The Brick (LAXART)

The Brick is a nonprofit contemporary art space in Los Angeles that presents exhibitions, public art projects, publications, and public programmes. It uses contemporary art to explore pressing cultural and political questions, and all programmes are free and open to the public.

Since 2005, The Brick has produced more than 400 projects, many of them newly commissioned works and solo exhibitions that have shaped contemporary art discourse in Southern California. Collaborations with the Getty and the Hammer Museum—such as the Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival (2012), Video Art in Latin America (2017), and Made in L.A. 2012—highlight its role in the region’s cultural infrastructure.

Visitors encounter contemporary art in a wide range of media, including installation, video, performance, and research-driven projects. Recent and current exhibitions such as Life on Earth: Art & Ecofeminism and MONUMENTS address topics from ecofeminism and environmental justice to contested monuments and public memory.

Yes. The Brick has co-organised exhibitions that have attracted significant public debate, notably MONUMENTS (23 October 2025–3 May 2026), which recontextualises removed Confederate and Jim Crow–era monuments alongside contemporary artworks to examine race, history, and public memory in the United States. Widely covered by local and international media, the exhibition has provoked strong responses while remaining aligned with The Brick’s mission to address key issues of the present through contemporary art.

The Brick approaches politically charged subjects through exhibitions and public programmes that foreground critical inquiry, historical context, and open discussion. Rather than offering definitive positions, its curatorial framework emphasises art’s capacity to raise questions about contested symbols, narratives, and forms of public memory.

Lauri Firstenberg is a Los Angeles–based curator and art historian who founded LAXART in 2005, creating the independent nonprofit space that later became The Brick. She holds a PhD in the History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University and has held curatorial roles at institutions including Artists Space in New York and the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House in Los Angeles. As founding Executive Director and Chief Curator, she helped develop experimental exhibitions, public art projects, and collaborations—including the Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival and Made in L.A. 2012—that laid the groundwork for The Brick’s current programme.

LAXART was renamed The Brick in 2024, when the organisation moved into its new 5,000-square-foot home at 518 N. Western Avenue, which opened to the public in June 2024. The name references both the building’s exposed red brick interior and the idea of a “building block” within a larger cultural structure, marking a new chapter for the organisation while preserving its core mission.

The Brick (formerly LAXART) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) art space whose primary income comes from contributions and grants rather than ticket sales or commercial activity. Support includes funding from organisations such as the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, and the Pasadena Art Alliance, as well as major individual donations, including a 1 million USD gift from Jarl and Pamela Mohn toward its new building and programme.projects.

Jarl and Pamela Mohn are Los Angeles–based art collectors and philanthropists whose giving has significantly shaped the city’s contemporary art landscape. In addition to a major joint gift of their MAC3 collection and an acquisition endowment to the Hammer Museum, LACMA, and MOCA, they have supported organisations across Southern California, including a 1 million USD donation that helped fund The Brick’s new facility and programme.

Admission to The Brick’s exhibitions and public programmes is free. Free access is fundamental to its mission to make contemporary art and critical discourse available to as wide an audience as possible.

Yes. The Brick regularly organises talks, screenings, performances, concerts, and other public programmes in conjunction with its exhibitions. These events are designed to place artworks in social and historical context and to provide accessible entry points into contemporary art and current debates.