LA Artcore celebrates his 30th anniversary this year. With its modest beginning of having established a gallery in Pasadena, California, Artcore relocated to Downtown Los Angeles where galleries were mushrooming along with a deluge of artists from Venice, California, where studio rent was skyrocketing. Joel Wach, a former Los Angeles City Councilman, passed a bill to legalize the use of downtown industrial buildings as live-in artist studios. Consequently, the Santa Fe artist colony and the Brewery arts colony-the largest United States art colony, were established, attracting artists with its low-rent studios. During this period, Artcore was established as a non-profit entity in a warehouse located at Mateo Street, near 7th Street.

Although Downtown enjoyed two decades of an active art scene, the intervention of business interests and its need for reclaiming warehouses created an artist migration to Southern Californian suburban areas. During this period Artcore also relocated itself to the Brewery Arts complex and established our second gallery at the historic Union Center for the Arts in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles. The city now with Disney Music Hall, is surrounded by significant museums as Japanese American National Museum, Japanese American Cultural Community Center, Geffen Contemporary Museum of Art and Museum of Contemporary Art. The city government has offered buildings and funds to establish galleries in Downtown and our current Downtown Art Walk. Carlo Marcucci has established poetry reading sessions during the day of the walk enhancing the circulation of audiences to LA Artcore.

According to our mission statement, Artcore has dedicated three decades of service to help develop the careers of artists and bring contemporary art to the public. To provide credibility to merging and mid-career artists’ works, Artcore produced Visions Art Quarterly Magazine for ten years. This service had extended primarily throughout the Western states; California, Oregon and Washington, and eventually its subscription expanded to foreign countries. Another unique service of Artcore is its International Exchange Shows which were established during the 80s’. We have global connections in the arts with Korea, Japan, Thailand, Germany, Italy and has become a significant educational program for artists. Technology has greatly simplified the negotiation of our international exchange programs.