Public Art of Hollywood by Luca Mistry
Public Art in Central Hollywood
An inadvertently powerful piece of public art, at a bus stop near a homeless encampment on Lexington and Vine. The advertisement was commissioned by Children's International, a humanitarian non-profit that awards its CEO over a million dollars in annual salary. The City of Los Angeles commissioned the bench, and the "arm rests" that act as hostile architecture preventing the homeless residents from sleeping on it. The glossy image of a supposedly impoverished Hispanic child grins down at real people experiencing real suffering while physically preventing them seeking relief from that suffering. It is a cruel mockery of compassion. I wonder what the representation means to a starving Hispanic person that wants to sleep on the bench. I think their reaction would not be appreciation at the representation, but rather, dejection and humiliation.
A common sight in Hollywood, of hastily scribbled graffiti with a single color of spraypaint called a "tag". The artist, presumably GENIE and/or TRESPASS, is concerned with one thing; speed. With a "tag" we see no pretentious linework, "3D", bubble art, cute characters; none of the signs of elitism that have plagued the graffiti scene for decades. GENIE and/or TRESPASS only care about "getting up", leaving their mark as many places as possible. This piece represents a rebellious youth subculture that shapes the visual space of all of Los Angeles county; the medium itself is the message. I chose to include this piece because it represents the vast majority of graffiti in Hollywood. While I can appreciate it, most residents ignore it. Those residents who do have an opinion tend to consider "tags" to be devoid of artistic value, often distinguishing between "tags" and more intricate forms of graffiti.
My favorite piece I found for this project, a "bomb" by perhaps the most iconic graffiti crew in Los Angeles, MTA, or Metro Transit Assasins. Known for their darings stunts, incredible talent, and seeming omnipresence through the county, MTA has carved out a soft spot in the hearts of LA residents for decades. Located just off the Hollywood strip, this piece is a momunment to earned respect; no city workers have come to remove it, and no graffiti artist would dare go over it. While no figures are depicted, the piece represents a rebellious youth subculture with its roots in impoverished Black communities. It is done entirely with aerosol paint.
Just beyond the previous MTA piece, surrounded by chain link fence, in a near unreachable abandoned warehouse, we see another LA street legend, HOPES. While HOPES may not have the same leeway with authorities that MTA does, we can see the respect he has garnered from other graffiti artists form the fact his weathered tag has not been painted over. This piece represents a middle-ground between the previous two examples; it is not a hastily scrawled one-liner on a ground-level electrical box, or a massive depicition of advanced artistry, but between those is a work of art that says humbly "I did something daring and subversive". The piece was done entirely with house paint and paint rollers.
The iconic public art of Hollywood, the "Walk of Fame" is surpassed only by the HOLLYWOOD sign. Nearly two miles long, containing over two thousand stars of terrazzo and brass, incscribed with the names of celebreties, characters, and musicians. It is so iconic as to become synonymous with the city itself, attracting tourists and enriching visual space; a beautiful example of how public art should be treated as infastructure. Most importantly, the Walk of Fame can literally show the path that reperesentation in American art takes, evolving from black and white film stars of bygone eras to modern rock bands.
A painted mural on Santa Monica Boulevard, likely commissioned by one of the businesses it sits between. Storefronts represent an interesting new player in the battleground for visual public space; an artist was hired, not to specifically advertise the stores, but simply to create a pleasent and eyecatching visual atmosphere. It is one of the best ways a business can interact with it's community, a way of beautifying it, instead of cluttering it with hostile advertisements.
Another corporate mural, this one commisioned by SHIEKH sporting goods. It was painted in aerosal on brick by graffit artist Jayson Love, and depicts (from left to right) Magic Johnson, Lebron James, and then two depictions of hometown hero Kobe Bryant. Magic Johnson has a surveillance camera for an eye, adding a layer of incongruity to the piece. I think it is valuable for a Black child to see any artistic depiction of themselves, especially at this scale and skill level. The mural is next to the LGBTQ+ Center, and shows a thematic kind of solidary between two marginalized groups of people. Based on the abundance of Kobe Bryant murals in Hollywood, I think it is safe to say the public approves.
A message of kindness, illegally sprayed in pink aerosol outside Hollywood Production Studios. Though a vandal, the artist is not an insider to graffiti culture, evidenced by the lack of skill, but the artist is also not an imitator. The letters are not stylyzed like in traditional graffiti, there are no names or gangs represented. It is guerilla beautification, a bid for compassion in the war for visual space of the largest county in the US. A gift to the public, which I think all but the most conservative of residents would enjoy.
Outside a CVS on Vine Street, the Boys and Girls club have a beautiful sculpture of steel, wood, and other mixed media materials such as a basketball and plastic flowers. A basketball hoop, possibly decorated by the kids at the Boys and Girls Club, breathes life into a busy city block with no trees or homes, just six lanes of screaming traffic outside corporate buisnesses while the sun beats down on a cracked sidewalk where the unhoused sleep. It is defiant in its color and structure, jutting out high up, refusing to conform to the hostility of the landscape surrounding it. The choice of a basketball hoop is not coincidental; the Boys and Girls Clubs in Los Angeles frequently work with at-risk youth, specifically in the Black community. From the lack of graffiti, we see a certain respect that the graffiti community has for it.
A striking mural commissioned by the Boys and Girls Club of Hollywood painted onto the side of a CVS, possibly by Elio Mercado (who has done several murals for Boys and Girls Clubs). It is painted onto segmented brick, and uses the medium of the segments to create intricate geomatric shapes, and gives the viewer a feeling of looking at stained glass. Depicted in the first "pane" are the Watts Towers, another piece of public art in the historically Black neighborhood of Watts where a legendary B&G club was founded, and in the center we see a black hand releasing a butterfly. The medium, the theme, the colors, and the subjects are all laser focused to tell the viewer one thing; this is our community.
A massive muli-story mural behind AngelFood distibution, a community nonprofit that provides free food and services to Angelenos. Painted by Robert Vargas, internationally renowned Mexican-American artist. A hispanic Matriarch is centered, her arms filled with fresh produce, framed on either side by Black and brown residents. She is a comforting symbol of not just generosity, but of community solidarity; of Angelenos providing for each other. Over a hundred residents attended the unveiling, and it holds a special place in the hearts of community members.
A small but important representation of a certain kind of public art in Hollywood; storefronts. The store was once a boutique, and the pink exterior rising to a floral pattern overlooks an otherwise grey and desolate street a few blocks south of the Walk of Fame. These storefronts are an important player in the war for visual space in the city; not strictly advertisements, they serve the business by attracting the eye, but more importantly serve as a gift to the community. The artist is Troy Scat, who only paints with aerosol.
An ironically poignant piece of functional public art; a bus advertisement from the City of Los Angeles depicting a Hispanic woman suffering form heat stroke. Half of all heat-stroke related deaths in Los Angeles county are from unhoused people, and 45% of the unhoused population in LA is Hispanic. They depict the signs of heat stroke on one of the bus stops in the city, where the bench has had anti-homeless bars installed to prevent them from sleeping, and the roof pulled off just in case any resident thought they could enjoy some free shade. There are no trees for shade, just unforgiving asphalt. The work appears to be created digitally and then printed on paper. While housed residents would benefit from the warning signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke, an unhoused resident who is most prone to the condition would struggle to have the means to call the cooling center resources or access relief from the heat.
This is not art. There is no artist, this is an image trained on art stolen from real artists and produced by an algorithim to save a few dollars. The strange and uncanny look of the work is viscerally offputting. The choice to put the work in front of an elementary school is dangerous; children will absorb these strange shapes that appear vaguely art-like in their developing brains, which has been prove to have a dramatic negative effect on cognitive processing. The line "growing learners, thinkers, and leaders" is a deliberate insult to the intelligence of the community, as AI is antithetical to learning, thinking, and leading.
A photo of this banner went viral on X (formerly known as Twitter) with millions of views, sparking an intense discourse over AI in public spaces.
Although underreperesented in this project, the vast majority of public art in Hollywood is advertising. From looming billboards, to fading wheatpastes, posters and stickers, and brightly lit signs and storefronts, it is exhausting in its omniscence, likely purposefully so. The public does not benefit from them; companies like Lamar Advertising who make up the $44.4 Billion Dollar billboard companies do, real estate owners do, and the politicians they bribe or "lobby" do. Meanwhile the public is subjected to visual clutter repeating a mantra of "buy buy buy". It is constant psychological warfare enacted on a population that has been politically defanged by large corporations, leaving little recourse against the encroaching of visual space.
Their primary opposition is graffiti artists and street artists. "Graffiti" as a term both refers to the general act of vandalism, and also refers to a historic art form with it's roots in Black culture. Covering over banal advertisements are identities scrawled in vibrant ink, towering murals of saints and home-town heros, and aerosol letters multiple stories high. The graffiti artist does not (generally) ask or obtain permission from the city to display their art, they simply display it. The transient and illegal medium of graffit itself is representative of the marginalized communities that it has it's historic roots in, and furthermore, when a graffiti mural does depict a figure it is nearly always a Black or brown figure.
The tertiary public art form is purely aesthetic public art; legal art that has been commissioned either by businesses or by the city of Hollywood. The popularity of the HOLLYWOOD sign, the Walk of Fame, and the joy people have in what little public art we have shows that the residents of the city are clamouring for authentic and well-loved art pieces; ones that don't need to be hastily scrawled in the dead of night to be erased a week later, or aren't trying to convince you to watch a show about attractive single people on an island.
Much of the art in Hollywood doesn't fit perfectly into one of these catagories; wheatpasted advertisemenets for AI therapy do not get city permission before covering walls, nor do stickers on stop signs with QR codes advertising a local bands new album on spotify. Storefronts may commission graffiti artists for murals, representing their community through their business.
The diversity of public art in Hollywood feels like a game of cat-and-mouse with billions of dollars and years of jail time on the line.
PHASE 4:
The first proposal, because of how immediate it needs to be and easy it would be to enact, is to ban any form of AI images displayed in public. If we understand that gratuitous displays of hate speech constitute a threat to public safety due to their condonement of fascist ideals, we must conceptualize the propogation of anti-human, anti-planet, pro-big tech technology in the same fashion. There is a breadth of peer reviewed research to point towards the damaging effects of any level of AI exposure to the human brain, especially developing ones. Having a city filled with grotesque approximations of true artistic talent, that would not exist if not for those genuine creatives is an emblem of dystopia.
I also propose the decriminalization of aesthetic graffiti on public property. It is an art form that faces discrimination against because of it's roots in Black culture, and that is why it is criminalized today. The message that is sent to residents by allowing only corporations and the city to participate in the art of the city is simple; "this is our city, you just live here". By encouraging community members to take an active hand in the visual landscape of Hollywood we can create a shared public space that is welcoming instead of hostile.
My final and most important proposal is to directly tether the propagation of advertisements to the genuine beautification of the city, compelling advertisers to spend an equivalent dollar amount on genuine public art and city beautification as they do on advertising. If every time a new billboard, screen, bus stop advertisement, or wheatpaste went up, the advertisers were beholden to spending an equivalent amount of money on a mural, sculpture or sanitation effort, it would drastically reduce the amount of willing advertisers and increase the amount of public art. There should be an equal balance between corporate propaganda and aesthetic creativity, if said propaganda must exist at all.
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