Boyle Heights gallery offers protesters “symbolic” closure

A war of attrition against art galleries in the western industrial area of Boyle Heights has caused one to announce its closure and another, Museum as Retail Space, to offer up his artist-activist antagonists the “symbolic and actual closing of my gallery.”

Why, he says, do they target the galleries over, say, the 6th Street Viaduct replacement, a multi-million dollar product connecting the affluent Arts District with Boyle Heights? Zin Stark tells DnA he has come to the conclusion they are “a group of intelligent cultural enactors and they're working with symbols and symbolism and community more so than actual political aims.”

Elizabeth Blaney, co-founder of Union de Vecinos, in front of the group’s office in Boyle Heights. Photo by Avishay Artsy.