Muralist Judy Baca Begins Expansion of Her 'Great Wall' At LACMA

The Great Wall of Los Angeles stretches more than a half-mile along the L.A. River, but the public can watch muralist Judy Baca expand the work in real time inside Los Angeles County Museum of Art until June 2024.

“Hi, Cesar,” muralist Judy Baca said, drawing her paintbrush along a sketch of labor leader Cesar Chavez. “Welcome to LACMA.”

The paint stroke marked the beginning of the live exhibition. Chavez’s face looms large between that of labor leader Dolores Huerta and the poet-boxer Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, the first piece of eight that will go from LACMA to the existing mural upon completion.

Inside the museum's Resnick Pavilion, Baca will work on the mural with a team of artists, including those from the Social and Public Art Resource Center — or SPARC — a nonprofit Baca directs, along with LAUSD high school art students, according to LACMA Assistant Curator Dhyandra Lawson.

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Museum visitors will be able to catch them in action a few times a week if they're lucky enough to run into the painters' undefined schedule.

Judy Baca and the Great Wall of Los Angeles

Baca was born in Watts in 1946 and later raised in Pacoima. Baca's Chicana heritage and experiences with cultural disenfranchisement inspired the mural — her signature piece — that has become a symbol of diversity in the city and state. In 2017, it was declared a National Historic Site by the U.S. Department of Interior.

The wall depicts a sweeping history from California’s prehistoric times through the 1950s but defies chronological order.

The mural was painted over five summers between 1974 and 1983 with help from hundreds of students and community members, along with oral historians, ethnologists, and scholars who shed light on California's history.

Sketching on the wall at The Great Wall of Los Angeles.

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© SPARC 1976, courtesy of the SPARC Archives, photo courtesy Linda Eber, 1976

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For the mural's expansion, the team is working again with historians on how best to depict the city's Chicano and Black Power movements that she lived through.

“These are not stories that I've gone to visit. I didn't parachute in with lots of money in my back pocket,” Baca said. “I walked in with nothing. I walked out with nothing too, except the work.”

SPARC received a $5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation in 2020.

With SPARC's grant, the organization partnered with LACMA to host the exhibit, according to Lawson.

“We knew that she had received the funding from the Mellon Foundation to build the mural and we saw an opportunity to help her out," Lawson said. "We have a 70-foot wall here in the Resnick Pavilion at LACMA. And we thought, why not invite Judy and her team of artists to paint in the museum."

Besides watching the mural come into being, viewers can learn about Baca through surrounding archives of her murals.

The expansion at LACMA

This expansion will add two phases to the mural, totaling eight new pieces.

The first phase is the Chicano movement, featuring scenes from the Farmworkers' Movement, and the East LA Walkouts. The second is the Black Power movement, which will include depictions of the Watts Renaissance and the community work of the Black Panthers. After their completion at LACMA, the pieces will be moved to join the existing mural at the L.A. River.

The questions Muralist Judy Baca asks herself when beginning a project.

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Amancai Biraben/LAist

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Despite the public nature of Baca’s muralism, her process has been relatively private. Even while painting along the L.A. river, few people made their way to the secluded area to watch her in action.

But she says this chapter of the mural warrants a new kind of public engagement.

“This is more open of a process than I've ever done before,” Baca said. “I really see myself now, at 77 years old, as fugitive. I'm as fugitive as the color red. I'm not going to last forever. So therefore, I need to be able to say, carry on.”

Judy Baca speaks to an audience in front of the Farmworkers' Movement piece of the mural.

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Amancai Biraben/LAist

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