Americans for the Arts Presents the 2010 Public Art Network Award to SPARC Founder Judy Baca

Thursday, June 24, 2010

press releaseContact:
Liz Bartolomeo
202.371.2830
[email protected]

BALTIMORE, MD — June 24, 2010 — Americans for the Arts presents the 2010 Public Art Network (PAN) Award to community arts activist Judy Baca. The award will be presented today at the Americans for the Arts Half-Century Summit Public Art Preconference in Baltimore. The Public Art Network Award was created to recognize and honor innovative and creative contributions and commitment in the field of public art.

“Judy Baca exemplifies the power artists and the arts have to transform communities,” said Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts. “Her work in Los Angeles and across the country has put community-based public art at the forefront of its field.”

Judy Baca is the founder / artistic director of SPARC: Social & Public Art Resource Center in Los Angeles, CA. Best known for her large-scale public organizing murals, her art involves extensive community dialogues and participation. Baca founded the first City of Los Angeles mural program in 1974 and founded SPARC in 1976. Baca’s signature piece is The Great Wall of Los Angeles, one of the city’s true cultural landmarks and one of the country’s most respected and largest monuments to interracial harmony produced with the participation with more than 400 inner-city youth, 40 ethnic historians, and hundreds of community residents.

In 1996, Baca created the UCLA/SPARC Cesar Chavez Digital/Mural Lab, a research, teaching, and production facility based at SPARC. She serves as a full professor in the UCLA Chicano Studies Department and World Arts and Cultures Department. She is currently working on the Cesar Chavez Memorial at San Jose State University; the Robert F. Kennedy monument at the Old Ambassador Hotel site, which will become the RFK Learning Center for K-12; the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in San Diego; and a digital painted mural for the Richmond Arts Center.

The Public Art Network, a program of Americans for the Arts, is designed to provide services to the diverse field of public art and to develop strategies and tools to improve communities through public art. PAN’s membership includes public art professionals, visual artists, design professionals, and communities and organizations planning public art projects and programs.

Celebrating its 50th anniversary, Americans for the Arts is the leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts in America. With offices in Washington, DC, and New York City, Americans for the Arts is dedicated to representing and serving local communities and creating opportunities for every American to participate in and appreciate all forms of the arts. Visit us online at www.AmericansForTheArts.org.

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