The Downtown Art Walk, a downtown Los Angeles institution since 2004, has grown to become the largest regularly occurring event in the center city. In its 6 years of operation it has achieved every one of its slated objectives; re-energizing Downtown Los Angeles, establishing a downtown art gallery district, and acting as a significant economic development tool for a multitude of other neighborhood-serving businesses. In recent years the Downtown Art Walk has grown so large that it has become too costly to manage in its current form. Effective immediately the Downtown Art Walk will go on hiatus, ceasing all event operations until January 2011, at which time it will be reborn as a quarterly, weekend, daytime, gallery-focused event which will appeal to both patrons of the arts as well as the general public.
Over on the artwalk's own website, there's a post regarding the change to a quarterly event but things got confusing when there was word that perhaps the gun was jumped and not everyone had agreed on that decision. Today (Sunday) there was a post back on Blogdowntown that indeed, the art walk will go on. The original statements were made by Executive Director Jay Lopez without the board's approval.
September 25th, 2010 (Los Angeles, CA) — The Downtown Art Walk event scheduled for October 14th will proceed as planned. The announcement made to the media on Friday by Jay Lopez, the former director of the event, was made on his own initiative without authorization or support of the Board or any of the other constituents of the endeavor, including the various civic organizations responsible for managing, financing and supporting the event.
Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk greatly apologizes for confusion created by this act. The art walkʼs web site currently shows an erroneous press release that was not issued by the organization or approved by any entity responsible for the event. Mr. Lopez, the eventʼs former director, where he served at the direction of the board, apparently has seized control of the organizationʼs web site, as well as Downtown Los Angeles Art Walkʼs social media accounts. Efforts are being made to rectify this situation.
So at this point it looks like it'll continued but perhaps this is a sign that changes are afoot about the Downtown Art Walk.
Now maybe they can quit the hoopla and get some quality work?
ReplyDeleteIt will be a shame if they reduce it to a quarterly event for a couple of reasons. First there are those who have emerging work that need the venue to develope and evolve their work. The second is the opportunity in a relaxed atomosphere (granted some of the galleries can be quite croweded) to see the work of some very tallent artists(painters, Photographers, sculpters, musicians).
ReplyDeleteThe quality work is always there, you have to move past just the art park. I am not saying there isn't quality work at the art park but some of it is common and that is ok because it has it's appeal too.
I met a photographer who did some very good work, but just like me she needed to continue to define her voice.