Renaissance & Rebellion - Flipbook - Page 71
The mid-century fine art scene in Los Angeles, when the California Locos were
growing up, has been described as a cultural desert or wasteland by critics and artists
alike. There were very few art galleries or collectors and the city proper did not have
a dedicated art museum until 1965. Modernity existed in Los Angeles largely in the
form of architecture, design, craft and fashion. The lack of infrastructure for artists in
L.A. led to many leaving the area to pursue careers in New York and Europe. This,
as well as the sheer vastness of the region, served as major barriers that precluded the
dominant American postwar art movements—Abstract Expressionism, Pop and
Minimalism—from taking root in the same ways as they did in New York. As a result,
Los Angeles was known as a place for Hollywood, Disneyland and racial violence, not
serious contemporary fine art.
For those artists working in L.A., the postwar time was particularly dark. The
period was marked by widespread fear of imminent annihilation by the atomic bomb
and extreme paranoia of “unAmerican” activities. Hollywood actors were blacklisted,
and the display of modern art was banned by the City Council in 1951 for being
“Communist propaganda.” Although this decree was largely ignored, it shows that in
Los Angeles, artists were considered subversive and dangerous. Authorities were known
to raid and shut down art shows if they deemed them offensive or lewd. Police raided
both Wallace Berman’s landmark exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in 1957 and Connor
Everts’ show at the Zora Gallery in 1964 and arrested the artists for obscenity. The Los
Angeles County Museum of Art was also shut down briefly in 1966 when authorities
found Ed Kienholz’s now iconic tableau, the masterwork Back Seat Dodge ’38 to be
pornographic. While the artist wasn’t arrested, his work was censored. Preceding all of
this in 1932, in an effort to counter the provincialism in L.A., the pioneering woman
of art education Nelbert Chouinard invited the renowned Mexican mural master
David Alfaro Siqueiros to teach at her Chouinard Art Institute in downtown L.A.
near MacArthur Park. There, Siqueiros taught the crews that would later define the
WPA mural aesthetic of the Post-Depression period. While in L.A., Siqueiros painted
three controversial murals—the first was Street Meeting, painted on a wall at the
Chouinard school and which was ordered destroyed by the L.A. “Red Squad” due to
its “Communist” content. The second was América Tropical on Olvera Street and the
third, Portrait of Mexico Today, which is currently on permanent display at the Santa
Barbara Museum of Art. The only one currently unsalvaged is Street Meeting which
was discovered as not having been destroyed in 2005 by Luis Garza, Nob Hadeishi,
Jose Luis Sedano and Dave Tourjé in a Chouinard-related effort ongoing to this day.
Their team, which now includes Armando Vasquez-Ramos and Natily Gonzalez
creates events like the Chouinard/Siqueiros exhibition at the L.A. Art Show in 2021
supporting efforts in salvaging the mural and the original Chouinard building. Garza
has been the primary booster of the Siqueiros cause since meeting him in the early
‘70s, taking up the mantle to protect and preserve his murals in L.A.
CALIFORNIA 136
LOCOS
Chouinard, 1940s
Emerson Woelffer, Ego, 1985, Oil on canvas, 50” x 42”
Luis Garza and Dave Tourjé signing Street Meeting prints at the Los Angeles Art Show, 2021
RENAISSANCE
137
REBELLION
