Today we’d like to introduce you to Eva Chimento.
Eva, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I started working for artists in Los Angeles after high school. I was a studio assistant to an artist with whom I work with currently Phyllis Green. I loved working with her, so much so that I went to art school thinking I would become an artist. While in school in New York I met a curator from Switzerland who spent days taking me to museums in the city, many which I had been to be before but had never seen them through the eyes of a curator. I quickly changed direction and came back to Los Angeles, where I worked in museum administration (I loved that part too). I learned about the Los Angeles galleries while working at the museum and thought that may be a better fit for my strengths and even my weakness’s. I worked in galleries for 14 years before I turned my attention to having a family and becoming a mother as well as an art collector (mainly from the galleries with whom I worked for). Life took a unexpected turn and I found myself having to re-enter the work place after a 12 year hiatus, I started my first gallery with a partner that lasted three amazing exhibitions, I always said if it didn’t work out I would start my own and continue with the program I had started. I opened Chimento Contemporary with the amazing exhibition Mutual Entanglements by artist Sandeep Mukherjee in September 2015, the response was overwhelmingly positive and the opening night was incredible!
Has it been a smooth road?
The road that led me here was not smooth nor is it smooth now as I enter my 2nd year. It is a constant high, very high and then low moments. The high moments is what keeps me doing this and seeing the look on each artist’s face when their exhibition is installed in priceless. I have also community lows but when a kid from the neighborhood comes into my space and their face lights up, I know it is worth it.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Chimento Contemporary – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Chimento Contemporary was started with the intention of exhibiting the artists with whom I own in my private collection and artists with whom I always wanted to collect but could not afford at the time. Each artist with whom the gallery represents has a very personal reason for exhibiting there for me. We sell and exhibit emerging, mid-career and established artists who live and work primarily in Los Angeles. The space was built with the intention of the work that will be exhibited there thus no office, no backroom, no secrets (lol). I wanted to be accessible to everyone who walked into the space, a place where one can come and feel comfortable to ask questions or not. The space has white walls and white floors, with a raw quality (clamp on lights, etc) each exhibition transforms the space. I am extremely proud of each artist with whom the gallery works with, I love the feeling of collaboration between myself and the artists as well as the artist with each other (it is almost like a team environment).
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Shifts and changes are constant, I can’t say exactly where the industry is going. I can say there will always be artists, there will always be galleries and spaces, and there will always be art fairs. One of the gallery’s strengths is we are quick to change on a moment’s notice, we are always prepared for what is coming.
Pricing:
- we sell work that has a range in price from $500.00 to $280, 000.00
Contact Info:
- Address: 622 S. Anderson Street, Space 105
Los Angeles, CA 90023 - Website: www.chimentocontemporary.net
- Phone: 323.685.2520
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/chimentocontemporary/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chimentocontemporary/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/chimento622
Image Credit:
Image Credits:from top to bottom
Sandeep Mukherjee Mutual Entanglements, 2015, installation view, photo Ruben Diaz
Monique Prieto, Luster, 2017, installation view, photo Ruben Diaz
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