There is a 120-year old building that sits nestled on Winston Street between 4th and 5th streets in Downtown Los Angeles. It once was a hotel for guys who worked on the transcontinental railroad. At another time it was a brothel and the first pimping sentence in the history of LA was given to the manager of the hotel. Then in the thirties the lawyers for the American Communist party worked out of the first floor of the building. Eventually it became a rescue mission for alcoholic vets who found themselves without shelter on Skid Row, and then became the first federally funded Native American Rescue Mission.
Now, the building houses These Days; a gallery and store owned by longtime Downtown residents and LA natives Stephen and Jodi Zeigler, which features emerging artists, collectible and out-of-print photography books and zines, modern and vintage design objects, original art and more.
These Days have partnered with author, publisher, archivist, and historian Bryan Ray Turcotte (author of Fucked Up + photo Copied, Punk Is Dead Punk Is Everything, It All Dies Anyway, as well as the main force behind MOCAtv's The Art of Punk series) for their newest exhibition "Sex And Dying in High Society," which stands as a celebration of the seminal and quintessential Los Angeles punk band X.
The exhibition, made up of rare fliers, original art, and photographs, is gleaned from Turcotte’s vast archives of punk ephemera, and acts as a historical document of this group of Angeleno outsiders and their contribution to rebel culture.
We've been cooking up a piece about These Days x Bryan Ray x Sex and Dying as part of our "Between the Lines" series, which will premiere next week.
Don't miss the opening reception for "Sex and Dying in High Society" tomorrow at These Days from 7-10pm (These Days - 118 Winston St, Los Angeles).
