Alex Israel lives and works in Los Angeles, where he was born in 1982. Deeply entwined with his home town, Israel’s art explores the iconography of L.A. and Hollywood, and the cult of celebrity. It posits L.A. as central to an understanding of American culture and the American dream. The exhibition ”Alex Israel at The Huntington” places 16 of Israel’s paintings and sculptures, as well as two site-specific murals, among the works in the historic Huntington Art Gallery, which once served as the residence of Gilded Age collectors Henry and Arabella Huntington and, since 1928, as the gallery for a celebrated European art collection. Intended to spark a dialogue between the new and the old, this intervention of Israel’s work within the Gallery creates a discourse on place and identity, two things fundamental to understanding Henry Huntington’s own love of Southern California, a region whose identity he helped to forge. Alex Israel at The Huntington will be on view until July 11, 2016 at the The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, 151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA