On the historic night when Barack Obama was elected as the first African American President of the United States, while people flooded the streets from Harlam to Hollywood, my particular neighborhood was subdued. And it wasn’t because I dwell in a particularly Republican enclave. In fact, my local stretch of Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood is known as boys town. We’re as liberal as you can get in these parts. But along with Obama’s victory came news that Proposition 8 had effected a ban on gay marriage in California. A sobering reminder that as much reason as their was to celebrate, there was still work to be done.
A little over a year later the fight for equality continues, and it’s taken the form of a pop-up art gallery. Produced by the same team that was behind the Shepard Fairey’s now infamous HOPE poster campaign and the subsequent Manifest Hope gallery at the Democratic National Convention, the Manifest Equality Gallery takes on the issue of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights with the same DIY artistic spirit brought to the fore of the Obama campaign of 2009.
Located in a empty shell of a shuttered Big Lots retail store on Vine just south of Sunset Blvd in Hollywood, Manifest Equality displays work from 135 of the countries finest artists, including street art master Sam Flores, sculpture/painter Charlie Becker and photographer RJ Shaughnessy. The preview event Tuesday night hosted several hundred of LA’s favorite scensters, who were wowed by the music of Emily Wells and DJs Diabetic (Shepard Fairey) and Daisy O’Dell, and fired up by famed Harvey Milk associate and activist Cleve Jones. The fight continues.
Manifest Equality runs until Sunday 3/7 @ 1341 Vine Street, Hollywood, CA
