Los Angeles and Downtown Art Walk
Los Angeles has no shortage of distinguished art museums, but those looking for a more unconventional alternative can turn to the Downtown Art Walk. Every second Thursday of each month, thousands flock to what is usually a drab section of downtown Los Angeles, until it is transformed into an eclectic outdoor festival, replete with a motley hodgepodge of art, music, food and people. For fans of the Los Angeles art scene who are getting a little disenchanted with traditional settings, Art Walk is a welcome feast for all five senses.
Birth Of The Art Walk
The Los Angeles Downtown Art Walk started in September 2004, and has burgeoned into one of downtown’s most popular attractions since then. While the entire event spans across the greater part of downtown Los Angeles, most of the spectacle can be found on Gallery Row. Located along Main and Spring Streets between 2nd and 9th Streets, Gallery Row was designated as such in July 2003 by the Los Angeles City Council, with support from several key figures, notably Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
At that time, there were only a few art galleries scattered sparsely in an area known more for early-closing shops and dangerous streets after dark. The first Art Walk in 2004 only lasted until 9:00 PM, and saw less than one hundred attendees. Today, there are more than forty art galleries, concentrated mostly between 4th and 7th streets, many of which stay open until eleven or midnight.
The Best In Los Angeles Art
The variety of artistic media and styles at play here is as diverse as the city itself. Throughout the Art Walk, anything from traditional canvas paintings to 3-D holographic images to lavishly decorated shoes to sculptures of iron and jewelry can be found, most by some of Los Angeles’ finest up-and-coming artists.
One gallery, The Hive, serves as a microcosm for the Art Walk as a whole. Art buffs squeeze their way through a labyrinth of densely packed people and some of Los Angeles’ edgiest and most mesmerizing art, while taking in the palpable buzzing of the crowd intermingled with the DJ spinning in the center of the gallery. For a more low-key experience, the visually striking Museum of Neon Art or the trendy Continental Gallery features quieter, more open spaces to admire the art within each.
Art Walk makes for a wonderful experience for any art lover, and, for those interested, most pieces can be purchased to support these blossoming talents. This also means that new pieces are constantly being crafted and prepared for future Art Walks, keeping the galleries fresh and alluring. Some artists can be seen at work in certain galleries, allowing for admiration of the artistic process itself, which is every bit as visually stimulating as the finished product.
Food Trucks (And So Much More)
During Art Walk, Los Angeles’ most popular food trucks flock to Gallery Row, offering delicious and cheap food to passersby on the street. Favorites like Kogi and Komodo, offering Korean tacos and burritos and gourmet food, respectively, and the self-explanatory Grilled Cheese Truck (offering traditional grilled cheese sandwiches along with curveballs like the grilled caprese sandwich), along with myriad vendors of all kinds can be found parked all along the streets of downtown.
Dessert is not forgotten, provided by trucks like Coolhaus and the Sweets Truck. The former offers ice cream sandwiches (wrapped in edible rice paper) featuring flavors of ice cream and types of cookies that are as wide-ranging and eccentric as the entire event itself.
Food can also be found in the large open market set up in a parking lot on Gallery Row. The cookie stand with root beer float flavored cookies, among others, is not to be missed. For those low on cash, there is free wine, cheese, or baked goods inside most of the galleries.
A Vibrant Night In Downtown Los Angeles
Rounding out the night are the live performances peppered throughout the Art Walk. Rock bands in galleries, theater troupes on the side of the street, and percussion ensembles in back alleys complement the visual art to form a vibrant celebration of life and cultural diversity in Los Angeles that has few rivals within the city.
It is a comfort to know that with every passing month, there will never be two Art Walks that come even close to being similar, with a constant rotation of galleries, artists and bands keeping the event fresh and alive. The Los Angeles Downtown Art Walk is easily accessible through any number of Los Angeles’ public transportation systems, most of which run until midnight or later. Those looking for a dynamic artistic experience, or just for free things to do in Los Angeles, need only leave the next second Thursday of the month open.
Tags: admiration, admire, alternative, angeles city, antonio villaraigosa, anything, area, art, art museums, art scene, artistic media, beer, Birth, bit, buffs, canvas, canvas paintings, caprese, cash, celebration, center, Cheese, city, comfort, Continental, cookie, Coolhaus, Council, cream, crowd, dangerous streets, dark, Dessert, diversity, Downtown, edgiest, event, experience, Favorites, feast, Festival, first art, five senses, float, flock, food, forty, gallery, gourmet, Grilled, Hive, hodgepodge, holographic images, ice, iron, jewelry, July, Kogi, Komodo, labyrinth, Life, los angeles city council, lot, lover, low, Main, market, mayor antonio villaraigosa, microcosm, midnight, month, motley, museum, music, music food, Neon, night, number, offering, paper, parking, part, passersby, percussion, play, process, product, quieter, rice, root, rotation, Rounding, sandwich, scene, section, September, shortage, side, spectacle, Spring, spring streets, stand, street, support, Sweets, theater, Thursday, time, today, traditional settings, transportation, Truck, up and coming artists, variety, Vibrant, way, whole, whole art, wine, work