The Box, a pioneering Los Angeles gallery known for its nonprofit-style support of experimental and performance art, has announced its closure after nearly two decades. Founded in 2007 by Mara McCarthy, the gallery’s final exhibition featured late California painter Wally Hedrick, and a closing event will include a fashion show by Johanna Went. Mara McCarthy cited the shifting market for her father Paul McCarthy’s work and the loss of family homes in the Eaton Fire as factors behind the decision.
The closure underscores the ongoing contraction of Los Angeles’s commercial gallery scene, following the recent shuttering of Blum, Clearing, and Tanya Bonakdar, and Marian Goodman Gallery’s pause in operations. It highlights the persistent challenge of sustaining a program devoted to radical, hard-to-sell performance and conceptual art in a market that often fails to embrace such work. The news arrives just as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art opens its massive new building, illustrating the widening gap between institutional expansion and the fragility of independent galleries.