-Interview by Charles Desmarais
Paul Schimmel, one of the world’s most respected curators of up-to-the-minute contemporary art, lives at the northernmost edge of the Los Angeles Basin in a quiet community with a decidedly Old California feeling. The lovely, art-filled 1927 Spanish Colonial Revival home he shares with his wife of thirty four years, Yvonne, embraces a peaceful interior veranda, where I conducted an interview with him on June 22 of this year. The recording captures perfectly the contrast between the tranquil background sound of water in the patio garden fountain and Schimmel’s powerfully delivered, New York-accented, rapid-fire locution.
The interview took place shortly after it was announced that the former Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art will enter the commercial gallery world in forming Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, but before the announcement that his former boss, Jeffrey Deitch, will soon also leave MOCA.
My personal and professional relationship with Paul Schimmel goes back a quarter century. In a May 2013 commencement ceremony, the Trustees of the San Francisco Art Institute, where I am President, bestowed the honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree on Schimmel and the film director Kathryn Bigelow.
