A call for equal rights at Manifest Equality's pop-up art gallery »

A battery of fluorescent lights blazes in an emptied retail space on Vine Street in Hollywood. Once home to the discount emporium Big Lots!, the cavernous building has been gutted of housewares and transformed into Manifest Equality,  a temporary art show running through the weekend.

Orbiting themes of equality, justice, unity and love, the pop-up event intends to spotlight civil rights issues surrounding Proposition 8, which, since its 2008 passing, has prohibited marriage between homosexual partners in California. The large-scale show exhibits work from hundreds of well-known and emerging names, including street artists Robbie Conal, Swoon and Shepard Fairey, and illustrative painters Barry McGee, Gary Baseman and Elizabeth McGrath.

ManifestEquality.org is in part the brainchild of Yosi Sergant, who helped orchestrate two Manifest Hope  art shows in support of Barack Obama's presidential run. After taking a position as communications director at the Washington-based National Endowment for the Arts -- and resigning last September -- Sergant, 33, moved back to Los Angeles and felt compelled to address his opposition to Prop. 8.

Alongside public relations figure Jennifer Gross and event producer Apple Via, Sergant opted for an art show that would draw from the limelight of Oscar weekend.

"Los Angeles is one of the epicenters of creativity in the world," he says. "And with the Academy Awards approaching, it seemed like an excellent opportunity to take advantage of the heightened energy and attention and start a conversation of substance."

Through Sunday, more than  10,000 people are expected to tour Manifest Equality, including film industry glitterati stopping by between Oscar engagements. An opening night reception Wednesday features musical act Fitz & the Tantrums and DJ sets by artists Tim Biskup and Fairey. Another event Saturday features performances by indie band Sea Wolf, singer-songwriter Sam Sparro and Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock, with DJs sets by the Crystal Method.

Before entering the gallery, patrons pass an elaborate heart-shaped string installation and a 100-foot-long collaborative mural of Lady Justice by graffiti artists El Mac, Retna and Kofie.

"The space itself is just as much a unique piece of art," says Sergant.

Indoors, the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence scroll across the top of the walls; another installation involves a full-scale house torn in two.

Artwork was still coming in days before the opening, and Sergant says that pieces represent an array of styles and media. "Oil paintings range from beautiful portraits of lovely couples to funny, lighthearted animation," he says.

L.A.-based photographer Chris Anthony is showing eerily gloomy imagery of a masked figure in a dunce cap,  blurred and distorted by a 150-year- old lens. Another local photographer, Dan Monick, is exhibiting two candid portraits, both of which he says were chosen for their "melancholic hopefulness."

Illustrative painter Barry McGee is donating a 22-piece installation, with proceeds going to the Courage Campaign, a nonprofit civil rights advocacy organization.

Also on display are five pieces chosen from the Manifest Equality art contest.  More than 1,000 entries were judged by L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Hammer Museum Director Ann Philbin and artist Ed Ruscha, among others.

"I believe firmly that artists have been at the forefront of presenting conversation," says Sergant. "Artists have the ability to take complex social issues and distill them down into powerful visual language."

Animator and painter Carlos Ramos says that his offering involves "a  giant Godzilla blowing rainbows of  love out his face. It just tickled me  -- the idea of Japan's biggest monster being an ambassador of equality and love."

--Alie Ward

Image: Jon Wippich's "Up With Art," will be among the works at the exhibition Manifest Equality. Courtesy of the artist.