In 1923, when much of Los Angeles was still empty and movies were still silent, the Hollywoodland Realty Co. set up shop in the area now known as Beachwood Canyon, building the first-ever structure in what would come to be known as Hollywood: a romantic, storybook building that looks as though it plopped straight out of Snow White. One hundred and two years later, when partners Alec Smyth and Noah Ruttenberg were taking a walk in the neighborhood, they saw the building, with its quaint wooden sign and bright blue trim, and were summarily enchanted. And now, it hosts their gallery, Mariposa, opening at the beginning of LA Art Week. “There’s a little bit of camp and Disney and fairytale in it,” says Smyth.
Ruttenberg adds, “It’s serving the Hollywood fantasy.”
“This building was built before the Hollywood sign, the Hollywood sign was built because of this building, and now the Hollywood concept itself is kind of named after this building,” Smyth continues. “And it stands for so much. It s about dreaming and fantasy and obviously film and the West and all that it stands for. The fact that that’s all contained here is kind of amazing.”
Smyth, who put in five years at megagallery David Zwirner before attending law school during the pandemic, and Ruttenberg, an interior designer named as one of Architectural Digest’s 2025 “New American Voices,” previously ran Mariposa as a pop-up, initially launching in a vacant space in Paris’s Marais district. After presenting exhibits in temporary spaces, like New York’s Independent Art Fair and an antique shop in Aspen, they decided to give the gallery a full-time home in LA. “The space just felt so distinctly Los Angeles that it could have been a part of a movie set,” says Ruttenberg. “And there s a lot of fantasy that comes with that.”
In 2023, Mariposa debuted in Paris with a photography show by the legendary multi-disciplinary artist Peter Schlesinger. And now they’re opening the new LA establishment with a show of swan-shaped ceramics, also by Schlesinger, who was born in 1948 in Los Angeles. “It’s a really big moment for us to be able to present this body of work,” says Smyth. “Because I think of him as one of the most significant ceramic art sculptors living today.”
Smyth and Ruttenberg are aiming to show what they like, establishing Mariposa as a fine art gallery, with a few design elements (Ruttenberg’s interiors office will also live in the space, and he notes that having bolts of fabric around certainly differentiates them from the standard white cube). “I think it’s important for us that we’re trying to push the experience of a gallery,” says Smyth. “Of making it feel a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more cozy.” There are some prime LA galleries that exist in historic homes; consider the Gaylord, which lives in Koreatown’s Gaylord Apartments building (the name adds to the appeal), Sea View, or the Future Perfect, located at Samuel Goldwyn’s former residence in Hollywood. Everyone looks better inside them—white cubes and fluorescent lighting tend to make people resemble the living dead.
“I think I was really trained in this austere, serious way of presenting art, which I think is how we all expect it,” Smyth continues. “But I think that can be really intimidating for a lot of people. And I think it can feel inaccessible. And as much as we survive on selling art to big, important collectors and we need those serious art people to care, I also want this to be a place for people to come and just have a nice Saturday afternoon.”
I spoke with Schlesinger over Zoom from his home (his studio is in the same building) in New York City. He splits his time between Manhattan and Bellport, on Long Island, where swans and geese migrate through his garden. “Swans are more sculptural than other birds,” he says. “But I haven’t gotten too close. I hear they can attack.”
He works alone, occasionally hiring assistants when producing much larger pieces; the kind too heavy for him to lift. He used to paint, but now strongly prefers working as a ceramicist. His process harkens back to historic pottery coiling techniques, using what he calls “ribbons” of clay to make vessels reminiscent of animal-shaped pottery dating back to the Bronze Age. “I didn’t like the feel of paint, of washing it off my hands,” he says. “Clay is so much more natural.” His work has the feel of the ancient, the swans’ necks bent into the handles of amphorae.
Schlesinger is widely known for his romantic relationship with David Hockney, which began when he was 18 years old, in art school. He is the subject of numerous works by Hockney, including the famed 1972 painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool With Two Figures). “It was so long ago,” he says. “It’s like talking about a different person.” Schlesinger is a working, much-lauded artist strongly associated with a brief period as a muse—when asked if it bothers him to be asked about Hockney, he answers with a quick, definitive “yes.”
After living in New York for decades, Schlesinger doesn’t miss Los Angeles at all. Before the opening of his show, he hadn’t been to the city in 10 years. “When I was growing up, I always just wanted to get away,” he says. “But of course LA was much more provincial then, with a tiny art scene.” He says he is always taking pictures, and Mariposa, which includes four of his photographs in the show, is a light-soaked space. Los Angeles looks very good on camera.
Ruttenberg and Smyth don’t see any long-necked winged creatures swanning around Beachwood Canyon. But they do have a long history with birds. “I love swans,” says Ruttenberg. “I love ducks. I love geese. I love duck decoys. When I first met Alec, I had a bed that was a full duck scene. All the sheets and the pillows had ducklings, and all the drawer poles were duck decoys.”
“I remember going home to that bed,” says Smyth. “I was like, oh. Freak.”
