The Wall Street Journal does a big round up on the importance of Los Angeles in the art world. Southern California collections have been the stars of 2010 and the Journal’s Lauren Schuker points out that

Los Angeles collectors overwhelmingly focus on contemporary art, and the city’s art scene owes much of its rapid ascent to the upswing of prices for the genre, which soared during the art market’s boom years. In 2000, Sotheby’s sold $157.8 million worth of contemporary art world-wide. That figure rose to $1.48 billion by 2008 before falling to $442.8 million in 2009, after the art market crashed. Prices are now stabilizing, although industry experts say that they likely won’t return to astronomical precrash levels. […]

Still, as prices for contemporary art rose, so did the value of art created by many of the elder statesmen of L.A.’s art scene. Pop artist Ed Ruscha, a MOCA trustee known for his deadpan images of parking lots, gas stations and L.A. architecture, now sells pieces for $3 million to $6 million at auction; he didn’t come close to crossing the $1 million barrier before 2002. Works by John Baldessari, a conceptual artist and former UCLA instructor whose signature style includes overlaying historical images with opaque colored dots, now fetch more than $1 million.

The city also boasts an ascendant community of younger artists, many of whom came to Los Angeles for the city’s art schools. Michigan-born Mike Kelley moved to L.A. to attend the California Institute of the Arts, where he studied with Mr. Baldessari, and decided to stay on. Now his pieces, from comic-book-style drawings to sculptures that incorporate found objects like plush toys, are shown in museums like MoMA and the Whitney in New York.

The LA Art Boom (Wall Street Journal)