DTLA Arts District

Art murals, anyone? The art scene here in LA is just too vast to not go exploring. I decided to start with the obvious choice in downtown LA…DTLA Arts District.

The arts district is situated along the east side of downtown. This particular district, once run-down and more industrial, now has several galleries, restaurants, food trucks, and creative office/living spaces.

If we can keep it real, the area is the epitome of gentrification (that’s beside the point), but it works.

Not to bore you (nor myself) with too many details, but industrialization happened. This was a part of town that supported a clothing and food manufacturing industry, but by the end of WW2 had shifted its market to railroading and trucking. As this industry grew, they outgrew their spaces downtown and began moving their companies to neighboring cities thereby leaving all those offices and warehouses abandoned. So, here you are now left with a vacant part of town.

In the 1970s, a group of artists quietly and illegally utilized these vacant spaces as canvases and created their own little mecca of all things art. After a decade, the city recognized this area for what it was and who it served and started an Artist-in-Residence (AIR) program where it essentially legalized all that had already taken place. From there, the rest is history.

The majority of the murals there are huge and expand from one side of the building to the next. However, like most art galleries, I wish there were some interpretation of the works so that we, the admirers, know what we are looking at and what it meant to the artist.