In February 2026, SPARC (Social and Public Art Resource Center) will return to Jeffrey Deitch to present the latest complete section of the Los Angeles Wall mural expansion fifty years later.
The 1970s marked a critical decade of resistance, reckoning, and reimagining of America, and this period Los Angeles Great Wall Capture the heartbeat of its most important actions. Beginning with the Native American occupation of Alcatraz in 1969, where the reclamation of land and identity reignited Indigenous activism, the mural’s latest full section unfolds next in a moment that echoes in American prisons, where political prisoners such as George Jackson and Angela Davis embodied the era’s radical resistance to state violence.
Next, the mural depicts protesters marching against the Vietnam War during the 1970 Chicano Moratorium March, and the subsequent interconnected uprisings that echoed across campuses from San Fernando Valley State College to Kent State University. While Marvin Gaye’s “What Happened” led a generation to mourn war dead and protest systemic injustice, this mural showcases a new wave of artists and activists emerging from refugee communities. The overarching story of this mural is how art can be a tool of witness and change.
SPARC extensions Los Angeles Great Wall Currently in production under the artistic direction of Judith F. Baca. Comprised of a team of three lead artists, four painting assistants, and guest professional muralists, SPARC’s innovative artistic techniques blaze a trail for year-round mural production. Painting on 12-foot-tall polymeric panels supported by railing and rolling system, SPARC Los Angeles Great Wall Able to work with and visit a variety of studios, galleries, and community-focused venues thanks to the generous support of the Mellon Foundation, the California Department of Natural Resources, the California Community Foundation, and the Adams-Mastrovich Family Foundation.
For more than four decades, Judy Baca has innovated and led the practice of working with local communities, creating numerous vibrant large-scale works of art oriented toward social justice. She founded the first City of Los Angeles mural program in 1974, which later grew into a community arts organization called the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC). Today, while continuing to serve as SPARC’s artistic director, Baca is one of the most renowned Chicana artists, a world-renowned muralist, social activist and professor emeritus at UCLA. In March 2023, Baca was awarded the National Medal of Recognition for the Arts by U.S. President Joseph R. Biden.
Baca’s collaborative portable mural Wall of the World: A Vision for a Fear-Free Future In 2022, she exhibited in an enclosed installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles. In 2023, she transformed the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) into her studio, adding Great Wall Shown in real time during her exhibition, Paintings in the River of Angels: Judy Baca and the Great Wall. same year, Los Angeles Great WallJudy Baca’s first major exhibition at a commercial gallery was at Jeffrey Deitch in Los Angeles.
On March 7, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel and Gabriela Ortiz will unite a group of composers inspired by Los Angeles Great Wall The hour-long symphony pays tribute to Angelenos who shaped the city’s history and includes an original film from director Alejandro G. Iñárritu.
“I want to use public spaces to create public voice and awareness of the existence of these people who are often the majority of the population but may not be represented in any visual way. By telling their stories, we give a voice to the voiceless and visualize the entire American story.” — Judith F. Baca
Image: Judy Baca works in her studio. Photo: Isa Moreno/SPARC.
