Since the 1970s, Gehry has often been described as "the artist among architects". But his relationship with art, artists, galleries and museums needs to be clarified.
While becoming close to the artists of his generation active in Los Angeles, notably through the Ferus gallery, Gehry also established early links with the New York scene, meeting Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and discovering Minimalism. In Los Angeles, his closest friends were John Altoon, Ed Moses, Billy Al Bengston, Larry Bell and Edward Ruscha.
At the same time, he was invited by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which opened its doors in 1965, to design several landmark exhibitions on Japanese art, modern sculpture and contemporaries such as Bengston.
In this way, artists became familiar to him, role models and, at times, project managers. Graphic artist Lou Danziger's studio and painter Ron Davis's house-workshop, which marked a decisive turning point in his approach in 1972, crystallize these relationships, as does the project he built for Gemini GEL, a pioneer of artists' multiples.
