For years, artist Heather Benjamin has been at the forefront of New York’s punk scene; creating zines, books and art that explore a range of social taboos.

Sphinxes, chimaeras, dragons and cowgirls – the women in Heather Benjamin’s artwork are mythical and riddled with symbolism. Using different shapes and forms, the New York artist’s avatars represent her emotional landscape and relationship with her body. The result? An array of brutally honest visual representations of the many complex sides of sex, womanhood and physicality – at times difficult to digest, but all undeniably real.

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Restoring a photographic narrative from a de-colonial perspective allows for a face to face experience with images that no longer stand in the way of dignity. The United American Indian Involvement Photographic Project inaugural exhibition at the These Days Gallery gives back respect and voice to all those who came to the United American Indian Involvement (UAII) center in downtown Los Angeles for food, shelter, health and human services during a period of relocation from Native American reservations to urban cities across the United States from 1959-1979. 

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These Days is a bookstore and zine emporium owned and curated with impeccable taste by born and raised Angelenos Stephen and Jodi Ziegler. “We’ve been residents of downtown LA for 13 years now,” says Stephen, who is an accomplished photographer in his own right and regularly hustles his own photographic fanzines. “Back then, Winston Street was rough and dirty and only the adventurous and/or those looking to score drugs would venture down there on foot.

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From February 24th through April 8th, These Days is exhibiting the work of Leafar Seyer, singer of the Cholo Goth duo Prayers. We first met Leafar by chance over a year ago, when he and his manager happened into the gallery. Although we had mutual friends, we hadn't yet heard of Prayers. We chatted for awhile and were impressed by Seyer’s low key attitude and style. It was obvious he had something, that he was special. When they left we went on YouTube and found the video for their song Young Gods. From the opening beat set to a black and white drone shot of Seyer’s San Diego neighborhood Sherman Heights, we were hooked. We continued, viewing videos for Gothic Summer, their cover of Pet Shop Boys West End Girls, and the autobiographical song From Dog To God. We were into it.

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When the situation in Charlottesville, Va. shifted from tense to violent to fatal during the Rogues' parade of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other deplorables, photographer Ian Reid says he felt a grave sense of inevitability.

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Los Angeles Noir

Indian Alley is an intense one-block stretch of dirty alleyway. It is paved with a mixture of new asphalt and the original hundred year old (approximate) red granite bricks that used to pave many of the downtown streets. It can be eerie and uncomfortable to be in sometimes like there is a restless spirit residing there, always watching.

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We are quite frequently asked about the curious building we are located in, so in this post I am going to attempt to tell some of it's history, what has taken place here, and some of the characters who have been involved over the last 130 years. It’s a long and storied history that I will only be able to scratch the surface of. All the information presented here was found by poring through the LA Times archives at the downtown LA Public Library. I have yet to find a photo of the original building or the original inhabitants but am sure with more devoted sleuthing I will eventually unearth something. 

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Ian Reid is a skater, a photographer, a filmmaker, a raconteur, an obsessive of subcultures, and a Brooklynite...but mostly he's a photographer. His current show, A Day's Work, is comprised of photos from his time spent collaborating with members of New York's BDSM community, but make no mistake, this exhibition was born out of skateboarding. When legendary skater Mike Carroll of Girl Skateboards decided he wanted his new pro deck to be adorned with Ian's photos, many of those involved were a bit hesitant. It was a risk for the company to use such provocative imagery and for Ian, who has been completely dedicated to his photography since 2008, it was a risk that might keep him in the small box of "skate photographer/filmer." Instead it became a win all the way around. Not only for Girl and Ian, but for the BDSM community as well

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Sustainable clothing brand OUTERKNOWN – founded by world champion surfer Kelly Slater – asked legendary surf writer, photographer and director Jamie Brisick to interview artists Niki Livingston and Yusuke Tsukamoto of Lookout & Wonderland, the duo behind our current exhibition “Absolute Magnitude”.

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Talking with photographer and painter Nick Waplington is akin to viewing and pondering his work. There is a lot of information to sort through. But if you can find some order in the onslaught of ideas, or the “chaos” as he likes to call it, you will find a perspective wildly and almost enviably unique. The subjects of his conversation are as varied as those within his photographs and his paintings. While Waplington’s work has dealt with environmental concerns, rave culture, the creative processes and inner struggles of the late Alexander McQueen, and (as in his paintings) his own inner monologue, a 40-minute conversation with Waplington darts around discussions about his creative process, international politics, the contemporary art world and the business surrounding it, and even skateboarding.

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