Figures are going beserk for work that looks good on Instagram—but the market struggles to find the same fervour for conceptually ambitious, politically engaged art

John Wolf is a global art advisor based in Los Angeles. He founded John Wolf Art Advisory & Brokerage in 2009 to assist private collectors, institutions, and corporations in creating outstanding collections of contemporary art. He specializes in taking the extra time to demystify and educate clients about all aspects of the art market.

Kudos to art consultant John Wolf for throwing together one of the most ambitious and giddy art  projects this year—“Human Condition,” a pop-up gallery at a former hospital, the LA Metropolitan Medical Center on Western Avenue, just south of the 10 freeway...

The halls of the former Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center, a hospital that closed three years ago amid allegations of fraud, still smell of chemicals and cleaners, now mingled with mustiness. The building isn’t a mess, but it’s not tidy either: debris, abandoned files, some dust and grime, etc. It was purchased just over a year ago, and before it undergoes transformation—like so many big buildings in the West Adams neighborhood—art advisor John Wolf has turned it into a stage for a labyrinthine exhibition, grandly titled “Human Condition.”

Human Condition is an immersive, site-specific exhibition that features the work of over eighty emerging and established artists in a uniquely challenging space: a former hospital in West Adams, previously known as the Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center. Curated and produced by the Los Angeles-based art advisor John Wolf, Human Condition invites artists to re-contextualize the hospital’s functional history—over 40,000 square feet of it—as a venue to explore what it means to be human.

If you find yourself in Los Angeles this Halloween and you’re looking for an experience that’s off the beaten track, head to the West Adams area where art advisor John Wolf has transformed an abandoned hospital into a creepy, truly unforgettable art exhibition. Featuring 86 artists, the works in the show, entitled “Human Condition,” are interspersed amidst old offices, surgical rooms, maternity wards, and even the cafeteria...

This fall, Australian photographer Polly Borland unexpectedly discovered a very fitting place to show her series “The Babies” (2001)—a collection of photographs of men who have a fetish for dressing up as infants. As part of the exhibition “Human Condition,” which runs through November 30th in an abandoned hospital in Los Angeles, Borland’s jarring photos of adult men wearing diapers are on display in a cheerful former pediatric ward, hanging beside leftover pastel murals of frolicking kittens, bunnies, and puppies.

It took a bit for the art advisor John Wolf to realize he'd come upon his dream opportunity: A few months earlier, a client had mentioned in passing that they'd purchased a former hospital building in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles, which would remain uninhabited for months before being converted to apartments. Then, suddenly, it clicked: the former Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center would be the perfect venue for the show Wolf had been planning for ages, a rumination on the human condition that he'd kept a running list of artists for months.

‘Human Condition,’ a recently-opened group exhibition, eschews the L.A. gallery scene for a slightly different setting: a former hospital’s surgery rooms, pediatric wing, and psych ward.

In 2013, the Pacific Health Corp. (thanks to insurance fraud and an illegal kickback scheme) announced it would shut down several area hospitals, among them the Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center on Western Avenue. The center had opened in 1971 as the first black-owned hospital in L.A...

Art galleries have a complex relationship with neighborhood identities. The appearance of a “white cube” space is a status symbol, but it also signals a process of transformation and displacement. More recently, the art world has been repurposing abandoned spaces, sometimes in up-and-coming neighborhoods, when they have outlived their original function but are yet to be destroyed...

Human Condition, a site-specific exhibition, opened last weekend at the former Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center, which closed on 2013. Los Angeles-based art advisor John Wolf, who curated and produced the exhibit, encouraged 86 artists to use sculpture, drawing, painting, performance, and immersive installations to "explore what it means to be human."

Art Advisor and Curator John Wolf sourced works by more than 60 artists including Jenny Holzer, Mira Dancy, Marilyn Minter, and others for a show in the now-defunct Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center. 

When it opened in 1971, Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center was the city’s first black-owned hospital. In the 1970s and '80s it was a thriving, vital part of the West Adams community. But as the neighborhood around it fell into disrepair, the hospital did too...