The Box, a Los Angeles gallery that helped define a corner of the city’s experimental art scene, is closing after 19 years — and its final program will be a fashion show.
Mara McCarthy announced on April 24 that the gallery she founded in 2007 will shut down after a run that began in LA’s Chinatown neighborhood and later moved to 805 Traction Avenue in the downtown Arts District. The last event, set for June 6, will be a one-night-only fashion show featuring Johanna Went and Asher Hartman.
From the beginning, The Box carved out a distinct position in Los Angeles by championing artists who were often overlooked by the market and by larger institutions. Its roster included Barbara T. Smith, Simone Forti, Stan Vanderbeek, and Wally Hedrick — figures whose work bridged postwar experimentation, performance, and the unruly edges of West Coast counterculture. The gallery’s programming made room for work that was intellectually demanding, historically important, and not always easy to sell.
That tension eventually became part of the story. The Box was supported partly by sales and partly by McCarthy Studios, but declining sales, a pandemic-era retreat from experimental work among collectors, and the financial strain of the Eaton Fire all weighed on the gallery’s future. In 2025, the fire destroyed Mara McCarthy’s home and her parents’ home in Altadena, along with her brother’s home and studios, adding a personal catastrophe to an already difficult business climate.
The closure marks more than the end of a gallery. It closes a chapter in Los Angeles art history shaped by artist-run energy, risk-taking, and a belief that difficult work deserves a public life. In a city where galleries often rise and fall quickly, The Box leaves behind a model of curatorial conviction that helped make room for artists the market had not yet fully claimed.
