Uncover the rich artistic legacy of Downtown Los Angeles with Davida's Lower Arts District guide, exclusively on galleryplatform.la. Long before iconic institutions like The Broad and internationally renowned galleries such as Hauser & Wirth, DTLA served as the beating heart of the city's art scene.
Davida invites you to journey through the decades, from the 1970s to the 1990s, when artists flocked to the affordable, industrial spaces that transformed into vibrant hubs of creativity. Imagine the evolution from deserted post-office landscapes to the pulsating 24/7 epicenter of artistic energy, often referred to as the “SoHo of the West.”
Davida's guide masterfully encapsulates this transformative history, offering a curated selection of galleries, studios, and experimental spaces that continue to define Lower Arts District's vital role in the contemporary art world. Experience the past, present, and future of Downtown LA's artistic tapestry through Davida's expert recommendations, available now on galleryplatform.la!
Night Gallery is Los Angeles' leading platform for emerging artists. Founded in 2010 by Davida Nemeroff, the gallery was first housed within a strip mall storefront in the city’s Lincoln Heights neighborhood, where openings were held between 10pm and 2am. In 2013, Night Gallery moved to its current location near LA’s Downtown Arts District. In January 2022 Night Gallery North was launched to expanded gallery space. It is located in a neighboring building at the corner of Imperial and 16th Street. At nearly 14,000 square feet, this space enables the gallery to double its footprint and expand its installation and sculpture programming.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Night Gallery has become the locus of the city's flourishing visual arts community, maintaining its commitment to artists of diverse backgrounds and points of view while raising its international profile. In 2016, Night Gallery was described by The New York Times as “arguably the epicenter of the underground art world in Los Angeles,” and roster artists have received accolades from publications including the Los Angeles Times, Vogue, Artforum, Cultured, and GQ. The gallery’s current programming echoes the joyfully experimental approach of its early years while continuing to support its thriving artists and their practices.
Since 2009, François Ghebaly has presented an innovative program of Los Angeles-based and international artists. With a history of identifying and championing diverse voices and emerging talent, the gallery’s roster has grown to include 15 artists and 2 artist estates, ranging from early career, such as Sharif Farrag, to mid-career, like Sayre Gomez, Christine Sun Kim, Kelly Akashi, Kathleen Ryan, and Genesis Belanger, to well established, including Neïl Beloufa, Marius Bercea, and Channa Horwitz, as well as underground legends, like Patrick Jackson and Mike Kuchar. The gallery advances the reach of its artists’ visions by publishing exhibition catalogues and producing artist editions. Located since 2013 in a 12,000 square ft. warehouse space in Downtown Los Angeles, the gallery is a mainstay of the burgeoning Lower Arts District community. François Ghebaly’s program demonstrates a commitment to challenging work across all media and to fostering the progressive practices of its artists.
Numerous gallaries located in this building including Vielmetter, Nicodim, Particia Sweetow, Wilding Cran and Gavlak.
Great parking and lots to see.
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is a contemporary art gallery representing emerging and mid-career artists who are engaged in regional and global art discourse with a particular focus on intersectional diversity. These artists use conceptual and formal strategies as a critical lens to address a myriad of concerns including the social constructs of gender, racial, and subjective identity, the power of aesthetic frameworks to shape political and economic reality, and the historical role of the artist within society.
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles opened in Santa Monica's Bergamot Station in 2010 and relocated in 2011 to the Culver City Arts District, where the gallery operated for ten years. In 2021, the gallery opened an expansive space in the downtown Los Angeles Arts District.
Maru adopts its name from a native Korean language, San Ma Ru, which means ‘mountaintop’. This is our symbol of quality as the finest coffee beans are grown and harvested from areas of high altitude.
Born from a love of process and everyday quality, we are inspired by all things analog and the simplicity of good coffee. We believe that quality does not have to be austere and that tradition can be respected as well as re-imagined. Maru is made with intention, balance, and a love for the ritual of a well-made coffee.
Eat and drink
Our Arts District location features the best of seasonal California produce with simply grilled dishes in the club and healthy bowls and smoothies in the Garden.
Situated in a former storage facility-turned-recording studio in Downtown Los Angeles, Soho Warehouse spans seven floors, with sleek industrial interiors and street art from the surrounding area.
The club features 48 bedrooms, a rooftop pool and terrace with views of the city, a two-floor gym with a yoga studio, and a garden for alfresco dining. There’s also an international art collection, including an outdoor commission by Shepard Fairey.
Damian’s lunch spot known for fish flautas.
We are a CASAMATA restaurant in Los Angeles’ Arts District serving contemporary cuisine rooted in Mexican culture. Inspired by the Pacific coasts’ culinary traditions, while celebrating seasonal Californian produce. Damian's beverage program focuses on artisanal spirits and mirrors its cuisine, letting the high quality ingredients shine.
Yangban, the genre-defying Korean American culinary ‘conversation’, which opened in Los Angeles’ Arts District, re-opens after a transformative interior overhaul of the space, revealing an evolution of the highly acclaimed restaurant. Now featuring a full-service dining room and updated food and beverage programs, the concept remains at its core a Modern-Korean American restaurant as told through the lens of husband-and-wife chefs Katianna and John Hong.
After training through some of the finest Michelin starred restaurants in the country, their food is influenced by their passion for seasonal California ingredients and executed with techniques refined through their journey as Korean American chefs.
Bringing The Origins Of Bread To Los Angeles
Founded by baker Ran Zimon in 2010, Bread Lounge is a modern bakery & coffeehouse featuring a selection of traditional European bread and pastries.
Made with wild yeast, we feature vegan bread such as our baguettes, ciabatta, multigrain, sourdough, and other loaves. We also bake a long list of pastries daily, including croissants, danishes, and unique Mediterranean pastries such as borek, and the Jerusalem bagels.
Contemporary restaurant originating from a food truck plating tacos with local ingredients & a bar.
Sourcing the very best coffee in the world is our passion. With an unparalleled focus on craft, quality and relationships, we’re dedicated to making a positive impact in our coffee communities from Farmlevel to Streetlevel.
Hauser & Wirth was founded in 1992 in Zurich by Iwan Wirth, Manuela Wirth and Ursula Hauser, who were joined in 2000 by Partner and President Marc Payot and CEO Ewan Venters in 2021. A family business with a global outlook, Hauser & Wirth represents over 90 artists and estates who have been instrumental in shaping its identity and who are the inspiration for Hauser & Wirth’s diverse range of activities that engage with art, education, conservation and sustainability.
The gallery has built a reputation for its dedication to artists and support of visionary artistic projects worldwide. In addition to presenting a dynamic schedule of exhibitions, the gallery collaborates with renowned curators to present museum quality surveys and invests considerable resources in new scholarship and research. Since its earliest days, Hauser & Wirth has mounted historically significant exhibitions. The inaugural exhibition in 1992 took place at Hauser & Wirth’s first gallery, located in the first-floor apartment of an Art Deco villa in the heart of Zurich; it united mobiles and gouaches by Alexander Calder with sculptures and paintings by Joan Miró. Since then, the gallery has continued to forge an ambitious and academically rigorous programme of historic exhibitions, providing a natural home for a number of major 20th-century artist estates and encouraging a continued and engaging discourse around their oeuvres. These include Louise Bourgeois, The Estate of Philip Guston, The Eva Hesse Estate, Allan Kaprow Estate, Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, The Estate of Jason Rhoades, Dieter Roth Estate and The Estate of David Smith.
Located in the Arts District of Los Angeles, Manuela unites chef, farmer and artist to create an authentic and original dining experience. Under the direction of Executive Chef Kris Tominaga, the menu celebrates seasonal ingredients sourced from the best farms and producers in Southern California.
Serving a wide range of vegetables, grains, fish, and game, Manuela also features an exemplary bar program, which serves classic cocktails using house-made bitters and tonics. Local beers are on tap, while the carefully selected wine list is designed to pair with the smoke and acid at the heart of Manuela’s menu.
Designed by Los Angeles native Matt Winter and named for Manuela Wirth, the restaurant is illuminated and animated by specially commissioned works from artists Paul McCarthy, Mark Bradford and Raymond Pettibon.
The smell of chiles and meat simmering in a stew, wafting through the house as the sun goes down.
If you grew up in a traditional Mexican home, guisados brought you comfort and familiarity; with every ingredient serving its purpose guisados are a true labor of love. They were the weekday preparations—simply braised, usually served with a side of rice, beans, and warm tortillas. Mom would start mixing spices and broths as soon as she got home from her morning errands. It’s almost as if she just couldn’t wait for the family to be together at the dinner table and enjoy what she'd be working on all day.
Born in Boyle Heights in December 2010, Guisados set out to serve homestyle braises on handmade corn tortillas; tortillas made to order from the fresh ground masa next door at Carnitas Uruapan. We created a simple menu, one which reminded us of home and how mom spent her afternoons. It’s that same feeling that we try to put into every bite—because simply put, it’s just how we ate.
Being so close to home, our stews and masa are still made and delivered from the Boyle Heights location—multiple times a day—in order to ensure freshness and love in every bite.
We do this not to change the world, but rather show the world just how talented mom really was.
“Just the way my mom used to make it.”
De La Nonna is a market-driven pizza restaurant in the heart of Los Angeles’ Art District!
When the pandemic hit longtime friends Patrick Costa, Jose Cordon, and Lee Zaremba were in totally different places; Costa cooking at Tartine, Cordon working as the Bar Manager at Felix, and Zaremba in Chicago working as the Bar Director for the Boka Group. Cordon and Costa had been kicking around the idea of an Italian concept that would offer an alternative to the more expensive patio dining options in the LA area. Collaborating on their passion for familial hospitality, craveable food, memorable cocktails and natural wine, they forged a path in a time when everyone needed a seat at “Nonna's table”.
“De La Nonna” (From The Grandma), is a play on the combination of Costa’s and Cordon’s Italian and Latin heritage and the idea of Italian soul food that your Nonna would approve of. After a year of successfully popping up at various locations throughout Los Angeles, the Nonna team brought their dream to life with a brick and mortar space in the Arts District!
Murmurs is an art space located in DTLA focused on championing experimental and emerging art practices. Murmurs exists to challenge what is expected of an art gallery by providing a new model of a multifaceted platform for modalities of expression that have the power to transform reality.
From the golden daylight to the twinkling evening, all are welcome to experience the fresh bounty of Cara Cara. Chef Suzanne Goin’s seasonal menu showcases California’s best produce with her festive and irresistible rooftop fare. The expansive outdoor space features an elevated dining area with endless skyline views surrounded by a lushly landscaped lower lounge. Slip into one of the many cozy seating arrangements or sit by the fire pit and enjoy an innovative cocktail, wine, or beer paired by award-winning sommelier Caroline Styne.
In 2015, Dune opened in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles. Our vision was to pay homage to the food we love using the freshest, cleanest, and most local ingredients possible. We were inspired to add the voice of our city to the chorus of beautiful and diverse cultures who call this cuisine their own, and to create our own unique version of the street food of the Levant and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Bonavista Revolving Lounge at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel. Great for a martini!
Sip classic cocktails with an innovative twist at BonaVista Lounge. Tempting libations, light restaurant entrees and small plates are on the menu, as are impressive views of Los Angeles from the 34th floor of this revolving venue.