Skid Row History Museum & Archive
250 S. Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Open: Thur, Fri, Sat, 2-5pm
and by appointment [email protected]
“Scratching the Surface – 40 Years of Visual Arts in Skid Row” 1985-2025
September 6 – October 25, 2025
OPENING RECEPTION on Saturday, September 6, 5pm.
open Thursday, Friday, Saturday from 2-5pm, and by appointment.
“Scratching the Surface,” is curated by art worker and Community Arts Depot co-founder Hayk Makhmuryan, in collaboration with artist/archivist Jaiye Kamson and designer Matthew Stewart, and features works by more than 50 artists: paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, banners, masks, reproductions of murals and ephemeral artifacts.
Additional public programs include:
10/4 1-6pm – A mini Zine Fest
OUR STREETS ZINE FEST is a companion to the “Scratching the Surface” exhibition underscoring how Skid Row connects us all in both struggle and resistance. Displacement, raids, over policing, gentrification, discrimination, access to medical resources, surveillance, food and housing insecurity are fights that we share. The Zine Fest is a space where zinster, diy publishers, art and cultural workers will gather and exchange info and resources across struggles.
10/10 5-7pm – Skid Row Poetry: Inklings of a History
How is poetry practiced in Skid Row? What do Skid Row poets know that poets outside the neighborhood might have forgotten? Using research from the Museum archives, this talk will scratch the surface on the history and poetry in Skid Row, and will look at how current Skid Row poets are approaching the art form.
10/24 5-7pm – Discussion / Show&Tell of Museum’s Archive and Community Archiving
Skid Row Archive: What’s in the archive? Why does it matter? The presentation will focus on archival materials from the Skid Row Archive’s collections. During the discussion, Media Archivist, Henry Apodaca and Archivist, Zach Rutland will talk about work done in the archive, the scope of the collections including subjects and themes, and the importance of independent, community based-archiving.
EXHIBITIONS 2025
Tents and Tenants: After Echo Park Lake
February 1 – March 30
by UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy
About how poor people make the city their home, even in the face of state violence.
EXHIBITIONS 2023
Enough is (never) Enough:
Hard Truths and the People Who Live Them
September 16 – December 17, 2023
Exhibition centers featuring photographs and text by artist and educator David Blumenkrantz, along with works by four photographers who have lived experience with homelessness: Bobby Buck, Cleta Felix-West, Lelund Hollins and Ian Storm.
EXHIBITIONS 2022
LAPD exhibit and performances at BIPOC Exchange
@ FRIEZE Los Angeles
February 17 – 20, 2022
LAPD exhibit’s Walk The Talk and performs excerpts from The New Compassionate Downtown
Recognizing Skid Row As A Neighborhood: Skid Row Cooling Resources
@ DIVERSE art LA @ LA Arts Show
January 19 – 23, 2022
DIVERSEartLA, curated by Marisa Caichiolo, kicks off the show by inviting science and art museums to take part in eight unique projects, all with a focus on environmental advocacy.
How To House 7,000 People in Skid Row
@ Skid Row History Museum & Archive
2022
The “Skid Row Now & 2040” plan, created by a coalition of Skid Row community members and groups, identifies funding sources to house people who have extremely low incomes. We’re going to look at the plan–and additional ideas for funding housing that will get people off the streets and into housing.
2020 - 2021
How To House 7000 People in Skid Row
@ Skid Row History Museum and Archive
March 2020 – 2021
The “Skid Row Now & 2040” plan, created by a coalition of Skid Row community members and groups, identifies funding sources to house people who have extremely low incomes. We’re going to look at the plan–and additional ideas for funding housing that will get people off the streets and into housing.
2019
Nick Paul & Diane Prozeller
Nov. 8, 2019 – Jan. 11, 2020
Two artists who make bold fanciful paintings and sculptures in their downtown Los Angeles Hotel-room studios.
READ MORE2018
Zillionaires Against Humanity:
Sabotaging the Skid Row Neighborhood Council
March 9 – June 30, 2018
The elements of the exhibition: illustrations and narrative from Adrian Riskin’s California Public Records Act inquiry from his blog michaelkohlhaas.org; documents of the entire process provided by the Skid Row Neighborhood Council (SRNC) Formation Committee; videos of different stages of the civic process by Linus Shento and photos and ephemera from the SRNC campaign.
2017
THE BACK 9
Golf and Zoning policy in Los Angeles
June 10 – November 12, 2017
A playable educational golf course about zoning and redevelopment politics in Downtown LA. Each hole of the course explores a different aspect of zoning and its political implications. Specifically the course connects with the planned DTLA2040 rezoning plan which will have dramatic effects on Skid Row. Designed by Rosten Woo, in collaboration with LAPD.
2016
Words We Have Learned Since 9/11
Oct 7 – Dec 3, 2016
A public, participatory photographic project by Clayton Campbell. In workshops, participants are asked to identify words they have learned since 9-11, or words they knew but have taken on different meanings. Their portraits while holding their words on signs are then photographed on site and placed directly into the installation.
read moreThe Dream Walk Exhibit
Aug 20 – Sept 18, 2016
The exhibition by Lamp Art Project features the works of a diverse group of more than 40 Skid Row artists, working in a variety of media. The majority of the works have been created specifically for this exhibition. Salem Rose, the artist who submitted the title, explains: “It’s an art walk (of sorts), walking also implies that we are moving forward. ‘Dream’ implies drive, determination, as well as recreation and restoration of aspirations.”
Walk the Talk
May 18 – July 31, 2016
The exhibition features portraits, interviews, transcripts and ‘Walk The Talk’ performance scripts and videos of 52 people who have lived and worked in Skid Row and have been instrumental in creating a neighborhood in which the interests of its low income residents are prioritized and their voices heard.
2015
Blue Book / Silver Book
April 11 – June 28, 2015
In 1973 “The Blue Book,” was adopted by the city, in part as a strategy that would “contain” poor people in one corner of downtown. Significantly, it had the reverse effect of also preventing upscale development within Skid Row.
About the Skid Row History Museum and Archive
The Skid Row History Museum and Archive is an exhibition /performing arts space curated by Los Angeles Poverty Department. It foregrounds the distinctive artistic and historical consciousness of Skid Row, a 40-year-old social experiment. The Skid Row History Museum and Archive functions as a means for exploring the mechanics of displacement in an age of immense income inequality, by mining a neighborhood’s activist history and amplifying effective community strategies. The space operates as an archive, exhibition, performance and meeting space. Exhibitions will focus on grassroots strategies that have preserved the neighborhood from successive threats of gentrification and displacement, to be studied for current adaptation and use.
The space is activated by performances, community meetings and films addressing gentrification and displacement locally, nationally and globally. The culture that developed here on Skid Row—an activist culture, artistic culture and recovery culture—offers a useful model for other communities navigating gentrification pressures. The museum space also serves as a literal and artistic common ground, a welcoming space for Angelenos to meet and mingle and explore civic issues together.
In a second museum space an extensive archive of Skid Row History (planning documents, articles, videos, audios, interview transcripts etc.), are available for casual and scholarly research. Visitors will be able to access this archive, comment upon it and use it to further explore the show’s themes.
Funders
Los Angeles Poverty Department’s Skid Row History Museum and Archive is supported with funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Upcoming Events
Jul
8
Wed
7:00 pm
LA Tenants Union Downtown
@ Skid Row History Museum & Archive
LA Tenants Union Downtown
@ Skid Row History Museum & Archive
Jul 8 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Every Wednesday from 7-9pm. LOS ANGELES TENANTS UNION – DOWNTOWN LOCAL Do you need repairs in hour unit, but the landlord ignores you? Did you get an eviction notice? Let us know! We are a union of tenants in Downtown fighting fo safe, dignified, and sanitary housing. We want to...
Jul
9
Thu
10:00 am
SRAA community Meeting
@ Skid Row History Museum & Archive
SRAA community Meeting
@ Skid Row History Museum & Archive
Jul 9 @ 10:00 am – 11:30 am
The Skid Row Arts Alliance (SRAA) Community meeting is every 2nd Thursday of the month from 10 – 11:30am. March 12 at 10-11:30 am at the Skid Row History Museum & Archive, 250 S. Broadway. Find out what’s happening with Arts in the neighborhood Hear from past microgrant recipients Create...
5:00 pm
THEATER WORKSHOP
@ Skid Row History Museum & Archive
THEATER WORKSHOP
@ Skid Row History Museum & Archive
Jul 9 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Open THEATER WORKSHOPS Skid Row History Museum & Archive 250 S. Broadway, Los Angels CA 90012 Each Tuesday: 2:30 – 5pm and Thursday: 5 – 7pm NEW: theater workshops at the Skid Row Care Campus 442 S Crocker St, Los Angeles, CA 90013 Each Tuesday and Friday: 12 – 2pm...
