A tour guide to Chinatown’s modern art galleries
By Alex Wen
Feb. 11, 2004 9:00 p.m.
Los Angeles’ Chinatown is perhaps best known for its
quaint, if somewhat scruffy, streets, lined with shop-houses and
buildings that alternate between historically interesting and
downright downtrodden. The area also lent its moniker to the 1974
Roman Polanski and Robert Towne film “Chinatown”
““ the picture that definitively proved noir could be made to
work in color.
Thirty years and many remakes later, another sort of picture
show is stamping its mark on Chinatown and bringing back some
much-needed color and class to the district. Here’s a taster
featuring just five among the many hip art galleries that have
transformed Chinatown into a veritable mecca for art lovers:
1. Revisited, 808 N. Spring St. #320: The
perfect place to start, not least because it’s a bit out of
the way ““ a satellite of sorts, apart from the rest.
Revisited is just a stone’s throw from the Metro Gold station
(itself worth visiting) and boasts the largest lineup of artists in
a single venue on this list (eight at last count, including the
likes of Paige Wery and Frank Rozasy). One of the newer kids on the
block, the gallery itself is nondescript. It is typical utilitarian
chic, but within, a sensual selection suitably titled
“Dualities: Guilty Pleasures, Alter Egos & Unfulfilled
Crushes” (running until Feb. 29) features a cross-section of
works that serve as an excellent sampler of what’s to
come.
2. Acuna-Hansen Gallery, 427 Bernard St.: A
spartan gallery that’s easy to miss, save for the stylized
initials “AH” signed on the window-front. The
exhibition here is titled “Free but not easy,” a
collection of ink-lined watercolors by Tracy Nakamura. Her work
includes brown-toned pictures of hippie-chic heterosexual couples
caught in moments of sexual discovery. A rising star in the New
York art scene, her work is reminiscent of pages taken out of the
’70s cult classic “The Joys of Sex” (a guide book
written by the appropriately named Dr. Alex Comfort), but with an
18th century French boudoir intricacy of form and finish.
3. New Chinatown Barber Shop, 930 Hill St.: The
New Chinatown Barber Shop not only keeps the name of its former
tenant, but also its façade, a complete and authentic barber
shop front ““ a retro-art installation that could easily fool
the casual passerby. Behind and adjacent to the front display is
another utilitarian gallery space that hosts, through April 25,
“Leefahsalung,” a photo exhibit presenting custom-made
backdrops and environments built by a variety of artists.
4. Peres Projects, 969 Chung King Rd.: Across
from the barber shop is Chung King Road, which is more of a lane
running behind the prominent Foo Chow Restaurant, where scenes from
Jackie Chan’s “Rush Hour” were shot. This is the
hub of the Chinatown art scene.
A few shops south of telic on Chung King Road is Peres Projects.
Nothing alarmingly exciting here, just your average hip and sparse
gallery space with requisite expansive wall-to-wall whites, upon
which hangs the photo art of Dean Sameshima, on display through
Saturday. Most of Sameshima’s photos were similar, each
basically featuring the same male model in a half-torso close-up
enacting a series of hand signs, which in turn apparently represent
a series of sexual acts. Strictly for sex-by-proxy types. And at
$1,750 a pop (framed), maybe not even.
5. LMAN Gallery, 949 Chung King Rd.: Trudge
past the two interestingly named Happy Lion and Black Dragon
Society galleries (both retain the names of former tenants), and
head south down Chung King Road to LMAN Gallery at no. 949. The
snappy interior design scheme of this intimate split-level gallery
is a welcomed change from the emptiness of most other galleries in
the area. This is a smaller space, but the room design here also
reflects the aesthetic sensibilities of its architect-owner,
Lawrence Man, who hails from Hong Kong and features mainly artists
of Asian heritage in his warmly lit space. His next exhibit,
“Landscapes of Two Musical Minds,” opens Feb. 21 and
will feature two UCLA graduates, Mark Golamco and Anne Wang, and
guest-curator Rosanna Albertini, a visiting faculty member in
UCLA’s art department.
““ Compiled by Alex Wen
