The Scope L.A. festival trains its gaze on the cutting edge

As if the Standard Downtown L.A. weren’t artsy enough. Now the hip hotel is upping the ante, holding the first Scope Los Angeles -- a four-day art festival celebrating the cutting edge of the cutting edge.

Beginning Friday, all the rooms on the hotel’s third and fourth floors will morph into display space, with 36 galleries and curators showing the works of up-and-coming contemporary artists in a variety of media, from drawing, painting and photography to videos and installations.

On the bill are artists such as Orly Cogan, who’s re-created the bacchanalian Hieronymus Bosch painting “Garden of Earthly Delights” in embroidery, and Jason Clay Lewis, whose works include bullets inscribed with celebrities’ names and an Easter bunny sculpture made with rat poison.

“All these young artists are the R&D; for fashion and all the things that are going to come around on an aesthetic level,” said Alexis Hubshman, a New York City gallery owner who is executive producer of the show. “That’s the world we’re trying to tap into -- the emerging culture.”

It’s a world where Hubshman and his three partners are finding success. At their first Scope art fair in New York in May 2002, about 30 galleries attracted 2,500 visitors to the Gershwin Hotel. Their second fair, at the Townhouse in Miami Beach last December, attracted 3,500. Hubshman expects about 3,000 in L.A.

Converting a swanky hotel into art space is not a new idea, Hubshman admits. Scope is following in the footsteps of the Gramercy International Contemporary Art Fair, which began in 1994, showing art in rooms at the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York. The show premiered in L.A. at the Chateau Marmont in 1994 but no longer exists. Since 1998, it has been the Armory Show, taking place annually in successively larger venues in New York.

With Gramercy out of the picture, Hubshman and his partners see opportunity. In October, they will branch out farther -- to London. Eventually they hope to bring the fairs to Telluride, Colo., and Monaco.

“We’re making an effort to bring as much of the new culture in the contemporary art market to a more popular field,” said Hubshman, 32.

That new culture also includes film and music. In addition to the art fair, Scope Los Angeles is hosting two off-site side projects. ScopeSound will highlight underground DJs on Saturday night, and Cinema-scope will screen the works of young filmmakers Sunday, both at venues downtown.

For the art fair, most galleries will focus on a single artist, with pieces ranging from $500 to $5,000. Not every gallery has something to sell, however. One will convert the hotel room itself into an art piece.

“Everybody needs to make money, so people will have sellable objects, but the idea is like a Detroit auto show. It’s to introduce the prototypes,” Hubshman said. “The idea is to keep it a contemporary event, not just above-couch artwrks.”

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Scope Los Angeles

Where: The Standard Downtown L.A.,

550 S. Flower St.

When: Friday-Monday, noon-8 p.m.

Cost: $10

Info: www.scope-art.com or

(213) 892-8080