to be like her favorite public figure, Angela
Davis. (“She was so incredibly articulate and courageous,” Regen says.)
But it was writers such as Marguerite Duras and Marguerite Yourcenar who
spurred her dreams of becoming a novelist. She studied literature at New
York’s Barnard College before heading to Paris to pen reviews for art
magazines and work as an assistant to the artist George Condo—though not
in the studio. “He’d call me when he’d wake up, and we’d go to the bank,
where [art dealer] Bruno Bischofberger had wired him money, and then
we’d spend it in the afternoon, usually shopping for 13th-century
Chinese furniture,” she says. “The day often ended with watching either
Jimi Hendrix videos or The Shining. It was great. He had a painting
assistant who came at night.” A stint as managing editor of the magazine
Flash Art in Milan soon followed, and when that ended, in 1989, Regen
decided to head to Los Angeles. “I hadn’t been there. So I thought I
should try it.”
