Your guide to the places that make L.A.'s art scene

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred I wasn’t born in Los Angeles, but it’s the city that raised me.I moved here fresh out of college with a doe-eyed dream of stepping into the kind of art scene I’d read about in history books.

Instead, it quickly became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to just waltz in with my Southern charm and big smile; there would need to be some sort of hack into the art world — a place rife with unspoken roles and gatekeeping — if I wanted to get anywhere as a non-nepo artist.After years of blister-inducing heels-on-the-ground gallery hopping and late-night schmoozing, I found myself falling in love with this city and slowly realizing that the best parts of L.A.were rarely found in mainstream spaces.

There’s an inventiveness here that comes from the sprawl of the city — artists like myself who are constantly improvising, building their own ecosystems because nothing is handed to them.I fell in love with how “never-ending” the artist’s practice can feel in Los Angeles, how a studio visit can veer into an hours-long conversation about life.

It made the city feel less like a scene to fit into and more like a living, breathing network you have to contribute to before receiving anything back.In 2014, Alex Benzer and I decided to put our hard-earned knowledge to work by creating Curate LA: a community-driven platform designed to pull back the curtain on the Los Angeles art world by mapping under-the-radar exhibitions and adventurous artist-run spaces, and connecting our audiences directly with artists, curators, galleries and collectors through candid interviews, weekly guides and real-time event recommendations.Because despite appearances, an art scene isn’t held up by pristine white walls; it’s built by the artists sharing a cig and an idea outside on the sidewalk, the gallerists stocking th...