Civic Engagement: Mid-City Los Angeles by Justin Kim
The Site
For this civic engagement project, I chose to do mid-city Los Angeles as it is an area I have grown quite familiar with just from the amount of times I have been in the area. Being the area that surrounds the high school I attended, places like the Midtown shopping center and the restaurants in the area were all places I went to afterschool, so naturally I had become quite familiar walking around the area despite the fact that I do not necessarily live close by.
Field Work
Located on the side of Bengal auto service center at 1426 S La Brea Ave. If I were to guess the mural is intended as a tribute to the passing of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna. I would say that Kobe Bryant was very likely the most well known player for the Los Angeles Lakers so news of his passing was sure to affect a great number of people. There are two tags written on the work which are likely belonging to the creator(s) of the work one being Wrapitup_LA, a vehicle detailing shop.
Located behind Esco's New York Style Pizza on 4972 W Pico Blvd. No hidden meanings behind this wall, a very plain that has been tagged numerous times. I am not quite able to read what is written but most if it seem to be nicknames, aliases and the like.
Located near the Taco bell on 1604 S La Brea Ave. Numerous stickers have been plastered on the back of this sign. None of the iconographies or phrases are familiar to me but the stickers are reminiscent in style to Shepard Fairey's obey stickers.
Located at a United Oil gas station on 4931 W Pico Blvd. A mural depicting an illusion to make it look as though the wall has been broken revealing a glimpse into the ocean with marine life. The artist signature is visible although I am unable to read it myself.
Located at Esco's New York Style Pizza on 4972 W Pico Blvd. On the side of the building are drawings on the establishment's building that hover between the dimensions of being an advertisement as well as a mural. The works obviously aim to promote the business while also calling to a certain demographic of people, visibly being sports fans. My guess is that these drawings are a fairly recent creation that was most likely created while the world cup was going on.
Critical Analysis
The patterns of work located in mid-city Los Angeles show that a majority of public art is mainly composed of uninspiring tagging and graffiti. There does not seem to be anyone who is necessarily being represented by the arts here other than the tags that could potentially be associated with gang activity, according to what my friends who do live in the area had told me. The particular area that I chose to walk around is unfortunately basically a dump however the few instances of murals that I was able to observe add instances of color that is rare to see. The purpose of the murals, such as the pizza shop as well as the oceanic gas station mural seemed to lean on the idea of simply to brighten the area, which I can say it does a good job at. The Kobe Bryant mural on the other hand, while still associated to and likely funded by the auto center, seems to play a more community involved role, paying tribute to someone with heavy ties to the city of Los Angeles overall.
Proposal
As stated before, I do not live in this area so I do not feel as though I have the greatest authority to propose changes, however as an outsider who frequents the area, changes I would like to see mainly include the removal of all the uninspiring instances of tagging in the area. Tagging and graffiti when done right can add instances of liveliness as well as color to a given environment however most of the instances of graffiti in this area are the drab, illegible and poorly done tags that take at most 5 seconds to create. On top of that, the sheer amount of tagging in the area give off an unsettling lawless vibe that does not exactly shout a safe environment, the locations in which they can be found are just about endless, with every dumpster in sight tagged to hell and back.
Comments
Post a Comment