ABOVE: detail from Rob Thom’s Advent Space Calendar. Thom is one of dozens of hot hatchlings fresh out of their M.F.A.s finding voracious New York dealers at their doors.

New York and Los Angeles: like meat and potatoes, like Laurel and Hardy, like botox and barbituates, they are the post-op conjoined twins of the American project. Making googly eyes at each other across a continent of amber waves of grain and Republicans, they are the poles around which the axis of American culture and finance turns. Now, after decades of scrabbling in the dusty California dirt, L.A. has tipped some cosmic balance in its favour, giving it a net trade surplus of Masters of Fine Arts grads and their sensationally collectable, investable art. New York gallery owners are swooping in on the tender graduands before they’ve been handed their diplomas, hoping to score a hot new talent while they’re still on the launchpad.

The New York Times is loving it, of course, pointing out that L.A. artists are often getting big solo shows in Manhattan before they even get their names in the phonebook back in Lalaland. The culprit behind this trend, as it is behind so many, is the overheated market for contemporary art right now, which is pushing up prices and putting extra pressure on galleries to discover and coddle the next big thing or thingette, and way more pressure on art graduates to produce salable product right out of the gate. Elliott Hundley, clearly the hero of the Times article, is being nicely cagey about his plans. Good for him.

LINK: New York Times > First Come the Dealers, and Then the Diplomas