Pssst... there's a new space for artists in LA
A new non-profit 5,000 sq ft modular space comprising a gallery and four studios, which is managed by artists wishing to support other artists, is due to open in the Boyle Heights neighbourhood of Los Angeles, with an inaugural exhibition on 13 May. The founders of Pssst, Barnett Cohen and Jules Gimbrone, plan to focus on developing a participatory and collaborative environment that welcomes a diverse demographic. They want to achieve this by awarding numerous temporary studio spaces and residency programmes to both local and international underrepresented artists, who may be struggling to afford a place to work in the city. The Pssst board of advisers includes A.L. Steiner, Davida Nemeroff and Jamillah James. An anonymous benefactor is also supporting renovations, challenging the incursion of wealthier art galleries in the area.

Downtown Los Angeles and the blocks to its east seem to be in the midst of a takeover by warehouse-size art spaces these days, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for more. Two young artists, Barnett Cohen and Jules Gimbrone, have announced plans to open an artist-directed, nonprofit gallery and artist residency in a 5,000-square-foot warehouse in the Boyle Heights neighborhood.

The space, to be called Pssst (the name is not an acronym but onomatopoeic) will open with its first exhibition May 13 and plans to focus, its founders said, on “underrepresented artists — women, people of color, or L.G.B.T.Q.-identified — who challenge existing structures within the arts.”

The space’s founders, who met during graduate studies at the California Institute of the Arts after both spending many years in New York, said the warehouse, a former Thai-food distribution plant, had been bought and was being renovated for them by a benefactor who preferred to remain anonymous. But Mr. Cohen — perhaps sensitive to tensions that have been building in Boyle Heights, a working-class neighborhood, over the incursion of big-money art galleries and their attendant gentrification — stressed that the patron “was not a real-estate developer.” The space’s board of advisers will include the artist A. L. Steiner; Davida Nemeroff, founder of Night Gallery; and Jamillah James, a curator at the Hammer Museum.

Jules Gimbrone, who identifies as gender-fluid and prefers not to use Mr. or Ms., said the space would emphasize “artists supporting artists” by providing studio spaces for artist residencies and also by awarding temporary studio space for Los Angeles-based artists who are struggling to afford the city.