A Mystery at the LA River

Friends of the LA River recently secured permits for artists to paint a 10,000 square foot section of the Arroyo Seco Wash – and not just any artists, but some of LA’s most legendary graffiti artists including Chaz Bojorquez, Man One, Vyal and Mear. As the good folks over at LA Taco will attest, the event was historic. I finally made it down to San Fernando Road to catch glimpses of what was left, like some pieces from SH and PDB:

I’m going to take this moment to express an opinion that isn’t always popular, even among many graffiti artists: I love tagging. Whether I’m walking down the street or sitting in traffic, tags inform me where I am and who was there before me. I love deciphering the letters that bear the names and crews, I love seeing who got the dope styles, I love seeing who gets crossed out – I simply love reading street conversation on walls, bus benches and freeway overpasses. And yes, I do hate when toys tag over murals. But at the same time, I’m reminded that these kids are lost in the city, and haven’t been schooled by their elders. That said, when I went to the river today, I found myself loving the tags that I found on the eyesore of construction, littered with piles of wood and sandbags:

But ah, back to the story… About one week ago, I started getting a lot of messages about LA County Supervisor Gloria Molina whitewashing the Arroyo Seco. Well, it turns out that it’s not that simple, and it might not even be true. Apparently, Molina did flip out when she realized that the art being painted was graffiti art. Molina belongs to some static school of thinking that doesn’t value the aesthetics of graffiti, and doesn’t consider it art. And while back in the day she gained political notoriety by opposing the construction of a prison in East LA, she seems to be largely out of touch with working-class realities now and recently voted to change a Metro Day Pass from $3 to $5 overnight. Whatever her roots are, Molina is a shot-caller now and is known to run around with a big posse, which called for a meeting with Friends of the LA River so she could express her anger over the murals. At that meeting, it was agreed that a small portion of the mural which was not properly permitted would be buffed. A few days later, people were dismayed to find that several hundred feet worth of murals had been whitewashed, including many pieces that were properly permitted. What’s even more confusing is that whoever was doing the buffing got to about half of Mear’s piece, and suddenly stopped:

Because of its massive scale, it’s clear that the whitewashing was contracted, and everyone assumed that Molina ordered it. The thing is, she completely denies it. She claims that she didn’t order it and so far, no one can prove otherwise. So there’s a mystery at Arroyo Seco, yet as no one is reporting on it. It’s stunning to me that tagging a few inches with a marker on a wall can land you in jail, but whitewashing hundreds of feet of a historic mural can go unchecked. This story has all the elements of a perfect opportunity for some serious investigative reporting: a secret contract, a powerful politician, hundreds of local artists, and a non-profit that actually engaged a bunch of mostly Latino/a artists to participate in the future of one of the city’s most historic landmarks – but all we got so far is rumors in the underground, and silence at the Times.

So who buffed the Arroyo Seco? I doubt we’ll ever know… Should Gloria Molina get the blame? It’s hard to say… But sometimes, the writing is simply on the walls: