It has been said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee, and that seems to be exactly what is happening with LA's new Mural Code Ordinance.
Los Angeles made a name for itself as the mural capital of the world between 1986-2002, when murals were encouraged and celebrated in the city. But after a lawsuit from a billboard company claiming that banning advertisements while allowing art murals infringed on the billboard company's right to free speech, in 2002 the city instituted a city-wide moratorium on both ads and murals. The moratorium has been hugely unsuccessful. Despite the ban, hundreds of 'illegal' art murals have popped up in Los Angeles during this time period, and over 4,000 illegal billboards.
Recently, the Los Angeles City Council began working on plans to put in place some new guidelines that will allow for some murals in the city. The proposed guidelines are modeled after the city of Portland, Oregon. Some mainstream news outlets, like the LA Times, have been heralding the new mural regulations as a victory for art, but the artists in the art community are far less happy with the proposed guidelines.
LA forming its mural ordinance after Portland is like Leave It to Beaver wanting to emulate Eddie Haskell -- it is the wrong role model. Portland is not a city that is known for murals. Friends who live in the Portland say that it is a place full of artists, but with very little public art. An Internet search for murals in Portland pulled up a page full of rules and lists of what is required for a mural, but no pictures of any murals themselves. It seems that the mural regulations in Portland effectively keep most murals off the walls.
For some unknown reason, the Los Angeles City Council is trying to lock down blanket rules emulating the mural regulations in Portland. These proposed regulations include prohibiting sponsorship (no money can be received), content regulations (murals must be paint-based and no advertisements or corporate branding for murals), and term limits (a mandatory five-year time limit for the mural).
These might sound like good ideas at first, but each is fraught with complications. Some of LA's current top walls for murals are paid for with sponsorship from corporate companies. The money is used to buy wall space and fly in big name artists from all over the world, things that couldn't happen without the sponsorship. As for the content, sometimes it is a blurry line between corporation and artist, and excluding murals that are not hand-painted and have no corporate relationship would essentially ban artists like Shepard Fairey, who puts up many murals under his 'Obey' artist name, because it is also the same name of Shepard's thriving corporate clothing brand. Furthermore, the requirement for paint-based murals would prohibit LA's flourishing wheat paste community from doing legal murals, a thriving medium which is also Shepard's method of choice. But perhaps the biggest hump in this camel is the proposed five-year minimum mandatory time limit for any mural. A five year contract is good for some murals, but in our opinion, the best walls change regularly to showcase the current hot and hip artists. And the five-year contract would most likely dissuade many property owners who would otherwise want a mural, but balk at the time commitment.
It is admirable that the city is moving in the right direction and trying to form guidelines to allow for art. Even camels have certain attributes. But all the rules and regulations just get in the way of art. Sometimes, less is better. LA's art community wants to be able to create art without jumping through the bureaucratic hoops. More murals. Less red tape.
This is an interesting story. A private company hired by the city to paint over graffiti broke an entering and actually removed a gate from its hinges to access this property without the owner's permission. When the owner heard they were buffing the mural, the owner called the police on the buff squad. The next day the buff squad came back and removed their paint from the mural. The mural survived, damaged, but intact. The mural includes work from Retna, Revok, Saber, Norm, Rime, and Os Gemeos.
Mr. Linton says, "For some unknown reason, LA City Council is trying to lock down blanket rules". This is also a fabrication of the author. There is no blanket set of rules being developed. In fact, Council has issued the order to create an ordinance immediately to address the issue of Murals on private property with a separate ordinance being developed to define the process of painting murals on Public, City, and Federal property to come later in 2012. Far from a "blanket" plan. The idea of Time, Place, Manner restrictions will carry through to the LA ordinance, however the specifics are yet to be determined in the draft ordinance.
Mr. Linton speaks as if he's an authority or informed about "LA's Top Walls". In the past 2 years, I have organized, paid for, and produced the vast majority of murals over 1,000sq. ft. More than 65 murals. Among the photos that Mr. Linton presented here NONE of them were produced with corporate money. The LA Freewalls Project has produced 65 murals on over 100,000 sq. ft. in Los Angeles. Mr. Linton provides NO examples to back up his claim. I am not aware of any "top mural" in Los Angeles that has been created with corporate money. If the author limited his comments to that which he knew or had any direct experience, he would be silent.
...to be continued...
...That is not their role. They have simply issued the order to City Planning and Cultural Affairs to work with the City Attorney's office to begin writing this ordinance. The process of writing the ordinance will be supported by a series of Public Workshops, and once the proposed ordinance is accepted by City Council it will face an additional 90 day public comment period.
The basic framework of the Portland model and it's "Time Place Manner" restrictions is the only content that will carry over into the LA Ordinance, and even then only in context, not the specific content. The mural working group is very mindful of the needs and expectations of Artists. All discussion ha been centered around a "content neutral" set of expectations.
Mr. Linton says "Artists in the art community are far less happy with the proposed guidelines." This is wholly untrue. Mr. Linton does not represent a community of Muralists in Los Angeles or anywhere.
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First, Los Angeles was considered the Mural Capital of the World up until 1986. Typically, we've seen the moniker used in relation to the proliferation of public murals to celebrate the Olympics in 1984 and the efforts of the Social and Public Arts Resource Center (SPARC) before that time. When the program was defunded, the legacy of our murals began an immediate decline. By the mid 90's, widespread Graffiti and Tagging (the Golden Age and high-point of Graffiti in Los Angeles) had all but forced the removal or cover-up of the great murals completed during that period.
In the 3rd paragraph the author states that City Council has a set of "proposed guidelines modeled after the city of Portland, Oregon." That is also not true. The mural working group has studied the Portland program as the most recent public art policy passed in a large city. In addition, Portland had used this program as a legally defensible way to remove the interests of Advertising in space that would normally be used for a mural. Due to the similarities in nature of LA's current issues, we are studying the Portland model. The city council has not "PROPOSED" a set of guidelines at all.
...to be continued...
On second thought, maybe I don't really want to know the answer to that...