A gallerist in Georgia brings UCLA alumni work together
“Via Café" is a nostalgic look at the Chinatown art scene of the early 2000s
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a handful of small galleries in downtown LA’s Chinatown neighborhood opened amid the souvenir shops and restaurants. With names adopted from previous businesses, China Art Objects and Black Dragon Society showed work by UCLA art students and became the hubs of a burgeoning art scene. Cheap beer and tofu spring rolls helped fuel a punk-inspired community of artists who threw wild parties and concerts while selling their work at dirt-cheap prices.
A new salon-style exhibition, Via Café, relives that heady time, bringing together work from about three-dozen old friends on one wall of a gallery in, of all places, a small town in rural Georgia.
