Current LACDA Location on 5th and Main

Next month, the Los Angeles Center For Digital Arts (LACDA), currently located Downtown on W. 5th Street, will have a new home. The space will be the former location of the Old DVD Bank, a mere two blocks away on W. 4th and Main.

Gallery director and principal curator, Rex Bruce, is no stranger to relocating. When the first LACDA gallery opened in 2004, it was situated in Hollywood near Melrose and Vine. Shortly afterward, the center moved Downtown in a small space right across from the current location. Eight years later, LACDA found its present home on 5th Street. But there was a caveat. “We took over this place knowing they were going to rehab the building,” Bruce explains. “This building is going to have a seismic upgrade. Everyone is being moved out.”

Old Bank DVD on 4th and Main

When Bruce set out to find a new home for LACDA, he considered several locations around Los Angeles. Fortunately, construction on the 5th Street location is a federal project, and Bruce received a grant to fund the gallery’s move. With the help of Tom Gilmore of Gilmore Associates, Bruce secured the 4th Street location. Designing the new space begins this month. “It became clear that the best option would be to stay downtown,” says Bruce. “The big upside is that I’m part of the community. The support of the community is here.” According to Bruce, one of those supporters is Gilmore. “Tom is wonderful in supporting the arts. He gave me a great deal.”

The new location promises to elevate LACDA to the next level. While the center will retain a similar set up as the current location– with four galleries –there will be a lot more room to play with. For one, the gallery will gain 60 more feet of wall space. “The largest walls we have now are 21 feet. If you imagine three times that equivalent of wall space, that’s what we’re going to have,” Bruce explains “It’s an opportunity to generate more excitement and interest in the gallery.”

With the upcoming move, the future looks bright for LACDA, and the gallery continues to flourish financially. “We’re growing with the economy, so that will help the gallery in terms of revenue and funding the operation,” says Bruce.

“We have panels with critics and curators that draw in the art world so they don’t have to compete with the masses,” Bruce explains. LACDA also currently has a show in Venice, and will be opening up an exhibit in collaboration with the Downtown Film Festival. “We do a lot of really good stuff, and we’re quite legitimate,” says Bruce. “We do sell a fair amount of art. The majority of the funding, a substantial amount, goes into programming and improvements.”

Current exhibits at LACDA include: “Post-Literate” by Melinda R. Smith, an ovarian cancer-survivor who creates visual art through poetry and theatre; and “Of Revolutions” by Iranian-born animator Marjan Moghaddam, who fled Iran during the Islamic Revolution and reflects those experiences in her art. The gallery also dedicates a wall to “Ten Artists to Watch,” submitted by LACMA curator Holly Harrison.

Bruce is working on a decade-long plan for LACDA. He took out a ten-year lease on the new location, and plans to turn LACDA over to the public when his work is finished. As he describes, “The plan is to keep it going for ten years. When I’m done, I want to turn it over to a public trust, and make it into something where you teach people how to run the gallery and so on. I plan to get a board of directors together to run it and fund it. I’d like to make sure the gallery continues after I’m gone.”
Of course Bruce says he could continue working in the art world long after ten years is up.

“It’s more than a career,” he explains. “Art people, we start doing it when we’re kids. Before we’re even working, we’re doing creative stuff. At least that’s how it was for me. Basically we do it until we can’t do it anymore.”

For now, Bruce is excited to move forward with LACDA. “Since we started in 2004, we’ve done over 120 exhibits, panels and screenings, outside events,” he says. “I’m really grateful for the success we’ve had. I’m grateful for the people who’ve jumped on board with me, and helped me through the years to keep things going, and continue to do so. So this move is a big marker in the history of this place.”
LACDA is scheduled to open in the new location on Thursday, August 8th, 2013.

By Cathy Kisakye