From the Eastsider.
Artist and gallery owner Laura Owens has found herself in the cross hairs of anti-gentrification protesters who want her to get out of Boyle Heights. As part of their campaign, protesters demonstrated last week during the opening of Owens’ show at the Whitney Museum in New York, chanting “Leave our hoods and do what’s right: Give your keys to Boyle Heights!” This week, Owens responded to those protests.
In a statement posted on the website of 356 Mission, the art space Owens runs, the artist said efforts to talk with the protesters have failed to yield any positive results. Instead, she said death threats were left in voicemail messages and demands were made to abandon her space.
The protests against Owens and her art dealer, Gavin Brown, in New York come after a year of tension in Boyle Heights between gentrification opponents and the owners and artists involved in new galleries and art spaces, primarily in former warehouse and commercial spaces in the lowlands near the L.A. River.
