Every paint has its own story behind, there’s a lot of life into any of it.
The building on the right side is the World Famous Lido Apt. on Wilcox Avenue, Hollywood, a place I used to live and share with Emma, Shelley, Vicky and whoever was coming back then to stay over with us or to party when clubs will shut down
Wilcox Avenue is also part of the infamous Yucca Corridor, a ‘”formerly notorious”[1] and “once crime-ridden”[2] stretch of Yucca Avenue in Hollywood” but we manged to get out of there, somehow, alive
At the time, I was struggling by finding out my way with music and I had no idea I could paint even if my rooomate has to deal with the fact that I was drawing kitchen’s cabinet and bathroom’s door at the place [see picture below]
The Lido apt, called back then the Lido hotel, went into history more for the Eagles’ back picture on their album “Hotel California” than for the crazy girl that one night jumped off the window impailing her self on the fences
The back cover photo was not shot in The Beverly Hills Hotel lobby but rather in the lobby of the much lower budget Lido Hotel on the corner of Yucca Street & Wilcox Avenue in Hollywood, California.
The dark spots and the bright light of the painting means a lot for my personal path as while I was living in there, I was going through some of the thoughest and lower moment of my time in LA. Music wasn’t going nowhere, I litterally have 2 bucks letf on me and I couldn’t move on
The Lido could be Heaven. The Lido could be Hell. In its three-quarters of a century at the knot of Yucca and Wilcox, it has been a swank hotel, a theatrical way station, a rooming house, a flophouse, a crack house, a retreat for dancers and writers, mistresses and drunks, the start of something big or the end of it, a Hollywood rite. It has five stories, 110 units, and a rooftop neon sign that never lights.
Once we got kicked out from our building manager, a new yorker dude with a raspy radiophonic voice that was making any moment like we were living into a freakin’ commercial, moving three building down on Wilcox didn’t improve my situation
Still, it has been one of the greatest time of my life – Kat Von D was working on a tatto shop one block down – the Burgundy Room, a dark tiny dive bar where I was djing every monday night, was also right down the corner – It’s all in there, the sparks, the glitter, the dark side of it.
If I own anything to anybody, that’s the guy here below. Todd “Sickboy” Bishop came over one night with Clay‘s pick up truck, grab my rags and forced me to move into the Hollywood Biltmore Apt on Orange Drive
That was the moment when I left the shady side of LA behind to move closer to a brighter spot but that’s another painting I’ll tell you about on the next one.
This painting went on ehibitions on my first art show in the beautiful 1570’s Villa Sesso Schiavo and I am not going to sell it –
Download the free catalogue of the event on this page
Gianluca Dal Bianco art & music 