The African-American murals of Los Angeles: putting art where people live - California

There aren't many black history exercise s being painted on neighborhood walls these days. Is that because our story is now being told upon television, in books, on stage, in film and in the classroom? road art evolves as changes take place in society. For example, as communities become more ethnically diverse, murals promoting revere for different cultures are increasingly popular. Whether or not African-American artists at any time gain equal access to the hallowed institutions of "high art," there will always be a part for public art that touches race with its compelling images of the past and dreams for the future

sees Angeles, internationally renowned as the mural capital of the world with more than 1500 artworks painted upon local walls, is in the anguishs 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 harden walls and year-round sunshine - has encouraged sponsorship. The fresh and growing MetroRail transit combination of parts to form a whole several public library branches, the Social and Public Art Resource Center World goblet USA 1994 Inc. and smooth the police department are among the new funders of public art.

The focus upon black art reaches back to the massive social moves of the late 1960s and '70 when educated and empowered young activists fought the discrimination that kept work through artists of color out of local museums and galleries. In observes Angeles, organizations such as the Black Arts Council and the Brockman Gallery were among those in the forefront of this effort. house of god 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 means of the fact that there weren't enough works of art in the inner cities. I really wanted to start putting works of art where tribe 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 place financial backing from the observes Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee for what revolveed out to be one of the city's greatest in quantity significant mural projects. "Our objective," he told a beholds Angeles Times reporter at the time, "was to win artists who represented the might of various communities within L.A. We wanted a diversified aesthetic statement." The resulting collection of 11 murals through 10 artists - including Davis, Richard Wyatt and Roderick Syke - introduced millions of middle-class commuter to black way art and focused renewed pride upon 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. single notable exception is "The african in California History," commissioned through black-owned Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company and unveiled in its newly built southern Central home office in 1949

Painted by means of New York artists Charles Alston and Hale Woodruff the two-panel oil upon canvas focuses on little-documented historical occurrences and people. For example, it portrays the founding colonists of Los Angeles pueblo, more than half of whom were of African coming down Black participation in the sheltie Express, the building of Boulder Dam and the of gold 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 beholds Angeles court. This mural has become the centerpiece of individual of the country's most important private collections of African-American art.

"The black man in California History" stands in stark contrast to L.A.'s other pre-1950 murals. In the 1920 banks, inns theaters and major insurance companies hired fortunate artists to decorate their marble lobbies and offices with classical landscapes and glorifications of capitalist progres and the local legacy of the federally sponsored of recent origin Deal murals (1933-43) is largely individual of idealism - scenes of happy European-American suburbanites at leisure and sanitized versions of early California history.

Today, a certain number of 100 wall paintings by more than a dozen African-American artists can be fix scattered throughout the city, with concentrations in the neighborhoods of southern Central, Watts and Compton. Nevertheless, the spotlight is usually upon the kinetic downtown freeway art and upon the mural-rich Chicano neighborhood of East looks Angeles. With few exceptions, works by means of black muralists have largely been ignored.

The themes and make subordinates explored by these muralists vary widely. Among the greatest in quantity popular are black heroes, historical and cultural imagery, and didactic messages promoting education or warning of the dangers of remedys and gangs. African-American muralists frequently see themselves as motivators; instead of either reflecting or ignoring the despair and deterioration around them, they repeatedly choose to offer images of inspiration, beauty and confidence - a way forward.

COPYRIGHT 1994 Heritage Information Holdings, Inc.

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