In December of last year, Republican Congressmen John Boehner and Eric Cantor ordered the removal of an artwork from the National Portrait Gallery’s Hide/Seek exhibit at the Smithsonian claiming that it was "an outrageous use of taxpayer money and an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season." Major museum funders threatened to pull their money out in protest. The director of the National Portrait Gallery resigned. The piece in question is “A Fire in My Belly”, a short fil...
Jan 04, 2011•3 min
David Alfaro Siquieros is known as one of “Los Tres Grandes” the three major Mexican muralists who depicted and helped define national and international images of post-revolutionary Mexico. In 1932, after having served prison time for his political views, Siquieros came to Los Angeles to work. The artist had mastered an outdoor mural technique with a workers’ rights painting at the Choinard Art School. That piece, called “Street Meeting” was painted over, white washed for its socialist content. ...
Jan 04, 2011•8 min
“Art in the Streets” is set to debut in April of this year at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA). This show is planned to be a comprehensive statement on international street art, cholo graffiti art, tattoo art, and skater art from the 1970’s to the present moment. The exhibition has already drawn attention in artists’ circles and in international press prior to the scheduled opening, primarily because of the whitewashing of one of its commissioned works. As part of the “Art in th...
Jan 04, 2011•7 min
On today’s show we want to wrap up the year with a review of what our dedicated producers felt were the most impactful stories we have covered since we launched Hear in the City in September. If you listen regularly (we thank you) and you’ve probably noticed that our show focuses on environment, arts, education, and culture in and around Los Angeles. Most of the stories you’ll hear today, as we wrap up the year, have to do with the economy--Why? Well, we’ve been thinking a lot about what this sh...
Dec 27, 2010•29 min
New York and San Francisco-based sound artist Brenda Hutchinson recorded people living on the streets of Manhattan in the early 80's when she was dealing with homelessness and struggling as an artist. As she puts it, “ A very clear picture of the number and extent of marginalized and disenfranchised people had emerged. It was heartbreaking, and I was angry and bitter. I was also very moved by the strength, resourcefulness and resilient spirit of many of the people struggling to survive in whatev...
Dec 21, 2010•7 min
KingAnyi brings us this audio journey of a long walk he took one night to host a comedy show in Chatsworth, California. (c) Hear in the City. 2010. www.hearinthecity.org. Airs on Mondays on KPFK 90.7FM in Los Angeles or www.kpkf.org
Dec 21, 2010•6 min
Hear in the City Art and Film Contributor Jesse Lerner reviews a show of South American avant garde work Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color, and Space, is the first museum exhibition to situate pioneering Latin American artists among the international canon of those working with light and space at MOCA: Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo. (c) Hear in the City. 2010. www.hearinthecity.org. Airs on Mondays on KPFK 90.7FM in Los Angeles or www.kpkf.org
Dec 21, 2010•5 min
Mexico has also brought in the results of its 2010 census. Preliminary data suggest he country grew by nine million people since the last count and is now home to 112 million people. Nearly a quarter of those people live in the metropolitan area of Mexico City, el Distrito Federal- one of the largest cities in the world. The geography is sprawling, and as in New York or Los Angeles, a large percentage of the people who live in Mexico City have come there from somewhere else, mostly from farming ...
Dec 21, 2010•5 min
Arts, film, and music correspondent Jesse Lerner for a visit with creator of Pixel This!, the premier Pixel Vision alternative film festival in Venice, CA. Visit Pixel This! website: laughtears.com. Hear in the City: Radio Realities from the Urban Landscape A Monday magazine on KPFK, 90.7FM, airs at 2pm, in Los Angeles with Sara Harris www.hearinthecity.org
Dec 08, 2010•6 min
The housing and construction bubble that fueled the U.S. economy during the first decade of this century has officially burst. According to U.S bureau of labor statistics, the number of people employed in construction has dropped from 11 million in 2007 to 9 million today. Of those 9 million construction workers, nearly 2 million of them are self-employed, meaning they are not insured by an employer, they usually have to provide their own equipment, and they do not have a steady, guaranteed sour...
Dec 07, 2010•6 min
By Luis Sierra Campos The City of Los Angeles has had a long and sometimes troubled history of commissioning murals by famous artists. Many of those murals have been defaced over the years by taggers and by graffiti artists. As a result graffiti has a pretty bad name in the city. Each year, 34 million tax dollars go toward eradicating grafitti. A new show opening at the Social and Public Art Resource Center in Venice this weekend takes a look at the criminalization of grafitti and the spaces all...
Dec 07, 2010•7 min
Construction work is one of those professions that is the distinct domain of men, for the most part and in most places in the world. Now that the housing and building bubble has burst, we’re going to visit with a couple of organizations that are thinking about how to make the construction workforce more diverse, more dynamic, and more equal in terms of who is trained and who is protected by the laws and the traditionally exclusive unions of the building trades. WINTER is an independent nonprofit...
Dec 07, 2010•6 min
Reporter Esperanza Barajas has this preview of Casa 0101 and their upcoming original Christmas comedy by the Pinche Mentirosas Sisters, or Those Damn Lying Sisters, the resident troupe at the theater. Hear in the City: Radio Realities from the Urban Landscape A Monday magazine on KPFK, 90.7FM, airs at 2pm, in Los Angeles with Sara Harris www.hearinthecity.org
Dec 01, 2010•8 min
Film Forum will be bringing a touring program of independent and experimental Spanish cinema to L.A. called “New Landscapes for the New World” to the American Cinemateque at the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Blvd. Our music, film, and arts commentator Jesse Lerner sat down with the programmer of the “New Landscapes for the New World, Garbiña Ortega to talk about the upcoming screenings. Hear in the City: Radio Realities from the Urban Landscape A Monday magazine on KPFK, 90.7FM, airs at 2pm, in ...
Dec 01, 2010•8 min
World AIDS Day is being observed around the globe this Wednesday, December 1st. According to the United Nations program on AIDS, 33.3 million people --including 2.5 million children--- are living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The most recent data show that last year, close to 2.6 million people became newly infected with HIV. An international non-profit dedicated to spreading awareness about HIV and AIDS, called AVERT estimates that 1.8 million people died from the disease last year. The...
Dec 01, 2010•5 min
