The Downtown Art Walk takes place on the second Thursday of every month, which is great if you happen to be visiting and free on that one particular afternoon and evening. The really great thing though is that, even if you are not there on the specified date, the art walk is made up of a few different elements and most of them you can see any other day of the month as well.
Compared to most of Los Angeles, which is mostly made up of nondescript low-rise sprawl, downtown is already pretty interesting but a bit of contemporary art can’t help but make any city a bit brighter.
The artists stalls in the street won’t be there, and not all of the spaces are going to be open at the same hours but the street art is always there, most of the galleries are open most days (just at different times) and even the two locations of MOCA (the Museum of Contemporary Art) are free every Thursday afternoon after 5pm.
You will just need to pick up a map. The easiest place to find one is probably at the Spring Arts Collective Gallery & Studios, which is on the mezzanine floor of The Last Bookstore, also a place worth spending a little bit of time in, as book shops almost always are. You can also find a version of the map on the art walk website but for some reason it doesn’t include the street art.
That seems like a strange omission, why are they on the printed maps, but not the online version? Who knows, but it’s a shame. We like street art as you might notice from our Instagram, and along with the free admission to MOCA and a room full of paintings by Rothko (I love Rothko, Rima really doesn’t) it was what we were really looking out for.
On the subject of MOCA, and if Rothko isn’t your thing then the works of Felix Gonzalez-Torres are really interesting, especially “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) and “Untitled” (A Corner of Baci). Art with a deeply personal meaning that also gives you something yummy to take away and eat.
You can find out more at downtownartwalk.org – note that is .org, because quite strangely (at least right now) .com takes you to a site celebrating ammunition, which really isn’t something that we are into.
As an aside, the movie Nobody Walks in LA, which you may love, hate, or just watch all the way through and then think ‘meh’, has some pretty good scenes featuring the art walk.