Shoshana Wayne Gallery opened in 1986 in Santa Monica in a historic building that once housed the iconic Beach Boys’ Studio. From the very beginning, the gallery had a mission to give women artists a platform for exhibitions in Los Angeles and to help energize and promote their careers. Early exhibitions often focused on discoveries of new talents including Nicole Eisenman, Kiki Smith, Arlene Shechet, Pae White, Yoko Ono, Dinh Q. Lê, Lorna Simpson and Nan Goldin.
Notable early exhibitions include Lost and Found in California: Four Decades of Assemblage Art (1988); West Coast Duchamp (1989); Rachel Lachowicz’s performance Red not Blue (1992); Viennese Actionism (1993); Young British Artists Group Show (1995) featuring Chris Ofili, Michael Landy, Sarah Lucas, and Peter Doig; Barbara Bloom’s Pictures from the Floating World (1995); Wood Cuts: 1977-1997 by Anselm Kiefer (1998): and Balthus’, An Intimate Look (1999).
In the last several years Shoshana Wayne Gallery has curated major exhibitions including: a large-scale video installation by Michal Rovner titled Nofim (2014); People I Saw But Never Met by Zadok Ben-David (2017), which received over 15 reviews in 5 languages; Rachel Lachowicz’s Lay Back and Enjoy It (2017); and The Scrolls: Distortion by Dinh Q. Lê (2017). In 2019, the gallery relocated to the West Adams district of Los Angeles in anticipation of opening a brand new 5,000 square foot permanent home in 2022.
