11/10/99

IX

The failure of the interested public to provide support through acquisitions also unraveled the presenting art picture. What avocation could support with little money the commercialization could not. The demeanor of the gallery going public was voyeuristic, investing interest but not the confidence to collect indigenous, and by this time, Los Angeles art. Galleries would periodically close throughout this five year history culminating in 1985 when a final blow of closings dealt a death-hand to the previous momentum of a delicate residential and presenting scene. This failure also extended to the museum establishment, whose New York-centrist chauvinism precluded balanced recognition and validation for regional Artmaking. From this perspective disinterest was justified and could be reduced to issues of local quality versus the museum's international scope. Ironically, this placed the museum in its own provincial stance, merely serving as a franchise for an international art manifesto. The universities remained silent through this disillusionment. In a similar vein of academic chauvinism, no concern was evident in a regional communities survival or relevancy. Artists from the university programs had participated in this local community event but received no encouragement or recognition for this involvement, even being discouraged from associating with it. Ultimately much blame falls to the constraints of the free market manifesto. Those factors set the procedural agenda for the museums, universities, and co-opted the thinking that transformed an avocational community into a commodified community.

1991

The downtown community has run a similar cycle between the Carter recession, the Bush recession, and eleven years. The re-emergence of the avocational, artist run gallery is found in 1991 with the opening of Rita Dean Gallery , Peanut Gallery , and Onieras Gallery. Previous expectations of cultural collectivity and commercial and ideological support have been tempered with nineties objectivity. New loft buildings are being constructed from the foundation up with high rents and the promise of an appropriate environment for the artist life style. The redevelopment propaganda now touts the arts district as a cultural amenity. The downtown community still draws a younger generation in greater numbers as an alternative for habitation and individuated work. It links this evolution to a time when naive misconceptions had not yet been proven and there was less distance from circumspection.

– Gary David Ghirardi

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