Tag: Gallery Row

DIRECTOR FOR NEW MUSEUM.

In planning a new contemporary art and design museum, Tom Gilmore, a pioneer of real estate development in Downtown Los Angeles, has been focused on the architecture, commissioning futuristic — some say fantastic — building plans. Now, he’s turning to the art; he just hired as his museum director, Allison Agsten, curator of public engagement at the Hammer Museum. “We are especially interested in L.A. artists and finding new ways to support them,” Ms. Agsten said. It has not been determined whether the Old Bank District Museum, as it is unofficially known with a nod to its historic neighborhood, which is now packed with lofts and restaurants, will be a collecting institution or a kunsthalle, a flexible exhibition space. Plans by the architect Tom Wiscombe, under review at the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, show the project will span three existing structures Downtown on South Main Street. The idea is to preserve and reuse original bank vaults and pneumatic tubes from a 1905 neo-Classical-style building, while carving out new spaces.

At the Hammer, Ms. Agsten worked with artists on projects that didn’t fit the traditional exhibition models or galleries, from “microconcerts” in a cloakroom by Machine Project to Mark Bradford’s new community center in Leimert Park. Now, she said, “I cannot wait to let artists loose in the bank vaults.”

Mr. Gilmore, who is chairman of the board at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, nearby, estimated construction could run to $50 million and take four to five years. JORI FINKEL

Downtown Art Walk in 90 sec… Blink and you’ll miss an old shot of Niche.LA Video Art.

With a mix of art, fashion, food and culture, downtown Los Angeles has become a hot destination

Come for cool restaurants like The Gorbals and Faith and Flower, stores like The Last Bookstore, and events like the Downtown Art Walk

DTLA lifestyle photo Fundraiser Sign Up

DTLA lifestyle photo Fundraiser Sign Up

Beyond the mall, food courts turn into gourmet destinations

Beyond the mall, food courts turn into gourmet destinations

A New Era in Downtown Art

@DowntownNews It’s called Gallery Row. 

“The gallery scenes in Chinatown and the Historic Core continue to mature, and a proposed museum dedicated to Downtown artists could inject a new level of energy. Meanwhile, the Downtown Art Walk has shed its past uncertainties and emerged stronger (even if it’s now as much about the party as it is the art).”

Everything to Know About the Future Historic Core Art Museum

Tom Gilmore, the developer who helped wake the sleeping giant Downtown 15 years ago with his multi-building Old Bank District project, makes things happen. So his proposal for a contemporary art museum in the heart of the Historic Core should have legs—he’s already working with SCI-Arc professor/architect Tom Wiscombe on designs for the Old Bank District Museum, which will occupy basements, rooftops, and mezzanines of the Hellman Building, Farmers and Merchants Bank Building, and the Old Bank Garage, all at Fourth and Main. Gilmore is also shoring up financing on the project with business partner Jerri Perrone. And art is arriving already, the Downtown News reports, with a two-and-a-half-ton sculpture that was moved from the Arts District to the roof of the Old Bank Garage a few months ago; it now anchors the home of a forthcoming sculpture garden.

Gilmore, Perrone Plan Old Bank District Art Museum

Project, Now in the Very Early Stage, Would Feature Work by Downtown Artists

L.A. Is “America’s Most Successfully Reinvented Metropolis," Dwell Says

Badly written article with what seems like a personal grudge against developers, but posting anyway.

L.A. Is “America’s Most Successfully Reinvented Metropolis,” Dwell Says

Badly written article with what seems like a personal grudge against developers, but posting anyway.

USA Today names Gallery Row one of the best 10 arts districts in the United States!

Art Walk-Downtown (102)

Art Walk-Downtown (102)