Social and Public Art Resource Center
Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Chicano Studies and World Arts and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles; founder and Artistic Director of SPARC, The Social and Public Art Resource CenterBridges and Walls: LA River, part 1 Eighty years ago this week, rain poured down on Los Angeles. Floods washed out roads, bridges and thousands of homes. The devastation led to total channelization that would forever shape -- and divide -- Los Angeles. Now efforts are underway to build new bridges, bring back wildlife and forge new connections at the LA River. But with those efforts come anxiety about change.
Art, Politics and the History of Downtown Los Angeles America Tropical is emerging again on the second-floor wall of the Old Italian Hall on Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles. It was painted by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros in 1932, sponsored by an Olvera Street booster named Christine Sterling. But she and the rest of the city's elite were so shocked by the picture that they whitewashed it section by section until it disappeared. Now the Getty Conservation Institution has almost completed the restoration . KCRW's Saul Gonzalez has the story. (Voices of Leslie Rainer, Getty Conservation Institute; Carmen Muñoz, Olvera Street merchant; and Chris Espinosa, General Manager of El Pueblo.)
A Tangle Of Art and Bureaucracy over LA’s Murals Last December, an 18-by-45 foot mural appeared on a wall near the corner of Cesar Chavez Boulevard and Breed Street in the heart of Boyle Heights. But in January, the City’s Department of Building and Safety ordered the building owner to paint it over or face a possible fine and even some time in jail. He did what he was told without telling the artists.
How was the trip? President Trump's travels got less fun as he went from the Middle East to Europe.
The longest US war: Will Trump send more troops to Afghanistan? The Trump White House is divided over the Pentagon's request for more troops in Afghanistan—where the US has been fighting for the past 16 years. Is there a formula -- either for "victory" or a political settlement? Is there an end in sight for America's longest war?
The week that wouldn't quit Will next week get even weirder? (Special one-hour episode)
What happens when America retreats from the world? Is President Trump taking his "America First" agenda to extremes, withdrawing the country from the international stage on trade and climate change, distancing America from its traditional allies across the Atlantic and even threatening to physically isolate the country through the building of a wall along its southern border? León Krauze guest hosts.