The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Los Angeles will expand and revamp its East Seventh Street campus. The downtown mainstay will purchase the building it currently occupies and add a cafe, outdoor space and new artist-in-residence studios, a coup for artists battling the city’s rent inflation.
In a comment to The New York Times, Anne Ellegood, the museum’s director, emphasised the importance of sustainable growth. “I want to make sure that this institution is here for generations to come”, she said.
The ICA Los Angeles rebranded in 2017 after Ellegood took over from longtime director Elsa Longhauer, moving from the west side to the downtown arts district and changing its name from its original moniker, the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Founded in 1988, the institution has led the way in championing artists of colour, like Pope.L and Mickalene Thomas, both of whom had landmark solo shows there.
The museum’s $5m purchase of the former manufacturing building on East Seventh Street will be largely covered by a $4.4m naming gift by the Mohn Family Trust and is part of a broader fundraising campaign for $12m, about $7m of which has been raised so far. The ICA is one of a number of smaller Los Angeles art non-profits that centre the roles of artists in the cultural ecosystem, alongside spaces like Mark Bradford’s Art + Practice, Lauren Halsey's Summaeverythang and The Brick (formerly LAXART), which will open in its new location in the Melrose Hill gallery district on 16 June.
The ICA's new residency programme, designed to cultivate local artists, will occupy a community space designed by developer AvalonBay Communities, which includes a landscaped walkway for performances and events, and a new plaza for the building’s entrance.
Current south entrance and parking lot of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Photo: Jeff McLane/ICA LA
“How do we make this more inviting and create a sense of access,” the artist Andrea Fraser, an ICA trustee, told The New York Times, “so you’re not just coming to see shows or go to a specific programme, but it’s a community space.”
The building’s renovation plan also includes more parking, essential for a museum in Los Angeles that has had eight spaces total since 2017. The museum will transform its small lot into café seating and encourage visitors to park at the 160-spot public garage on adjacent Industrial Street.
The café will also feature a residency programme for up-and-coming chefs, allowing them to experiment with menu items and artistic collaborations.
"It’s a real signal that we are committed to this neighbourhood,” Ellegood said, “and that we’re not going anywhere.”