Too Small to Fail: Art and Microinstitutions in Los Angeles will be an embedded account of the present, the recent past, and the probable near future of Los Angeles art worlds. It will examine a number of small-scale ventures—microinstitutions—that have recently emerged to serve and engender important, if overlooked, artist constituencies. This book will consider self-styled museums such as The Museum of Public Fiction and the Los Angeles Museum of Art, the pirate radio station KCHUNG, and community-centered, artist-operated spaces which determinedly create opportunities for queer artists and artists of color frequently marginalized by the for-profit art market.
Michael Ned Holte is a writer, independent curator, and educator. Over the past decade he has organized exhibitions in Los Angeles; New York; Chicago; Torino, Italy; and Auckland, New Zealand. He was co-curator of the 2014 edition of “Made in L.A.” at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. He has written for Artforum, Afterall, Art Journal, the Brooklyn Rail, East of Borneo, Frieze, Pin-Up, and X-Tra. He is currently editing a selection of early fiction and criticism by Richard Hawkins, which will be published by Primary Information in 2017. He has been a member of the faculty at the California Institute of the Arts since 2009, and has served as Co-director of the Program in Art since 2014.