A total of 28 artists are putting up cool, new murals at Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools in Koreatown, including Shepard Fairey, Colette Miller and Dallas Clayton. Accordingto Los Angles Magazine, Branded Arts RFK Mural Festival is a five-day event from Branded Arts, LAUSD and Thinkspace Gallery designed to promote the arts in schools and among this school's 4,000 students.
You can tour the works as they're being completed every day at 4:30 p.m., or attend a grand reception on Friday, May 27 from 5 to 11 p.m. to see the finished pieces. In addition to the murals, there will also be an exhibit of over 30 artists, including student work, in the Paul Schrade Library.
The site where the school now sits was once home to the Ambassador Hotel. The hotel is where Kennedy was fatally shot by Sirhan Sirhan on June 5, 1968, right after giving a speech in the hotel's ballroom celebrating his win in the California Democratic primary. The Ambassador Hotel had opened in 1921 and was demolished in 2005. Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools, which consists of six schools, opened over the course of the following several years.
Shepard Fairey's mural is a 40-foot-high portrait of Robert F. Kennedy, done in a similar style as Fairey's portraits of President Barack Obama during his 2008 campaign.
Other mural artists include: Kenny Scharf, Jeff Soto, Sam Flores, Hueman, David Flores, Greg Mike, Curiot, Mad Steez, Cyrcle, Andrew Hem, Risk, Yoskay Yamamoto, James Bullough, Beau Stanton, Hebru Brantley, Hush, Charlie Edmiston, Rob Hill, Clinton, Bopp, James Haunt, Woes Martin, UR New York, Jonas Never, Josh Everhorn, Baker's Son, Jose Maradiaga-Andrade and Paige Smith.
Those of you who stopped by Thinktank Gallery's Break Bread exhibit, which featured a cake maze and a number of site-specific theater performances including Alone, Inc. and Rough Sleeper, may remember Baker's Son's realistic watercolors.
Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools is located at 701 S Catalina St. in Koreatown.
