Tag Archive for: Judy Baca

Posts

Image of Judith Baca, UCLA professor emeritus of Chicana and Chicano and Central American studies and of world arts and cultures, at the unveiling of her mural “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.” Image credit: Don Liebig/ASUCLAImage credit: Don Liebig/ASUCLA

New mural captures campus history and UCLA’s future

/in , , /by
Renowned artist and professor Judith Baca created the nearly 80-foot artwork
Image of Judith Baca, UCLA professor emeritus of Chicana and Chicano and Central American studies and of world arts and cultures, at the unveiling of her mural “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.” Image credit: Don Liebig/ASUCLA

Judith Baca, UCLA professor emeritus of Chicana and Chicano and Central American studies and of world arts and cultures, at the unveiling of her mural “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.” Image credit: Don Liebig/ASUCLA

By Mike Fricano |

The ask was bold and befitting a Bruin like professor and artist Judith Baca: depict the history, present and future of UCLA and the land where it resides, in a mural.

In a special evening ceremony on Friday, April 1, several hundred people gathered to celebrate the culmination of nearly three years of work, as Baca unveiled “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.” The nearly 80-foot mural is on the north side of Ackerman Union as part of the Wescom Student Terrace.

The mural, which translates into English as “The Memory of Earth: UCLA,” is made up of three 26-foot-long glass panels. The left panel portrays Westwood — long before UCLA — with a shimmering light-blue outline of Royce Hall where it sits today. In the center, a circle of dozens of people including faculty, alumni, civil rights and social justice leaders whom Baca called her heroes and said represent the diverse and lesser-known history of campus and the land.

The middle panel is built around a trinity of women: Toypurina, a Tongva woman who opposed the colonial rule by Spanish missionaries in California in the late 1700s; Angela Davis, civil rights activist and former UCLA faculty member, who was fired by the University of California Board of Regents for her association with communism; and Dolores Huerta, the iconic labor leader who worked with César Chávez on behalf of farmworkers.

Image of The central panel of “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.”

The central panel of “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.” Image credit: Don Liebig/ASUCLA

“We hope in the future that students will be able to sit here [in this courtyard] and be able to find out who these people are and what did they do,” said Baca, who retired last year, after years as a professor of Chicana and Chicano and Central American studies and a professor of world arts and cultures.

To situate the people in their proper historical context, the mural captures scenes from events such as the Black Lives Matter student demonstrations in 2020, protests against the Vietnam War in 1976 and also a depiction of the Manzanar War Relocation Center.

The future of the campus is on the right, with rhizomes (long, narrow channel-like roots) filled with the faces of other significant people — many of them faculty — who are doing the work to bring UCLA into the future and ensuring that UCLA remains in harmony with the land.

Baca told the audience that the third panel was designed “to take the knowledge that comes from the university and [spread] it widely.”

Image of Desirae Barragan, who is a registered member of the Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians, Kizh Nation, at the unveiling of the mural “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.”

Desirae Barragan, who is a registered member of the Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians, Kizh Nation, at the unveiling of the mural “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.” Barragan is a descendent of the person depicted in the center, Toypurina, a Tongva/Kizh woman who helped lead an uprising against Spanish missionaries. Image credit: Don Liebig/ASUCLA

The mural is the result of a partnership among the UCLA Centennial Committee; Associated Students UCLA, or ASUCLA, a nonprofit association that drives student services and activities throughout campus; and the Digital Mural Lab from the Social and Public Art Resource Center, or SPARC. It was in 1976 that Baca and two other artists founded SPARC, a Venice-based arts center that creates, preserves and hosts programs about community-based public artwork. The mural was created with financial support from Wescom Credit Union.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

An image of Judy Baca at “The Great Wall of Los Angeles” in the summer of 1983.Photo credit: SPARC Archives/SPARCinLA.org

A Legacy in Plain Sight: The Murals of Judy Baca

/in , /by

By Stacey Ravel Abarbanel

In light of a retrospective at the Museum of Latin American Art, many are revisiting the professor’s striking public artwork.
An image of Judy Baca at “The Great Wall of Los Angeles” in the summer of 1983.

Work in progress at “The Great Wall of Los Angeles” in the summer of 1983. Photo credit: SPARC Archives/SPARCinLA.org

Mention “the Great Wall,” and thoughts may turn to China’s ancient fortifications. But California has its own same-named landmark — The Great Wall of Los Angeles — a monumental, half-mile mural depicting the multicultural history of the state from prehistoric times to the 1950s. The brainchild of artist, activist and UCLA professor emerita Judy Baca, the masterpiece is indeed “great” in every way imaginable — size, scope, ambition, creativity and impact.

Baca, whose more than four-decade career is the subject of a retrospective at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, began work on the wall in the mid-1970s, following a request from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that she create a mural in a flood control channel in the San Fernando Valley. Baca led a team of 80 youth referred by the criminal justice department, 10 artists and five historians. They started by painting 1,000 feet of California history, from the days of the dinosaurs to 1910.

Image of mural makers meeting at "The Great Wall of Los Angeles," painted in the summer of 1981

Mural makers meeting. Work in progress at The Great Wall of Los Angeles, painted in the summer of 1981. Image courtesy of the SPARC Archives/SPARCinLA.org

But Baca, founder and artistic director of the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) in Venice, wasn’t content to stop at 1910, and active work continued into the 1980s. Now, the project has been energized anew with a $5 million-grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which will make possible the extension of The Great Wall of Los Angeles to one mile and the continuation of the historical narrative from the 1960s through 2020. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has acquired Baca’s archive documenting the creation of the epic mural.

“Of greatest interest to me is the invention of systems of ‘voice giving’ for those left without public venues in which to speak,” Baca says. Inspired by the Mexican social mural movement, her epic narratives about marginalized communities fortify people’s connections to their diverse heritages not just as viewers, but also as collaborators. Through SPARC, she has spearheaded more than 400 murals in the Los Angeles area, in the process employing thousands of local participants, pioneering the art of contestation and place-making and leaving a magnificent legacy in plain sight.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

Smithsonian museum acquires UCLA muralist’s memorabilia

/in , /by

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has acquired personal itemsbelonging to world-renowned painter and muralist Judith Baca that represent her work, including two paints brushes and a signature pair of overalls used when she led the 2011 restoration of  the landmark Great Wall of Los Angeles, a mural that the community created in the 1970s under her leadership.