It may come as surprise to some that the art scene is booming in LA. Unlike movies, concerts, or new TV shows broadcast around the city via digital billboards, radio commercials, and long posters rolling by on buses, art generally announces itself by simply showing up in a small gallery space in an unassuming corner of Los Angeles. While NYC is known for high-end galleries teaming on every block, LA's art scene has grown a considerable following in the past few years with galleries more welcoming and open-minded than ones you may tip-toe up to in the Big Apple.
Summer brings an exciting array of art indies and blockbusters to Los Angeles, and unlike your twelve dollar ticket at the movies, the only cost you incur is getting yourself there. Here a few of the highlights not to be missed:
MOCA (Downtown): Robert Frank's "The Americans"
An interesting nostalgic look at us, Americans!, through Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank's lens in a kind of road trip across America via photographs from the fifties. The photographs were taken with a hand-held Leica (now often thought of as the Rolls Royce of cameras). Though Frank compiled over 20,000 negatives for this project in the fifties, he edited the group down to 83 photographs for a book published in 1958. Now, fifty years later, the complete set of photographs comprising his book, "The Americans" is on view for you, and your American and International friends alike.
Opens June 14th. More info. at www.moca.org
Scion Space (Culver City): This Must Be The Place
Scion is one of the more experimental art galleries exhibiting different art mediums in Los Angeles right now. Their current showcase "This Must Be The Place" curated by art magazine Faesthetic, is a group show of eight acclaimed multimedia artists and designers whose exhibited works reflect their different concepts of "home". However, all works created for the show we're given the limitation to work within a two-toned color palette. A moving room of eye delights that will also make you consider your own definition of home.
To be enjoyed as much as the Talking Heads song of the same name, the show will be running until July 11th. Gallery hours vary, so double-check before you go: www.scion.com/space/
REDCAT (Downtown): New Original Works Festival
If you're someone who craves movement in your art, REDCAT is an often over looked performing arts center sitting just below the grand Walt Disney Concert Hall on the corner of West 2nd Street and Hope Street. However, what bright noise and colorful performances to come from this almost hidden little spot as starting July 23, the three week NOW Festival begins! There will be an impressive collaboration of artists from dance, music and multi-media backgrounds performing together in three different programs for audiences to choose from.
More info at: www.redcat.org/
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Finally, if you're ambitious enough to drive to a few of these destinations in one day, keep your eyes peeled for some of the best public art only found in LA by simply looking through your window: you never know when a new graffiti murals is going to appear overnight.
Craving more art advice and insider scoops on art in LA? Check out www.foryourart.com
~NB
