Greetings from the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles! Here is a look at what MCLA has been up to the past month! Events from September 2011 The Great Wall of Los Angeles: Restoration & Re-dedication Saturday, September 17, 2011 On Saturday, September 17 th, The Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles was happy to help celebrate the completed restoration of the “Great Wall of Los Angeles”. Community members from across Los Angeles joined artists, art advocates, and politicians to honor the legacy of this historic work of art. "The Great Wall of Los Angeles is a mural designed by Judy Baca and executed by community youth and artists coordinated by the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC). It is located in the community of Valley Glen, on the concrete sides of the Tujunga Wash. With a length of 2,754 feet (840 m), it is credited as one of the longest murals in the world. The mural depicts the history of California through several panels; the first panels begin with prehistory and colonialism, but most of the following panels deal with events of the 20th century. It was created in conjunction with the rise of the Chicano Movement of the 1960s-1980s. The Great Wall of Los Angeles also places emphasis on the history of Native Americans and minorities with sections depicting events such as Japanese internment and civil rights."  Photo Credit: Che Pepe View more photos of the event here
Restoration of Kent Twitchell’s Mural Monuments
Kent Twitchell was one of the first muralists that created magnificent public art throughout the greater Los Angeles area. He began his career in the early 1970s. Twitchell’s realistic and unique style make his portrait murals readily recognizable world-wide. He has recently completed restoration work on a few of his famous murals in Los Angeles including the first mural he ever painted "Steve McQueen Monument," "Strother Martin Monument," and "The Word" at Biola University in La Mirada. Kent Twitchell co-founded the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles in 1987 and he is currently MCLA's vice-president.
The Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles would like to acknowledge Kent Twitchell for his seminal role in helping to make Los Angeles one of the mural capitals of the world. With his dedication, Twitchell is striving to return Los Angeles to its former mural glory. Congratulations, and thanks, Mr. Twitchell!
Isabel Rojas Williams
Restoration of "The Word" Mural at Biola University
View more photos of these important works here
Pacific Standard Time Opening at the California African American Museum (CAAM)
Friday September 30, 2011
As a part of Pacific Standard Time (PST) – a citywide retrospective of art in Los Angeles from 1945 to 1980 – The Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles partnered with the California African American Museum (CAAM) for Places of Validation (POV), Art & Progression to create a comprehensive exhibition of the African American contributions to mural arts of Los Angeles. For more info about these exhibits and the California African American Museum(CAAM), log onto www.caamuseum.org– and stay up to date with Pacific Standard Time by visiting www.pacificstandardtime.org.
  
Photo Credit:Mark Santa Ines and Kelly Hilker |
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Artist of the Month
Ulysses S. Jenkins
“Ulysses Jenkinsis a video/performance artist; M.F.A., Intermedia -Video/Performance Art, Otis College of Art, Los Angeles, CA, 1979; B.A., Fine Arts - Painting/Drawing, Southern University, Baton Rouge, LA, 1969. Mr. Jenkins has taught video production (lecturer) at the University of California, San Diego (1979-81), Otis College of Art (1982-84) and performance art at California State University, Dominguez Hills (1981). He currently is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine in the Claire Treavor School of the Arts, Department of Studio Art (1993-2005) in video art production and performance art instruction and as an affiliate professor with the African-American Studies program in the Department of Humanities.”
Find out more about Ulysses S. Jenkins
“My current projects are based upon my travels to Brazil and making comparisons between the Afro-Brazilian and Afro-American cultures. I been doing this in performance art works and video documentaries the LA dance company: “Viver Brasil”. I feel there are spiritual lessons Afro-Americans can learn from their continued unbroken practices of African religious practices which most African-Americans have lost. And learn more about our lost indigenous selves. I witnessed this in the practice of Condombe in Salvador,Bahia, Brasil.”
Read full interview here
Photo Credits:
Title: The Azz Izz Is
Year: 1976
Media/Size: N/A
Address: Crenshaw Blvd., Los Angeles, Ca 90043
Summary: N/A
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Murals in the News:
A permanent ASCO mural is slated for City Terrace ( Willie Herrón )
Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2011
“The 1970s Chicano art group ASCO, which is the subject of a fine retrospective exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is known for its wry take on the 20th century tradition of Mexican murals. ASCO's distinctive versions were at once celebratory and critical of the genre, committed to the public posture of mural art but skeptical of its institutionalized status.“
Photo Credit: Willie Herrón III's "The Wall That Crack'd Open" and, bottom, "Plumed Serpent," both 1972. Credit: Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times
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Upcoming MCLA Mural Tours
Dates TBA via FB page, website and Twitter
Locations: Estrada Courts, Ramona Gardens, The Great Wall of Los Angeles, West Adams District and/or DTLA
Photo Credit: Mark Santa Ines
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Shifra Goldman dies at 85; Champion of Modern Mexican Art: Shifra Goldman was a civil rights and anti-Vietnam War activist who joined the Mexican American rights movement in Los Angeles and helped elevate Latin American and Chicano art history into legitimate fields of study.
Los Angeles Times, September 19, 2011
“In the early 1970s, when Shifra Goldman proposed a doctoral dissertation on modern Mexican art, her professors at UCLAsneered. Compared to European art, the art of Latin America was, in their view, imitative, too political, unworthy of serious scholarly attention…But Goldman, a scrappy civil rights and anti-Vietnam Waractivist who went back to school in her mid-30s, refused to consider a more mainstream topic. Describing herself years later as a person who was "born on the margins, lived on the margins and … always sympathized with the margins," she bided her time for several years until a more open-minded professor arrived who was willing to supervise her research.”
Read full article
Photo Credit: This 1995 photograph shows her with her newly published book on the subject, "Dimensions of the Americas." (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times / September 20, 2011)
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The Great Wall of L.A., Legendary L.A. River Mural, Restored to former glory
LA Weekly, September 19, 2011
“… when UCLA Chicano Studies professor Judy Bacabroke ground here in 1974, she was still green, an artist and activist hailing from East L.A. There were no multicultural departments in universities and the notion of histories was not on the radar of a white public. And those gangbangers she united with a paintbrush? This was before we called them at-risk youth, and this was fifteen years before Garfield High calculus teacher Jaime Escalante shook hands with Ronald Reagan.”
Read full article here
Photo Credit: Sam Bloch
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Orange County Register, September 21st, 2011
“Through the years, Gronk has exhibited an uncanny power to reinvent himself, displaying his talent through drawings, paintings, sculpture, street murals, opera set design, performance art and even animated films,” the college Fine Arts Division said in a release. “Today, Gronk is internationally regarded as one of the most important contemporary Chicano artists.”
Photo Credit:"Untitled Piece" by "Gronk" Nicandro is being unveiled at Fullerton College. (Courtesy of Stephanie Reyna/Fullerton College)
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