Mieke Marple and Davida Nemeroff.Whitney Hubbs
For many, Los Angeles is a boulevard of broken dreams.
It hasn't turned out that way for Montreal transplant Davida Nemeroff, though. Night Gallery, a space for "smoking, drinking and art" that she opened in February, 2010, in a strip mall in the city's trashy Lincoln Heights 'hood, has proved a go-to/be-seen venue for scenesters, art lovers and artists pretty much from the get-go. Interview magazine included a page on it (and her) in its L.A.-themed January, 2011, issue.
Now the thirtysomething Nemeroff and her business partner, California native Mieke Marple, have moved Night Gallery to new digs, a 560-square-metre warehouse on the southern edge of downtown L.A. Night Gallery used to be just that: open only Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., and billed as "where art and revolution happen while you're sleeping."
The new venue has the more business-like hours you expect of a for-profit – noon to 7 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday – but Nemeroff and Marple insist: "We still are who we are. Our dream is to sustain our vision and to win over more hearts and minds to it."