These Days Gallery & Bookstore, located on the second floor of a jet-black building in Downtown Los Angeles, is currently hosting a powerful group exhibition that captures the essence of the city's underground anarchist-spirited movements. The show, titled "SURVIVAL MODE: Sufrir Es El Destino" (Suffering Is The Destiny), runs through November 8 and serves as a celebration of resilience in a city known for consuming its native residents.
The exhibition reflects the current climate where residents find themselves caught between rising rent costs and living essentials, increasingly targeted as minorities, while being overlooked and branded as the powers that be attempt to seize more control. The show features works by three local DIY artists who share a rebellious dissatisfaction with the status quo while honoring their community through their art.
Cesar Massturd's intricate, uncensored black-and-white ink drawings anchor much of the exhibition, showcasing his signature style that draws from humor, his environment, and the intensity of his past lifestyle. Massturd, who has been sober from drugs and alcohol for four years, brings relentless commitment to his work and has been commissioned by notable brands including BornxRaised, Street League Skateboarding, and The Belasco. His submissions include three posters inspired by artwork that once hung in his teenage bedroom, featuring Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, Tupac Shakur, and the Misfits, each denoting different sections of Hell with humorous graphics rendered in vivid black and white.
Abe Garcia, one of the founders of Descontrol punk shop and known locally for ADX Studio, his screen-printing collective, contributes chicha-colorful screen printing, photo decorating, airbrush, and acrylic typography to the exhibition. Garcia created a piece titled "Survival Mode" that explores how he and his peers work their hardest and support others, only to be consumed by capitalism and social criticism. His portraits bring forth histories and interesting characters he perceives as important for people like him to see and know about, including a featured portrait of Night Stalker Richard Ramirez glaring under the phrase "Goodbye Toulouse," taken from a Stranglers song.
Eduardo Soto rounds out the trio with spiritually conceptual canvases that show occult influences and abstract anger rooted in love. Soto took over the more secluded room in the gallery, creating an installation meant to remind viewers of impermanence. His main paintings depict life thriving and fleeting, facing each other, and when viewers are placed in the space, their own experiences fill the space between living and dying. The mural serves as a manifestation of healing.
The artists collectively wanted to create a "chaos wall" that naturally transformed into an altar. With show dates running through Dia de Muertos, the idea of a community ofrenda made room for everyone to combine trinkets and offerings into one collaborative piece. Placed above the altar is the group work "Survival Mode," a mashup of different tributes to the deceased, decorated with flowers, books, art, retro displays, crosses, candles, and other treasured knick-knacks. Garcia explains that they were all feeling a sense of grief, nostalgia, and community, which made the show very special to him.
Stephen Zeigler, who owns and operates These Days with his wife Jodi, selected these three artists to exhibit together based on their different but shared experiences as young artists born and raised in LA. The show was designed to reflect their view of what's happening in the city. Stephen and Jodi moved into the space in 2008, which had previously served as a piano store, then a pimp hotel, then a Catholic nun house, and finally a Native American rehab center.
Located on the corner of a small strip on the edge of LA's Historic Core, Toy District, and Skid Row neighborhoods, the area was dubbed "Indian Alley" in the 1970s and features murals and artwork by Indigenous American artists. These Days came to fruition in 2014 as a gallery, bookstore, and publisher, featuring new and out-of-print nonconformist art and photography. The gallery doesn't typically generate sales due to its eclectic nature, though collectors are welcome.
Zeigler emphasizes that he doesn't consider them part of the traditional art world, which he describes as "hedge fund managers making investments, speculating on artwork that can pay them back when they decide to resell down the line." Instead, he spends half his day dealing with the realities of the neighborhood, including getting people experiencing homelessness off his doorstep. He acknowledges how cutthroat creative work can be and aspires to slow down as much as possible, viewing These Days as a passion project born from the desire to bring light to the underground.
One notable piece on display is a banner titled "WARN A BRUH!" created by Garcia for a protest he participated in against ICE. Garcia didn't feel comfortable selling it for profit since he made it specifically for the protest, and any money from potential sales would be donated in full to LA TACO to help their independent coverage of immigration issues in Los Angeles.
The exhibition also featured live performances, including AHORAKI, an improvised sound project based between Los Angeles and Mexico City, which performed in the space on October 30, days before Dia De Muertos. The performance featured Soto along with artists Atiakatl Ce Tochtli Orozco, Edson Coyote, Jonas Derbez, and Andrés Lupone, with LA's Poeta Del Rio also joining for a spoken word performance.
As Zeigler explains, the gallery operates on mutual trust and appreciation, with artists trusting him with their life's work and efforts while he trusts them with the space that he and his wife have poured their hearts into. When asked about any ground rules the gallery operates by when programming or curating, his simple response is: "Work with the people you appreciate." The exhibition continues to serve as a window into the minds of three artists grinding to push their art and skills to survive, reflecting not just their struggles in their respective artistic fields, but also their internal struggles along the way.
