The Skirball Cultural Center has unveiled two newly completed mural sections destined for the Great Wall of Los Angeles, the half-mile public artwork along the Tujunga Wash. The preview exhibition, running through February 28, gives visitors an early look at panels chronicling the 1960s civil rights era before they are permanently installed at the mural's original riverside site.
A long-running record of California history
The Great Wall of Los Angeles began in 1974 under artist Judy Baca, conceived as a visual record of California's diverse communities from prehistoric times through the 1950s. Two years later, Baca co-founded the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC), which has since coordinated roughly 400 collaborators - youths, historians, artists and community members - to extend the mural's timeline decade by decade. The two new panels continue that expansion, moving the narrative into the 1960s and focusing on civil rights activism, peace protests and the era's broader cultural shifts.
What the Skirball exhibition includes
Titled "The 1960s-A Generation on Fire: Judy Baca's Great Wall of Los Angeles," the show opened October 22 and presents the finished murals alongside the preparatory materials behind them, including original drawings and color studies. An immersive video installation orients visitors to the actual mural location along the Los Angeles River, connecting the gallery presentation to the physical site the panels will eventually join. Sections of the new mural are being revealed sequentially over the course of the exhibition rather than all at once.
A participatory element for visitors
Alongside the finished artwork, the Skirball is running an interactive program called MuralMemoirs, inviting attendees to contribute their own personal histories in dialogue with the mural's themes. This mirrors the community-driven process Baca and SPARC have used throughout the project's history, in which lived experience and oral history inform the imagery eventually painted onto the wall itself. Additional details on exhibition hours and programming are available through the Skirball Cultural Center's official channels.