Chinatown Land

Originally published in Fabrik Magazine

Chinatownland
By Jesi Khadivi

Few cities are fortunate enough to have a gallery district as unique as LA’s Chinatown. This cozy, outcropping of garish pagodas and paper lanterns is a hyper-real version of a Chinese village, hence artist Andre Yi’s riff on the iconic Hollywood sign, Chinatownland, a sculpture which was displayed in a vacant lot on Hill Street until fairly recently. Chung King road, a kitschy pedestrian mall that houses many of Chinatown’s contemporary art galleries, was built in the 1940s as part of “New Chinatown” after plans for Union Station led to the razing of the original Chinatown. Long home to Chinese specialty shops and importers, the area’s store fronts began to be settled by art galleries in the late 1990s. Now teeming with cutting edge galleries and hip shops, all elbowing up against Chinese social clubs and restaurants, the area is home to a diverse range of art spaces, ranging from the experimental to the more established (many of the neighborhood’s galleries are nationally, if not internationally acclaimed). As can be expected of such a dynamic area, the neighborhood is in flux. Long time Chinatown denizens like Javier Peres (Peres Projects) and David Kordansky (Kordansky Gallery) have jumped ship for the West Side’s contemporary art hotspot, Culver City. Other galleries have been playing musical chairs with their locations. Katie Brennan of Sister Gallery took over one of the two Peres Project store fronts, and numerous other spaces have taken up new leases mere blocks away, or in at least one case, across the street from their original space. The folks who have stayed put, however, are keeping Chinatown’s collaborative spirit alive.

Telic Arts Exchange and the Public School
972B Chung King Road
www.telic.info

Telic Arts Exchange, one of the most ambitious east side hybrid arts institutions, was founded by artist/architect/educators Fiona Whitton and Sean Dockray in 2004. Conceived as a platform for art, architecture, media, and pedagogy, Telic curates exhibitions, stages live performances, and hosts the Public School, an amorphous committee-run educational experiment. Recent course offerings have included The Economy of Giant Ass Sculptures, The Democratic Museum, and Sado-Masochism: Theory & Practice. The Distributed Gallery, a series of video monitors installed in various art and commercial spaces throughout Chinatown, debuted in December to maintain the Telic’s public presence after their October move from a Chung King store front into a basement space across the way. Video projects by Geoff Manaugh and James Merle Thomas are next on deck.







Ooga Booga
943 N. Broadway, #203
www.oogaboogastore.com

New York City has Printed Matter for cool art books and ephemera, Angelenos have Ooga Booga. Wendy Yao’s tiny, well curated store is filled to the brim with clothing, artist editions, books, and records by venerable artists, musicians, and designers. Yao started the boutique to showcase the work of friends and contemporaries and it has expanded to a veritable who’s who of art, music, and fashion featuring clothing by Opening Ceremony and Bless, and editioned work by musician-artist Bjorn Copeland and German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans. An artist in her own right, Yao will exhibit video work in May at the Distributed Gallery. Ooga Booga occasionally brings the party to the porch, hosting live music events in the stairwell adjacent to the shop.

The Mountain Bar/Mountain School of Art
473 Gin Ling Way
www.themountainschoolofarts.org
www.themountainbar.com/

A collaboration between sculptor Jorge Pardo and gallerist Steve Hanson (owner of China Art Objects), the Mountain Bar is Chinatown’s go-to for post opening cocktails. Stiff drinks, an opium den-like atmosphere, and the bacon-wrapped hot dog cart around the corner keep folks coming back for more. Each winter, the bar’s backroom houses the Mountain School of Arts, an eclectic, artist initiated free school founded by artists Piero Golia and Eric Wesley. Admission is by application only and past seminar leaders have included artist Franz Ackerman, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, and curator Bob Nickas.


Cottage Home
410 Cottage Home Street
www.thecottagehomela.com

Steve Hanson has his hands in multiple pots. The China Art Objects owner is a collaborator in one of the neighborhood’s newest galleries, Cottage Home, with fellow Chinatown big-wigs, Katie Brennan of Sister and Thomas Solomon. The 4,000 square foot former movie theater opened in July with a group exhibition entitled I Can See for Miles. The size of the gallery is unusual for Chinatown, known for its quirky storefront spaces and will allow the gallerists to show larger works than their solo spaces allow, a boon for their artists and an inspiring model for upstart contemporary galleries dealing with market challenges.






Via Café
451 Gin Ling Way

Via embraces its status as the resident arty Asian eatery by decking the walls floor to ceiling with paintings and drawings by local artists and hosting a video monitor for Telic’s Distributed Gallery The service isn’t always the best, but the food is delicious and the crowd is vibrant and good-looking. Stop at Via after your gallery crawl for mouth-watering, reasonably priced bowls of rice vermicelli and spring rolls, and other Vietnamese specialties.


The Box
977 Chung King Road
www.theboxla.com

Box director, Mara McCarthy, recently presented an exhibit by LA based artist Kirsten Puusemp in which the artist traveled the furthest distance possible from the gallery, leaving the exhibition space filled only with the things she couldn't take with her-- paper bags filled with canned goods, musical instruments, and a few wrapped presents. Not exactly salable stuff, but McCarthy, the daughter of LA art royalty Paul McCarthy, doesn't seem to mind, as she conceived the space as an educational project as well as an exhibition space. Like many Chinatown galleries, The Box is an interdisciplinary affair. McCarthy is dedicated to conceptually rigorous and challenging works that defy a conventional gallery model.


The Company
946 Yale Street
www.thecompanyart.com

Providing hope for aspiring young gallerists paralyzed by market woes, curator Anat Ebgi and artist Annie Wharton's opened the doors of their Chung King road adjacent gallery in November with their inaugural exhibition, Human Resources. Following in the footsteps of other east side hybrid arts venues, The Company employs a diffuse approach to programming hosting screenings, talks, and other events in addition to their rotating schedule of exhibitions. Rhizomatic, indeed!


Farm Lab
1745 North Spring Street
www.farmlab.org/

Located on the banks of the anemic LA river, Farmlab began as an extension of the Not a Cornfied Project, an Annenberg funded living sculpture by LA artist Lauren Bon in which 32 acres of industrial brownfield was used to plant corn for one agricultural cycle. Farm Lab shares Culver City’s Center For Land Use Interpretation’s (CLUI) investigation of land use issues within an art audience, demonstrating the multi-striated connections between art and urbanism, The warehouse space, located just north of Chinatown, hosts a wide array of talks, exhibitions, and special events.