ABOUT Los Angeles Road Concerts

Los Angeles Road Concerts has shown work from over eighty Los Angeles creative people in unused public outdoor spaces along the entire lengths of Washington Boulevard’s 27 miles, from Whittier to Venice Beach, and San Fernando Road's 23 miles, from Sylmar to Lincoln Heights. Participants perform works, display installations, facilitate carpool happenings, and make music in unexpected spaces, such as on the sidewalk, between dumpsters, along railroad tracks, as well as inside the audience’s cars as they traverse one of LA’s very long streets. The audience can choose how long they want to spend at each spot, whether or not they want to park or leave their cars, skip spots or drive at different speeds between destinations as they traverse the lengthy street on a time/space continuum, culminating in an end performance at the street's end. Audience members are additionally invited to car pool with participants between spots and to switch car pools at their leisure.

Los Angeles Road Concerts seeks to investigate the possibilities of LA's lengthy streets as sites for artistic exploration while using the street itself as a cross-section to observe the city's diversity of landscapes and people, how the Los Angeles metropolis grew, and the massive in-between and negative spaces it left behind as it expanded. How can we generate a new kind of LA experience, utilizing its car culture to find meaning and attention to a collection of less obvious destinations? Additionally, through a wide and unselective open call process, Los Angeles Road Concerts brings together MFA graduates, local residents and other creative people to realize a broad array of kinds of interactions with the sites. Participants find unlikely audiences, people who may have never been to a gallery space but who ultimately take great interest in participants' work.