Gallery Hours: Fridays 2-6 PM
Saturdays & Sundays 1-5 PM
Admission is always free.

About the Armory


Our Mission
To nurture our community and its young people by creating, learning, and presenting art to advance equity and social justice.

Our Vision
We envision joyful, healthy, and equitable communities shaped by imagination, creativity, and diverse voices.
 


Pasadena's Armory Center for the Arts is a leader for contemporary art exhibitions and community-based arts education. The Armory believes that an understanding and appreciation of the arts is essential for a well-rounded human experience and a healthy community. At the core of our mission is a deep commitment to social justice through arts education.

Learning and Creating

The Armory teaching artists are the foundation of our organization. They collaborate with systems-impacted teens to create murals inside LA County juvenile justice facilities and probation centers. They instruct graphic design workshops at continuation high schools in Boyle Heights. They help public school teachers integrate art with math to excite imaginations and inspire critical thinking. They deliver free art classes at Title 1 elementary schools, inner-city parks, and recreation centers—mentoring some our most vulnerable community members.

If you'd like to support the efforts of our teaching artists, learn how here.

 

Presenting Contemporary Art

Armory exhibitions inspire dialogue around visual culture and contemporary life, contribute to global discourses in contemporary art, and introduce contemporary visual art to Pasadena, Southern California, and beyond. In addition to critically acclaimed exhibitions by contemporary artists, our exhibitions team also produces a broad range of public programs, including artist residencies, forums, screenings, and performances, many of which we now bring to you online.

 

Cultural Equity and Inclusion (CEI)

While 2020 presented profound challenges to the Armory, the importance of our cultural equity and inclusion work is underscored by the growing social movements dismantling institutional racism.

Cultural equity and inclusion work at the Armory means listening to the needs of our constituents and then seeing how we can play a role in achieving community cohesiveness, promoting wellness, and providing channels for self expression at a time of great uncertainty and intensified emotions. 

Through art and education programs, we believe our role is to enhance social-emotional wellness, provide a powerful vehicle for self-expression, unite communities, and help offer creative career pathways, which is more important now than ever. As the pandemic has further emphasized the economic disparities in our communities, the Armory, moving forward, focuses the majority of our efforts and resources on the most vulnerable populations and will seek to do this work more efficiently through the merging of our community, schools, and exhibition programs.

We will focus on serving the most vulnerable populations facing the most acute challenges and will work with them wherever they are in the places where we can make the greatest impact.

Below is the Armory's Cultural Equity and Inclusion Policy. Many arts organizations across Los Angeles County are engaging in work towards diversity and inclusion. At the Armory, we are integrating these values into our organizational DNA. This policy represents several months of work by our entire organization—from interns and artists, to board members. We understand this work represents an ongoing process. This journey will take time, courage, persistence, and commitment as we build the Armory's future.

 

 

 

 


 

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