viewfromaloft

Final Days for Public to Comment on Mural Ordinance Draft

Street artist Esteban Irwin completes his L.A. Freewall at 7th and Mateo in the downtown Los Angeles Arts District. Curated by JetSetGraffiti I Photo by Ed Fuentes

 

The list of the remaining Mural Ordinance Draft meetings include informal comunity groups and structured panels in a gallery or academic setting. On Monday, it was confirmed the final panel will be held in the Arts District and feature street artists Shepard Fairey and Saber. The deadline to comment on the mural ordinance is Wednesday, February 8th.

 

 

Thursday, January 26 Bringing Into Conversation: Restoring Memory in the Public Sphere Mural Art panel presentation with Norma Montoya, Carlos Callejos, Joseph "Nuke" Montalvo, Tanner Blackman, Lisbeth Espinosa. Moderated by Jimmy Centeno. Vincent Price Art Museum East Los Angeles College / 1301 Cesar E Chavez (Monterey Park) Thursday, January 26 / 5pm to 7pm Vincent Price Art Museum is located at the southeast corner of the campus, at Cesar E Chavez Ave and Collegian Ave

Monday, January 30 Reading and Discussion of the New Mural Ordinance for Los Angeles With Tanner Blackman. Hosted by the East Side Riders and UPPA Monday, January 30 / 6:30pm to 8:30pm Watts Labor Community Action Center / 109 S. Central (Watts) 

 

 Tuesday, January 31st Mural Ordinance Update: Introduction by Dr Manuel Aguilar-Moreno, Art History Professor CSULA. With Tanner Blackman, City Of Los Angeles; Isabel Rojas-Williams, Executive Director Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles; Muralists Frank Romero and Ismael Cazarez;  Adam “Codak” Smith, Street Artist; and David Diaz, Director of Urban Planning CSULA. Tuesday, January 31 / 6:10 pm / California State University, Los Angeles  5151 State University Drive / Room FA223, Art Building

 

Saturday February 4th

Q & A @ Lab Art's first of the Conversation series: "Legal Walls: With Tanner Blackman, LA City Planning Department; Jonthan Paul, Street Artist; Lydia Emily Archibald, Street Artist and Activist; Daniel Lahoda, LA Freewalls Project and LALA Gallery Owner

Saturday, February 4th / 7 to 9pm

LAB ART / 217 S. La Brea Ave (Mid-City)

Monday, February 6th

Reading and Discussion of the New Mural Ordinance

With Tanner Blackman. Hosted by Tia Chucha and UPPA.

Monday, February 6th / 6pm to 9pm 

Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural and Bookstore / 13197-A Gladstone Ave (Sylmar)

 

Tuesday, February 7th 

LA Mural Ordinance Community Discussion:

With Shepard Fairey and Saber; Tanner Blackman, Daniel Lahoda, Offices of District 9 and District 14.

Tuesday February 7th / 7 pm

LALA Gallery / 1335 Willow Street (Arts District)
 
Enter on Santa Fe, next to Villain’s Tavern

All that mural-talk made 2011 an interesting year

I joined the year-end editorial crowd with a list of Los Angeles mural stories, which is now posted at KCET's Departures. Some of the stories are ongoing and not going away soon, which should make 2012 just as interesting a year.

There have been a number of people thanking me for covering the state of the art, but thanks should also go to KCET's Juan Devis and Zach Behrens for giving mural coverage a bright green light.

A Year-End List:  [view]

Previous mural posts at KCET Departures: [view]

LAist has their take on the list: [view]

LA Weekly goes the street art angle: [view]

From December 8, a visit to KCRW and Which Way LA? to talk about  "Reviving LA's Iconic Mural Movement"  [listen]

Pictured: Tanner Blackman, City Planner and Mural Ordinance Code Breaker, in the Arts District October 2011

"Art of Miguel Covarrubias" opens at the California African Museum

 


 Another thing to like about J. Michael Walker's "City of Mind," now on display at the UCLA Hammer Museum, is that continues a vibrant illustrative map legacy from the Latin American avant garde movement. Miguel Covarrubias, a contemporary of Los Tres Grandes' Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, managed to deftly straddle fine and commercial art, including a series of mural size maps that defined people and place. Covarrubias is the subject of a new exhibition at the California African American Museum. Maria Lopez files a preview of the exhibition.

A Los Angeles Map Like No Other

Portion of "City in Mind: A Lyrical Map of the Concept of Los Angeles" (2011),  a 23 feet wide by 5 feet high hand drawn map by J. Michael Walker.

If you wanted to make a birthday card for the City of Los Angeles (September 4, 1781),  it would be hard to top this map. It could be used every year. "All the Saints of the City of the Angels" project creator, J. Michael Walker, whipped out this beauty in ten days.

It hangs at the UCLA Hammer Museum for just a few weeks. LAPL map curator and librarian Glen Creason says it is "an absolute feast for bibliophiles and lovers of culture in this city." 

Maybe with that unexpected extra cash found by City Controller Wendy Greuel, the city can spare enough for Walker to do a map for each district.  More at KCET [New map of Los Angeles uses words as cultural way finders]

Murals Are "Endangered Species"

 "Endangered Species" (1990) Emily Winters  / Ocean Front Walk at Park Avenue / Photo courtesy of you-are-here.

My current post at KCET's blogs looks at the motion underway to "prepare and present an ordinance to define murals as something other than signs and establish a citywide program for permitting murals in the city."  The June 1 motion, presented by District 11 Councilmember Bill Rosendahl, who oversees Venice, wants a way for "the Emily Winters" of the world to continue their work.

Emily Winters'  "Endangered Species" was a personal statement  "about the encroachment of technology upon our quality of life" circa 1990. Now the title is an omen on the detoriation of mural production in Los Angeles circa 2011.

"New Mural Motion Seeks To Identify L.A.'s Murals As Art, Not Signs" [view]

Good Mo(u)rning. There is New Work By Shepard Fairey in The Arts District

ABOVE: "Mo(u)rning in America" in the Arts District. Photo by Melissa Richardson Banks / downtownmuse. BELOW: Shepard Fairey in the Arts District.  Mural being installed on Angel City Brewing. Photo courtesy of Jetset Graffiti.

In response to Republican Party discourse on President Obama's economic policy, Shepard Fairey has a new series of hand stenciled political wheat-paste art. With help from Jetset Graffitti, the large scale commentary is debuting around the Downtown Los Angeles Arts District. It was installed last week,  just in time for the opening of MOCA's "Art In The Streets."

“I was tired of people blaming Obama for the poor economy." said Fairey to those asking him about the installations. "Really, It all goes back to Reagan."

"It's Mo(u)rning in America" is located near 4th and Molino, close to the Downtown Arts District Dog Park. "Legislative Influence For Sale" graces Angel City Brewing on Alameda just south of Traction.

ADD: "Created on the street, at night, often in inaccessible places, graffiti writing is itself a species of physical performance. It’s not surprising then that images of the artists and their friends appear everywhere in the exhibition. As (Museum of Contemporary Art director and curator) Deitch noted, graffiti is an ephemeral form. Like performance art, it is often only experienced as documentation." Los Angeles Times' Review of "Art In The Streets"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outside Downtown: Red Tape for another Neighborhood Mural.

What has happened countless times in Boyle Heights and Downtown is now underway in Valley View. The long arm of the L.A.'s Department of Building and Safety, forced by having to follow confusing city ordinances, has fined a woman who commissioned a mural for her private wall, reports Bob Pool at the LA Times.

Retired studio costume illustrator Barbara Black hired young artists to paint an exterior wall on her property. She was fined $360 by the City of LA and faced an additional $1,925 fine if it wasn't removed.

There is an additional confounding twist of red tape:

Black, who lives on a fixed income, used a donation from her church to pay the $360 fine and had a half-dozen young artists repaint parts of the mural, eliminating the offensive word — "like."

Inspectors then decided that the wall was no longer an illegal sign but was now an illegal mural. They warned Black that future fines would escalate.

Black said she offered to cover the mural with tarps but officials held firm. "They said they'd cite me because they'd know what is underneath the cloth," she said.

While the city stumbles through the definition of what constitutes a commerical sign versus a mural, the slow acceptance that graffiti style works may qualify as art is roadblocked if typography in a design.

As usual, Building and Safety responded to a complaint from a neighbor.

The story includes photos by LAT photographer Al Seib.

New Mural in Lincoln Heights

Haramoknga – Place Where People Gather being installed at Highland Park's GlenMary Archway. Photo by waltarrr.

OUTSIDE OF DOWNTOWN L.A: Cyclists and skateboarders bookend “Haramoknga – Place Where People Gather," a new mural at Highland Park's Historic Glen-Mary Archway created by Pola Lopez, Heriberto Luna and a team of 15 youth artists. The piece was painted on canvas, off-site, before being affixed on the 1903 archway, a former waiting station for the Pacific Electric Trolley red car Glenmary Sycamore Grove stop.The site itself was once a gathering spot for L.A.’s indigenous tribes ("Haramokngna" is Tongva for “The Place Where People Gather.")

People will gather for its unveiling Sunday, Nov. 21, at 2:30 pm.

 

“Haramoknga – Place Where People Gather" / Pola Lopez, Heriberto Luna / The GlenMary Archway (4671 Figueroa Blvd)

 

 

(More) Layers of Tagging on One Downtown Freeway Mural

 

From the City Hall observatory, a Caltrans crew member was seen surveying "Galileo, Jupiter, Apollo" mural by John Wehrle.

Hard to say why, but he stopped a few times to examine the piece.

The mural was painted in 1984 with special silicate paint that binds directly with the cement, and may be on it last legs as the State of California battles budget woes making any restoration unreachable.  Not to mention the additional layers of tagging from just this year.

A call was made to the Caltrans department overseeing graffiti to confirm if something was planned.  It will be answered in the order it was received, according to the recorded voice that also tersely ran down the list of days the office will be closed due to "furloughs set by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger."

 

Previous [2007 VFaL]

Politics and Art Link

 

It was with a surprise, and some trepidation, to discover this blog is now assigned reading for a few University syallbi concentrating on Latino arts. I may have to backtrack and make sure every post about Chicano art is properly tagged (so to speak).

As it happens, I took some time over the weekend to shoot a few murals in Boyle Heights and see how the restored 1991 mural "Resurrection of the Green Planet" is holding up.

There was another reason to take fresh shots of the Ernesto de la Loza piece, located on César E. Chávez Avenue and Breed Street. For a long time, I wondered about the use of the main image of the healer that clearly is taken from photographer Graciela Iturbide's 1988 "Curacíon, Juchitán, Oaxaca."

Of course, it's Shepard Fairey's current ongoing battle with AP that has me wondering if any one defended the use of Iturbide's work as source material.