This artist is re-creating the front page to talk about L.A. history through car culture
This South L.A. art teacher is using car culture to talk about the history of Los Angeles.Â
For Luis Genaro Garcia, first comes the year.
It could be 1992, when Los Angeles broke out in civil unrest. Maybe 1968, when students staged a walkout for better education. Or 1959, when communities were evicted from their homes in Chavez Ravine to make room for Dodger Stadium.
Then comes the art.
Garcia meticulously cuts Los Angeles Times newspaper headlines â many from recent editions â to recreate his version of a historical newspaper front page. Centermost for the 40-year-old artist and educator are the stories that helped shape the city and Angelenos who call it home â especially those that focus on what he sees as the historical injustices affecting people of color in Los Angeles.
âI look at the headlines from today; to me it doesnât seem like weâve made any progress,â says Garcia. He wants viewers to compare times politically and make connections between the past and the present.
âI want them to feel and understand that this isnât something new,â the artist says. âThis is something that has been ongoing and continues to affect our communities of color.â
The eight-piece collection he calls âCruising L.A.âs Political Landscapeâ also pays homage to car culture in Los Angeles. The artist paints a classic car from the specific year the event took place.
A 1959 Cadillac Coupe de Ville centers the piece âAmericaâs favorite past time 1959,â the story of families being evicted from Chavez Ravine. A 1992 Chevy Caprice drives the piece âNo Justice No Peace 1992,â focused on the L.A. riots. A 1968 Volkswagen, a nod, the artist says, to the working class that preferred them, frames âBoiling Point 1968,â about the student walkouts of that year.
In Garciaâs world, even the cars are political.
âSomeone who looks at these cars, theyâll recognize the year, theyâll recognize the features of these particular cars, and as an educator I wanted to take the opportunity to say, âYou know what? Thatâs cool. But do you actually know what happened during that particular year?â â
Garcia says the carsâ ability to outlast their time might say something about how people can do the same:
âThese cars arenât only telling you the stories of L.A. car culture; theyâre telling you the stories of Los Angeles that no one hears about.â
In addition to his work as an artist, Garcia has been an art teacher for 14 years; heâs currently at Nava College Preparatory Academy inside Jefferson High School, his alma mater.
Working with newspaper as a medium isnât Garciaâs first choice â he has many other kinds of works on canvas â but he was inspired by how his students were using it in the classroom.
Because they couldnât afford canvases, students used old linoleum boards covered in newspaper to apply paint, Garcia says. The teacher quickly became the student, inspired to use similar techniques for his project.
After collecting newspapers for about a year and a half, Garcia thought he had enough material to begin.
Now Garcia is trying to teach his students how to see whatâs not always in front of them.
âIâm not trying to teach them to become better artists,â he says. âTo me, thatâs a plus. I want them to understand that for working-class people of color, itâs much harder for us to access resources because of the discrimination that has historically existed in our communities.â
Thatâs a lesson Garcia says he learned away from the classroom. As a 14-year-old, Garcia had to reconcile with his parentsâ divorce and with the destruction of his neighborhood.
âIt was sort of like a rite of passage for me,â says Garcia, who as the oldest sibling of two sisters and a brother had to look out for them while his mother worked.
âIt was transformative. And Iâm not sure it was transformative in a good way.â
Garcia says heâll never forget seeing a man pushing a full grocery cart, hitting the curb along Avalon Boulevard, spilling some of its contents.
It was a moment, Garcia says, that helped him âcome to accept my circumstances.â Itâs also those experiences that help him choose headlines and infuse new meaning into old events.
Back in his Whittier home, Garcia cuts and spreads recent headlines from the Los Angeles Times. The headlines, about the recent teachers strike, cut close to home. Part art, part logistical challenge, he moves and spreads blocks of texts like Tetris pieces.
Photos of Los Angeles teachers protesting in the rain mix with headlines such as âHope for left-behind childrenâ or âA walkout would only hurt studentsâ future.â
âThatâs what the headlines are really showing you,â Garcia says. âI want people to realize and understand, nothing has really changed.â
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