Like most of the longer-standing buildings in the Fashion District in DTLA, their salient nature keeps them obscure. Unless its the Bendix Building with its glowing rooftop neon sign, it attracts art wanderers toward it like a moth to light. The building has made tremendous strides in accruing more artist-run spaces welcoming visitors to hop-skip from floor to floor to see what’s good—last Saturday night was no exception.

Zach Statler

I caught myself on the 2nd floor for artist, Zach Statler’s solo exhibition, “Chroma” in his open studio working and chatting up guests. Sharing his as I like to call them, “stroke-of-genius” moments of when he receives a vision to paint, his remarkable detail, curvature and lightness radiate life from the canvas. His talent of not exercising restraint with his creative visions makes instantaneous favorites of all his work. A comfortable and opening forcefield surrounded his studio, not to mention, Statler and his curator, Corinne Dove are incredible kind individuals and are really good at stealing your attention in the best possible way.

Gallerygoers Pharaoh Hoods Bounded Compendium by Alyssa Taylor Wendt

Needing to see other galleries, the building has a lot of movement when you head toward the stairs, elevators and corridors. This is part of its allure and child-like excitement—you never know who or what you’re going to find around the corner! The group show, “Natural 20,” at Tiger Strikes Astroid (TSALA) in conjunction with Monte Vista Projects (MVP) in Austin, Texas, brought the artist-ran group, ICOSA to Los Angeles. Walking in, the work offhand looks as what would be presented at a contemporary art gallery.

Co-Director Carl Baratta and gallerygoer behind Steal This Show by Brooke Gassiot and S D Hilderbrand

In fact, there was a main ingredient missing from this show which artists, Adrian Aguilera, David Bae, Jonas Criscoe, Kate Csillagi, Erin Cunningham, Bug Davidson, Andrea De Leon, Brooke Gassiot, Terra Goolsby, Katy Horan, Betelhem Makonnen, Teruko Nimura, Matt Rebholtz, Elaine I-Ling Shen, Alyssa Taylor Wendt and Jenn Wilson presented …some of the artwork was actually stolen. As members of TSALA such as Co-Director, Carl Baratta and Gassiot themselves stated, creating a timely immersive conceptual projection of her work in shipping boxes which fitted seamlessly into the show worked. Though the question remains, can you really steal from an artist?

Barry Markowitz @ PØST

Briefly running into artist, Lara Salmon at PØST who recently performed there, was pleasant as always before heading to “What are we gonna say after HELLO?” by MONDONGO at Track 16. The creation of this show/performance by the Argentine art collective comprising, Juliana Laffitte and Manuel Mendanha sustained onlookers interests. Independent documentarian, Justin Perkinson and I saw remnants of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut including other childhood narratives such as Pinocchio in the actors who wore masks, further obstructing reality and fantasy casting a dark side to fairy tales and what lies deep within the subconscious.

Word had gotten around that there was live music, catered food and drinks at Statler’s show. So when I ran into SoCal Arts Resource creator, Daniel McNerney there on my way out, I knew which art space truly ended up being the Robin Hood of the night.

Photos by Moj Mehr-Assa