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July 22 - August 4, 2021
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Real People, Real News, Really Effective
minorities” in numerous connected panels. Viewers are immersed with animated scenes of California’s prehistory depicting native wildlife and the creation story of the indigenous Chumash. The projected animation takes the viewer through seminal events of the 20th century, including Chinese labor contributions, the arrival of Jewish refugees (fleeing oppression and the Holocaust) and their contributions to the culture and history of Los Angeles, refugees from the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, the Japanese-American internment of World War II, the Zoot Suit Riots, the Freedom Riders, the disappearance of Rosie the Riveter, gay rights activism, the story of Biddy Mason, deportations of Mexican Americans, the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, and the development of suburbia. “This was done by Latin American animation experts,” Baca explained. “The seamless connection between the projectors is magical … There are seven or eight [projectors] and as [the mural is] project[ed] there’s no seams.” Baca explained the animators recreated an entire sense of the mural, almost at full scale. The projection is 28 minutes in length. Animators took different vignettes of the mural highlighting what Baca and her team had to do to integrate sections within the overall view of the piece. The photographs of the mural came from The Getty, which photographed the most recent restoration in which Baca led a team of 30 painters to renovate the 1976 mural. “We had ... fading and damage over many years,” Baca said. “When it was all up, The Getty came in T he Bir th with a phase one camera and they of th e photographed every inch of the piece so that it could be reproduced at full scale. So if the mural is lost, we could bring it back in full scale print.” When asked how it felt to have an entire retrospective of her work in LA where she grew up, Baca said it’s overwhelming because she’s still digesting it. “I really understand that I am a river rock,” Baca said.
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RETROSPECTIVE
Baca’s Retrospective at 9,880 square feet is the highlight of MOLAA’s grand reopening. The exhibition includes more than 110 works divided across three gallery spaces presenting different aspects of Baca’s artistic production. They include the “Womanist Gallery” [women of color’s term for feminist] focused on Baca’s womanist artworks in a variety of media created throughout her career. It also includes more personal works, many never seen before. “Public Art Survey” includes painted murals to digital works where visitors will be introduced to the breadth of Baca’s projects through SPARC which Baca founded in 1976. The Great Wall of Los Angeles encompasses Baca’s first masterpiece, as viewers participate in an immersive audiovisual experience of the monumental, half mile long piece that occupies the Tujunga wash in the San Fernando Valley. In not exactly postpandemic times, after the plight of essential workers and marginalized populations have been laid bare, Memorias de Nuestra Tierra is emotionally striking. Baca, who led the tour of her retrospective, affirmed this response saying she thought it was just her but “It is emotional, isn’t it? We’re going to have to put little tissue boxes around,” she said. MOLAA turned the Great Wall of Los Angeles into an immersive experience, achieved with light projectors and animation. The experience is one that moves beyond the fourth wall — the space between an audience and subject, bringing viewers into the art and augmenting their reality. The mural is emotionally provocative in its depiction of California’s history “as seen through the eyes of women and
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n time for the 1984 Olympics, Judith Baca, with the help of 400 community youth and artists, completed The Great Wall of Los Angeles. The effort was coordinated by the Social and Public Art Resource Center or SPARC. Measuring at about a half mile long and 13 feet high, the work is credited as the longest hand painted mural in the world. Now, ahead of the 2028 Olympics, Baca will lead the effort to expand the original Great Wall of Los Angeles mural. On July 14, the Museum of Latin American Art celebrated its grand reopening in a most extraordinary way, showing one of America’s leading visual artists, Judy Baca: Memorias de Nuestra Tierra, a Retrospective encompassing nearly two square miles of Baca’s work.
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