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Our Downtown Denizen Does Culture at Dusk

The first time I discovered downtown’s monthly art walk, I was shocked there was an entire evening dedicated to serious art that also somehow felt like a big street fair. For the past two and a half years I have looked forward to the second Thursday of every month because it is the only place in the entire city where you can walk into a gallery and find an eccentric downtown regular like Rickey the pirate, and an impeccably dressed woman with a Balenciaga bag slung over her arm in the same place and it doesn’t seem odd.
The evening has come a long way since 2003 when Main Street was known more for hardcore drugs than fine art. Looking at it today, founders such as Bert Green are stunned it has become the event that it has.
Even though the doors to galleries all over downtown swing open, I always seem to spend most of my time around Fourth and Sixth Streets on Main Street and Fourth and Ninth Streets on Spring Street. First stop of the evening is always Hive Galleries on Spring Street. This is one of my favorite galleries because it feels like one big co-op of art. Dozens of different artists spanning all price ranges fill the walls of this creative space and it’s got a super hip, young vibe. It may look small from the outside, but step in and you’ll quickly see the space is really deep and there are several rooms, each featuring a different artist.
A few blocks up near Fifth and Spring Streets is the Spring Arts Collective. This gallery is on the mezzanine of a beautiful old building and always features a few edgy artists, but my favorite is always the creepy installation inside one of the old bank vaults. Each month it’s different, but the exhibit normally features a strobe light blaring at you in the darkness. A little further up the street is the M.J. Higgins gallery where Robert Vargas does live drawing performance art on the street — imagine a much more interpretive, sophisticated version of those cheesy caricatures you get at the county fair. So if you don’t want to get dragged into an impromptu charcoal speed drawing, make sure you stand back in the crowd. If you’re lucky you might spot his muse, Miyoko — an older woman dressed in skinny jeans, black boots and a mink coat and hat. She’s become quite a fixture downtown, if only because most people wish they could look that good when they’re pushing 70.
After a quick stop to see what’s at the gallery in the ground floor of the Rowan Building it’s off to the best corner, 5th and Main Street, where Bert Green Fine Art and Pharmaka Gallery are located. People literally pack the streets, hang around listening to the reggae band outside of Pharmaka and stand contemplating the sculptures, paintings and photographs hanging inside Bert Green Fine Art. This is the downtown most people in LA don’t know about, but word must be getting out because each month I meet more and more people visiting from the Westside, the OC and even the South Bay. Visitors are finally measured in thousands, not hundreds.
Another gallery I try to visit is the beautiful Morono Kiang Gallery in the Bradbury Building because it always has really thought-provoking exhibits. The gallery in the Continental Building not only has great art, but also boasts the best people watching anywhere.
My last stop is normally Dale Youngman’s Gallery in the Regent Theater, followed by a quick visit next door to hear a few spoken word performances by community activists and others in the neighborhood. At this point in the evening, I’m usually wishing I had started earlier because there is so much more to see and do but I’m starving. So I push my way through the crowds on Main Street to Warung Café, where I look for Ivan the general manager who squeezes me and my party in for some tuna tartar and a few cocktails.
While I head back to my loft, the street is active; people are walking their dogs, couples are holding hands and mobs of people are packing restaurants and bars. And all I can think of is the people who still seem to think tumbleweed rambles down the streets after 6 p.m. Oh well — maybe I can hang on to my bar stool at Seven Grand a little bit longer.

For more information, please visit
www.downtownartwalk.com