Painting in the River of Angels: Judy Baca and the Great Wall

For the first time in her practice, Judy Baca transforms a museum into a studio. She and artists from the Social and Public Art Resource Center expand The Great Wall of Los Angeles into the 21st century, painting two sections of the mural at LACMA. LACMA’s exhibition presents murals from the 1960s depicting the Chicano Movement, Watts Renaissance, and archival materials that have never been exhibited, revealing Baca’s process and innovations to muralism. Baca conceived The Great Wall (1975) as a monument to the people of California, featuring moments from prehistoric times to the 1950s. She collaborated with 400 youth and community members to design and paint the mural on the walls of the L.A. River to tell history from the perspective of those erased from it. After the artists complete the paintings at LACMA, they will add them to The Great Wall, creating a mile of visual history.