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Earlier this month the Wende Musuem installed 8 segments of the Berlin Wall in front of LACMA on Wilshire Blvd. This marks the longest stretch of the wall currently standing outside of Berlin. On November 8th, the 20th anniversary of the wall's falling will be commemorated via an event put on by the Wall Project, and more panels will be added to fully block Wilshire Blvd. Following an evening of activities and entertainment, at midnight the wall will be toppled, marking the anniversary, which will be broadcast live on German television.
In the meantime, local muralist Kent Twitchell, who is best known for his portraits, has been working on his contribution to the project. He's been painting a portrait of President John F. Kennedy on one segment of the wall. Other artists and institutions slated to participate in the project include Shepard Fairey, CalArts, and the Otis College of Art and Design.
See video of the wall's arrival on Wilshire Blvd. after the jump.
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Is what he is painting removable?
Cause isn't that sorta of changing history around since JFK wasn't on there to start with?
yes Twitchell's panels are removable
Well, yesterday I walked by here as they were painting the Kennedy, and just now I walked by again and it's back to plain white on those two panels. So... maybe it's removable? No clue.
Ronald Reagan would have been far more historically appropriate. But don't get me wrong - I love JFK. He was one of the few presidents to really boost the US economy with massive tax *cuts* rather than the failed but favored tax increases.
actually Kennedy is a first part of Twitchell's mural composition Reigan is the second part
Ronald Reagan would indeed be more appropriate in context to the wall's destruction given his call to Gorbachev to tear it down, but let's not forget Kennedy stood in West Berlin in 1963 and pointed a damning finger at the Soviets and their wall less than two years after it had been erected:
Excerpt of his speech:
"Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. I want to say, on behalf of my countrymen, who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you, that they take the greatest pride that they have been able to share with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years. I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope and the determination of the city of West Berlin. While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together."