The African-American murals of Los Angeles: putting art where people live - California
American Visions, Dec-Jan, 1994 by Robin J. Dunitz
There aren't many black history lessons being painted on neighborhood walls these days. Is that because our story is now being told on television, in books, on stage, in film and in the classroom? Street art evolves as changes take place in society. For example, as communities become more ethnically diverse, murals promoting respect for different cultures are increasingly popular. Whether or not African-American artists ever gain equal access to the hallowed institutions of "high art," there will always be a role for public art that touches people with its compelling images of the past and dreams for the future.
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Los Angeles, internationally renowned as the mural capital of the world with more than 1,500 artworks painted on local walls, is in the throes of a mural renaissance. A renewed interest in multiculturalism - combined with the continuing influence of Mexico (which has a long-standing mural tradition), an abundance of plaster and concrete walls and year-round sunshine - has encouraged sponsorship. The new and growing MetroRail transit system, several public library branches, the Social and Public Art Resource Center, World Cup USA 1994 Inc. and even the police department are among the recent funders of public art.
The focus on black art reaches back to the massive social movements of the late 1960s and '70s, when educated and empowered young activists fought the discrimination that kept work by artists of color out of local museums and galleries. In Los Angeles, organizations such as the Black Arts Council and the Brockman Gallery were among those in the forefront of this effort. Church social halls, commununity centers, libraries and neighborhood walls became popular art venues.
"In 1976 1 was a junior at UCLA," remembers muralist Richard Wyatt. "At that time I was bothered by the fact that there weren't enough works of art in the inner cities. I really wanted to start putting works of art where people lived. That was it for me, the niche - public works of art that are just as finely crafted as any gallery or museum piece."
Community arts organizer Alonzo Davis also recognized that niche. In 1984, he found financial backing from the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee for what turned out to be one of the city's most significant mural projects. "Our objective," he told a Los Angeles Times reporter at the time, "was to get artists who represented the energy of various communities within L.A. We wanted a diversified aesthetic statement." The resulting collection of 11 murals by 10 artists - including Davis, Richard Wyatt and Roderick Sykes - introduced millions of middle-class commuters to black street art and focused renewed pride on an undervalued local cultural treasure.
Before community artists appropriated L.A.'s neighborhood walls, murals typically portrayed an elitist, Eurocentric interpretation of beauty, history and the American way of life. One notable exception is "The Negro in California History," commissioned by black-owned Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company and unveiled in its newly built South Central home office in 1949.
Painted by New York artists Charles Alston and Hale Woodruff, the two-panel oil on canvas focuses on little-documented historical events and people. For example, it portrays the founding settlers of Los Angeles pueblo, more than half of whom were of African descent. Black participation in the Pony Express, the building of Boulder Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge are also acknowledged. Among the significant individuals spotlighted is philanthropist and entrepreneur Biddy Mason, who, while still a slave, was forced to walk West from Mississippi. She later won her freedom in a Los Angeles court. This mural has become the centerpiece of one of the country's most important private collections of African-American art.
"The Negro in California History" stands in stark contrast to L.A.'s other pre-1950 murals. In the 1920s, banks, hotels, theaters and major insurance companies hired successful artists to decorate their marble lobbies and offices with classical landscapes and glorifications of capitalist progress, and the local legacy of the federally sponsored New Deal murals (1933-43) is largely one of idealism - scenes of happy European-American suburbanites at leisure and sanitized versions of early California history.
Today, some 100 wall paintings by more than a dozen African-American artists can be found scattered throughout the city, with concentrations in the neighborhoods of South Central, Watts and Compton. Nevertheless, the spotlight is usually on the kinetic downtown freeway art and on the mural-rich Chicano neighborhood of East Los Angeles. With few exceptions, works by black muralists have largely been ignored.
The themes and subjects explored by these muralists vary widely. Among the most popular are black heroes, historical and cultural imagery, and didactic messages promoting education or warning of the dangers of drugs and gangs. African-American muralists often see themselves as motivators; instead of either reflecting or ignoring the despair and deterioration around them, they frequently choose to offer images of inspiration, beauty and hope - a way forward.
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