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.
Terrorism and tweets, hate speech and murder Just days before an election, Britain is coping with a rash of deadly terrorism, and Prime Minister Theresa May is on the defensive. And again today, President Trump has tweeted criticism of the Mayor of London. Later, a double murder in Portland, Oregon has revealed the ugly past of a supposedly “progressive” city. One immediate question: is “hate speech” protected by the First Amendment?
President Trump: US to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord Trump says he was elected to serve Pittsburgh, not Paris.
Trump plays scolder-in-chief with NATO allies At the opening of NATO’s dramatic new headquarters in Brussels today, President Trump acknowledged that Article 5 — promising that “an attack on one nation is an attack on all” -- has only been invoked one time: in the aftermath of September 11. But the President failed to provide what 27 other Alliance members have been waiting for: a re-commitment by America’s new leader to Article 5. Instead, they got a scolding.
Janesville and the American Dream Janesville, Wisconsin is the hometown of Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan. But he couldn’t prevent the closing of the General Motors factory after 100 years. On this Memorial Day rebroadcast of To the Point, we hear what’s happened to what once was a model of American middle-class unity.