Blum & Poe today announced the next chapter of the gallery’s trajectory with Jeff Poe stepping back from his role and Tim Blum spearheading the gallery’s global team in building on its history of championing international artists. The gallery also announced that longtime New York-based Partner Matt Bangser has been appointed to the newly created position of Managing Partner.
“It’s been an extraordinary journey building this gallery with Jeff,” stated Blum. “Starting out in Los Angeles in 1994 with a paltry sum of money and a 1200 square-foot space and taking the gallery through this explosive global growth within the art world is nothing short of remarkable. I see this moment as yet another inflection point in this history, and I am emboldened by the strength of our team now spanning Taipei, Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York, and Paris.”
“It’s been an incredible run, and I’m thrilled for Tim, Matt, the gallery artists, and the beloved staff as they all move forward together,” said Poe. “I’ll be going down a simpler and more fluid path. I’ll continue to work with artists and art; I have to, it’s given me great joy and nothing is more important to me. I’ve also always been engaged with building quieter aspects of the gallery – developing real estate, working with architecture, design – and I’ll continue with that too. I’m pretty excited about having the freedom to fully embrace a new practice.”
Blum & Poe currently represents more than sixty artists and estates from sixteen countries worldwide, nurturing a diverse roster of artists at all stages of their practices with a range of global perspectives. The gallery has been a pioneer in its early commitment to Los Angeles as an international arts capital and is recognized for collaborating in launching the careers of artists such as Mark Grotjahn, Yoshitomo Nara, Takashi Murakami, Henry Taylor, Friedrich Kunath, Asuka Anastacia Ogawa, Anna Park, and Umar Rashid. The gallery has also been acclaimed for its groundbreaking work in championing artists of Korean and Japanese postwar and contemporary movements, such as Tansaekhwa, Mono-ha, and Superflat. Across its spaces in Los Angeles (opened 1994), Tokyo (opened 2014), and New York (opened 2014), the gallery has organized museum-caliber solo presentations and historical survey exhibitions, often partnering with renowned curators and scholars, and presenting retrospectives of late artists such as American painter Robert Colescott and multidisciplinary artist Thornton Dial.
“Working with Tim and Jeff for nearly fifteen years has been a constant inspiration,” said Bangser. “I am fortunate to work at a gallery that feels like a family and always puts artists first while continuing to evolve and innovate. We are entering this next chapter with tremendous forward momentum, and I am excited to build on our successes with Tim and the team.”
In addition to a range of new initiatives to be announced in the coming months, the gallery will continue its history of working with esteemed curators and scholars such as Cecilia Alemani, Alison M. Gingeras, Sofia Gotti, Joan Kee, and Mika Yoshitake. It will also continue to develop milestone projects and exhibitions, with previous examples including the award-winning exhibition and catalog Requiem for the Sun, on the Japanese Mono-ha school (2012); the first North American comprehensive exhibition on the Korean Dansaekhwa monochrome painters (2014); a two-part traveling show on the European postwar movement CoBrA (2015); a two-part presentation and performance series on the Japanese art of 1980s and ’90s (2019); a rereading of Brazilian Modernism (2019); and a revisionist take on the 1959 MoMA exhibition, New Images of Man (2020); among others. @blumandpoe
