ABOUT THE GALLERY
SPACE
Architecture and Building History: The brick structure was built in 1923 in “the Flats” (the floodplain below Boyle Heights) as an alcohol bottling and distillery plant in prohibition-era Los Angeles. The last occupant, before purchase by MaRS, was an illegal marijuana nursery - which became known after a heat lamp fire which burned down everything but the brick walls in 2012. The renovation of the space was based on the study of ancient temple architecture and retained the fire-scarred floors, only refinishing them to provide an even surface.
The exhibition space is maximized by a mitochondrial layout, creating five distinct spaces, as well as a front gallery room that becomes a window display visible from the street. The lighting
was engineered with moonlight-balanced (4100 Kelvin) arrays, but designed with a reference
to basic supermarkets. A 700-square-foot-succulent garden was added to the gallery’s outdoor space using a non-sequitur architectural cinder block design.
The location of the gallery, pocketed underneath the largest bridge in Los Angeles, is meant to
be detached from everyday societal dynamics, requiring a sort of necessary pilgrimage. The
gallery door is a thousand-pound, ten-foot-by-eight-foot single-pane of glass, balanced on a
central pivot axis, requiring the enterer to compare their body against it. The antechamber of
the gallery is designed to disorient the participant, with stark black bars that project and recess
into the white space - a reference to ancient processions sharply using light and shadow for the
same purpose. This antechamber will further be occupied by Shop!; a curated bookshop with a
constellation of ideas and cultural references.
People and Programing
Museum as Retail Space (MaRS) is an impossible parallax of neoliberal art world context with astrological cosmology in which time and relationships are circular.
The etymology of “exhibit” is from 15th century legal terminology, to display evidence for an argument. A contemporary art exhibition could be understood, to display evidence for an argument of existence.
MaRS’ programing focuses on immersive exhibitions of regional and international contemporary artists, scheduling six to seven shows annually. MaRS is placing an importance on solo shows to encourage gallery visitors to be subsumed by an artist’s respective aesthetic and conceptual arguments.
The gallery’s curatorial practice follows a consumer-constructivist model, positing that one creates meaning in our present society through consumptive participation, intended to empower collectors and future collectors as being intrinsic to the canonization of art. This is a synthetical curatorial practice to founding MoMA director Alfred Barr’s belief in pedagogy for “the educated consumer” and collective spectatorship promoted by El Lissitzky and other founders of the Bauhaus.
Director and Owner • Robert Zin Stark
Thank you…
…to the many artists, thinkers, viewers, and lovers.