Skid Row History Museum & Archive

250 S. Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Open: Thur, Fri, Sat, 2-5pm
and by appointment [email protected]

EXHIBITION
Enough is (never) Enough: Hard Truths and the People Who Live Them

September 16 – extended through December 17, 2023

  • September 16, 5pm, Opening reception
  • October 14: 3pm, Photo Talk (Featuring the photographers in the exhibition)
  • November 17: 7pm,Screening Enough is (never) EnoughQ&A with David Blumenkrantz

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.

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COSMOLOGY & COMMUNITY:
Networks of Liberation
February 18 – August 28, 2023

Exhibition centers on the work of Community Curator Charles Porter, in collaboration with & support of curatorial staff of Skid Row History Museum & Archive. With murals by Dimitri Kadiev, Joshua Grace, and Ellie Sanchez.

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EXHIBITIONS 2022

THE WORLD RESPONDS TO THE WALK THE TALK ARCHIVE
@ Skid Row History Museum & Archive
December 8, 2022 – May 27, 2023

 Video responses that share what artists, scholars and others from California, Canada and Italy have learned from engaging with the 70-plus people celebrated in Walk The Talk.

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Blue Book – Green Paper
@ Skid Row History Museum & Archive
November 22, 2022 – May 27, 2023

Come see The Blue Book come to life and get yourself a copy of The Green Paper. Help ensure this successor to the Blue Book is adopted and has a long, and fruitful life.

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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

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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.

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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.

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2020 - 2021

Systems of Exchange
Exhibition @ ArtCenter
March 27 – April 25, 2021

Elizabeth Preger brings together Los Angeles artist collectives, pairing a series of vitrines inhabited by local creative communities and their archival material in a celebration of artist-run networks of support.

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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.

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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.

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DOGS IN THE HOUSE
August 15 – October 26, 2019.

A showcase of artists and organizations that utilize advocacy and direct services to overcome the obstacles faced by low income and homeless pet owners.

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Visions of Freedom and Independence
April 11 – June 29, 2019.

A Studio 526 group art exhibit featuring the works of over 50 Skid Row neighborhood artists.

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Bridging the Divide
January 19 – March 23, 2019.

An exhibition of paintings by two downtown Los Angeles artists; Manuel Compito and Scott Taylor.

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2018

State of the ART: Skid Row
October 12 – December 29, 2018

An inventory of current arts activity in Skid Row

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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.

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LAZARUS
January 19 – February 24, 2018

A film and exhibit of pictures from the movie about homeless individuals in Echo Park and Skid Row, Los Angeles.

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2017

THE ARTYSSEY
December 9, 2017 – January 13, 2018

The exhibit features the works of more than 40 Skid Row neighborhood artists from Lamp Arts Program, working in a variety of media, from painting to sculpture and multimedia art.

 

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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.

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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.

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The 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.”

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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.

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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.

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General Dogon:
Screaming Two Wheelers
October 3 – December 18, 2015

An exhibition featuring Skid Row community civil rights organizer General Dogon and his low-rider bicycles.

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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.