Downtown Los Angeles welcomed strong new shows this past weekend, with vibrant crowds exploring historic core and arts district galleries.

Quotidian gallery curator jill moniz flanked by gallery visitors and artists Jenny Hager (left) and Susan Feldman Tucker (right)

In the historic core, jill moniz’ Quotidian Gallery offered a stunning show in Serpentine Fire. Viewers munched small bowls of popcorn or chips, sipping wine and mineral water while taking in a purely original exhibition of LA-centric works curated by moniz. The show’s title, taken from an Earth, Wind, & Fire song, also fit well with what moniz describes as the “radical art practices” of the eight-artist show. The gallery itself remains a point of attraction for viewers, as moniz explained to a group of visiting artists that with some beams, brick work, and worn tile exposed, it’s an antidote to predictable “white wall galleries.”

Work by Lyndon Barrios

Lyndon Barrios

Viewers crowded around Lyndon Barrois “Untitled” prototype praxinoscope work—that’s a rapidly rotating cylinder that produces animated-like visual effects. The piece featured 12 original gum wrapper sculptures from his digital film, They Were the First to Ride, which was also showing at the gallery. Asked if he had ever created gum wrapper art before, Barrois smiled “All the time” as riveted viewers watched the piece spin. The trenchant film, about the 11 black jockeys who won the Kentucky Derby from 1875 to 1902 also drew a crowd around the video screen. A crowd also circled Kori Newkirk’s “Black Letter Day” a gorgeous sculpture of upside-down umbrella shapes that fit in the center of the expansive space. “We needed those last week,” an attendee commented, recalling last week’s rainy weather.

Haleh Mashian

At Mash, viewers were treated to a lush solo show by artist and gallery owner Haleh Mashian, whose Figurine exhibition include large, highly textured female figures, abstract tear drops, and brilliant floral images. Sipping champagne in plastic flutes, guests mingled and took in the deeply layered and glowing mixed media works, which Mashian describes as being created in jewel tones “Because of the richness of being a woman. We have a lot going for us.” Videographer and photographer team Vojislav Rad and Jason Jenn of L.A. Art Documents, clad in coordinated print shirts and ties, jubilantly chronicled the event, as art lovers and area artists buzzed through the thronged art district space.

Work by Christian Eckart

Work by Lianne Barnes

On Sunday afternoon, Wilding Cran hosted a well-attended opening of two solo shows, Christian Eckart’s mysteriously lovely, elliptically mournful discourse on global warming, White Noise, in the front room, and the sculptures of Lianne Barnes’ Nature of Things in the back gallery. Guests sipped wine and Tecate while circling massive pieces of Barnes’ silver nitrate-patinated bronze works; or studied the transparently white imaging of Houston-based Eckart’s large scale wall art, while planning an after-gallery trip to Stumptown across the street “before global warming eliminates coffee beans.”