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Downtown Los Angeles is getting another independent art gallery. Side Gate Gallery is joining a collection of smaller galleries and artist-centered spaces that help make up the Arts District’s art scene, including Royale Projects, Art Share L.A., Sage Culture and Art Bug Gallery, along with the district’s larger galleries. The new independent exhibition space at 2345 E. Olympic Boulevard will make its debut with Splinter Visions, the first solo exhibition by Los Angeles artist Michael Gonzales, opening Saturday, September 26.
Long before the Arts District became one of Downtown Los Angeles’ most recognizable neighborhoods, its aging warehouses, factories and industrial buildings provided inexpensive space for artists looking for places to live and work. Beginning in the 1970s, artists moved into buildings that had been left behind as industry declined, creating studios, lofts and an underground arts community that eventually helped give the district its identity. The City of Los Angeles’ Artist-in-Residence ordinance in the early 1980s helped legalize artists living and working in former industrial buildings, and galleries, murals, studios and creative businesses followed. Decades later, the Arts District remains a monument in time to that transformation, and the tradition is still going strong, with independent galleries continuing to open alongside the established spaces that now call the neighborhood home. Side Gate Gallery is the latest addition.
Its location also comes with an arts history of its own. Before Side Gate Gallery, 2345 E. Olympic Boulevard was associated with The Vortex, a multi-use arts and events space that opened in 2011. The property has included artist-in-residence units and a café, while The Vortex hosted art and fashion shows, film and television productions, theater, community gatherings and other events. Side Gate is now adding a new gallery chapter to a property already connected to Downtown Los Angeles’ creative community. @sidegategallery
