In the 20th century there has long been a long tradition of artists extending their visions beyond the studio walls to encompass a wider range of ideas and modes of thinking, wherein artists like Wallace Berman with his magazine Semina in the ’60s, or much later in the mid-’90s, Daniel Joseph Martinez with the nonprofit space Deep River, could extend their minds in idiosyncratic ways toward a complex, cohesive process of understanding. Sergio Bromberg is an artist who runs a gallery in the midtown La Cienega Arts district.This artist/gallerist combination can make for some of the most visually compelling art, most of which derives from an intensely realized rigorous investigative process.

Bromberg was born in Mexico City and originally moved to Los Angeles to attend graduate school at Otis. Receiving his MFA in 2011, he opened his not-for-profit gallery Venice 6114. The nondescript space could well be mistaken for a body shop as it sits smack amid a row of them. No specific signage distinguishes from its milieu, yet that choice is very much in keeping with Bromberg’s aesthetic approach—to keep things simple and pure; this is indeed reflected in the kind of art he shows, work that sometimes takes months to install and requires much planning and discussions with the artists. Bromberg describes it as “building an essential conversation that goes on for some time.” This process is what interests Bromberg most and derives from his ongoing relationship with the art being made in Mexico City today, work that is systemic and organic and derives from an essential and undeniable need to make it, as he explained, “In Mexico, being an artist is a fight, a risk. It’s not like it is here. It’s not a choice, but something you are called to do. Over there we say you ‘have to get out to get in’ meaning it’s very difficult to make it as an artist and many times artists have to leave, make their mark somewhere else and then come back again.”

Bromberg has shown his own work most recently in Yautepac, a Mexico City district, and again the work is process driven and could take a long time to realize. “What I like most about contemporary art being made here in LA versus in Mexico is how fluid and fertile they both are, kind of like the Wild West all over again. Anything goes and this same adventurous feeling exists in Mexico as well. It’s exploding with energy and ideas.”

Ideas are vital to Bromberg, who looks for art that can only exist if activated by the viewer, work that has a social component—based on a specific project. “The artist comes to me with a certain idea and I think of it as my having the right amount of steroids to grow that idea into something really powerful.”