A new art gallery, Mark Jude Gallery, has opened in the historic Sears building in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. The 5,000-square-foot space, plus a repurposed satellite gallery, occupies part of the 1.8-million-square-foot former Sears mail-order plant, which closed in 1992 and shut its store in 2021. The gallery features works by artists Megan Mueller, Antonio Kim, and Caterina Piccardo, and plans to host immersive exhibitions including performance art, experimental film, and interactive storytelling. Owner Mark Jude, a former executive chef at the Smithsonian Institution, moved the gallery from the Arts District to take advantage of lower rent and more space.
The opening matters because it signals a shift in Los Angeles's art geography, as rising rents push galleries from established hubs like the Arts District into more affordable, historically significant neighborhoods like Boyle Heights. The Sears building itself is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, and its partial reactivation as an arts venue could spur further cultural and economic revitalization in an area long underserved by the commercial art world. The gallery's focus on immersive and interdisciplinary programming also reflects broader trends in contemporary exhibition-making.