The exhibition Disruptive Selection takes its name from a scientific term which describes changes in population genetics, in which extreme values for a trait are favored over intermediate values.

As a departure point for his new venture in Los Angeles, Akim Monet has chosen works from his family collection that reflect the disruptive nature of their authors.

Starting with modern masters Eugène Delacroix and Auguste Rodin and their quest for a new understanding of human psychology; through Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Piero Manzoni and Joseph Beuys and their furthering of the limits of the mental realm; with Pablo Picasso and George Grosz, the great commentators of the 20th century; and finally thanks to the valuable input of contemporary artists Andres Serrano, Kenji Yanobe and Abdulnasser Gharem, Disruptive Selection features thought-provoking works which function as individual doors to a greater understanding of the human psyche.

Completing the presentation are three exceptional collaborative drawings by Angelenos Paul McCarthy, Benjamin Weissman and Naotaka Hiro, which act as a very visceral foil to the intellectual issues brought forth by the other artists.

After a decade in Berlin, where he founded and operated the renowned Akim Monet Side by Side Gallery, and taking his cue from the special moment when he first arrived in New York in the midst of the deep post-1990 crisis in the art market, a time when in the words of New York Times critic Roberta Smith “necessity [was] still the primary impetus for invention. As the market [contracted] and the big 80s style art galleries [dwindled], small unorthodox galleries [were] increasingly evident at the bottom and around the edges of the downtown scene,” this gallerist purposely takes a counter-stand to an art world which has exploded into a 65-billion-dollar business. In an effort to return to the roots of artistic interaction, and the intimacy brought by salon style presentations where conversation is favored over marketing, Akim Monet receives -by appointment only- in his 1964 Crestwood Hills mid-century architectural home, the first iteration of Popcorn Gallery LA!