Cerritos College Art Gallery plans to open a new exhibition that focuses on Los Angeles commercial folk art on Oct.1 named “Muralissimo.”
The displays will contain 30 photos of L. A.’s commercial folk art murals that have been photographed and curator by Warde Randall and George B. Woods.
Muralissimo is mainly commercial folk art murals that are used for advertising.
If you have ever traveled into downtown Los Angeles, you have probably seen a beautifully detailed mural done on the sides of buildings, homes or on random walls. This is Muralissimo.
Completely untrained artists do most of this folk art. The majority is presented with traits of the Latino culture.
The artists that commonly display their art are usually anonymous. Some artists will leave a name and a phone number. Many will leave as little as initials or no identification at all. It is their talent that gives business’s in a little community advertisement, and is usually always done for a paycheck as mere as $20. Marcus Adams, the Gallery director at Cerritos College feels that this is something that all students should be interested in.
“We are trying to open peoples eyes to what Ãs in the community. LA is very cultural, perhaps the most in the world,” Adams declared, “but people are unaware because they don’t often go into those neighborhoods. They don’t know that these artists are doing amazing things.”
Adams has called in an artist that commonly does the art murals in Los Angeles to actually paint one whole wall of the art gallery. It will be up for the duration of the show, which will be a month.
George B. Woods, photographer, has noticed the murals for some time.
“It’s nice to focus on the large range of art in LA,” said Woods, ” I think the murals provide a more visually rich environment.” Woods and Randall are currently in the process of documenting a book on all the different sorts of Commercial folk art murals. People can take their first look at Muralissimo when it opens on Tuesday, Oct 1 from 6 to 8pm.
