“Like a wild garden full of it’s own offerings” says Mission Muralismo editor Annice Jacoby of the neighborhood that gave birth to Balmy Alley, Carlos Santana and countless rolls in Dolores Park’s grassy knolls. The Mission’s street art really does bear fruit, and this Friday will be an excellent chance to check out the women behind all the flowering at the de Young’s “Muralistas: the Mission and the World,” a continuation of the museum’s tribute to the neighborhood’s art that began last year.
In a recent KQED interview, Jacoby told the story of a mural of a motorcycle riding “chiquita” mural that was painted off of 16th Street and Mission. With her “derriere” in the air, the skimply clad painting had offended some of the neighbors that lived by the display. The artist’s solution? Merely to plump up those panties “with a few strokes of the brush.” Chiquita covered, community’s calm restored.
The neighborhood’s community-art feedback loop will be the subject of Jacoby’s talk on Friday, as well as other artists’, like Juana Alicia, painter of the much loved La Llorona on the corner of 24th and York. The beloved, building sized piece used to evoke the dangers of pesticide use for the farming women and families of Latin America, but when water damage threatened the mural, Alicia chose to paint a new scene in the area. Instead of “redefining my own existence,” as the artist called the process of doing spot touch-ups on La Llorona, Alicia painted over the old piece with one that was more relevant to her today- La Lechugeras: Sacred Waters, which focuses on water security issues on a global scale.
Just in time for International Woman’s Day, Friday’s event at the de Young will highlight just these kinds of human ties to art. Also featured will be a talk by Mona Caron (of the stunning Duboce Bikeway Mural), live Pakistani music by Riffat Sultana, an all female live-painting mural collaboration, and a projection show on Wilsey Court of work by various female artists featured in Mission Muralismo. All this, coupled with the regular Friday nights at the de Young lineup of cash bars and free admission to the show, a masterpiece if we do say so.
And the street art/high art love doesn’t stop here! Check out the de Young’s continuing tribute to Mission art. Next up: What’s So Funny: Mission Comix Style (April 2).
Friday Nights at the de Young presents “Muralistas: the Mission and the world”
Fri/5 5- 8:45 p.m., free
de Young museum
Golden Gate Park
50 Hagiwara Tea Garden, SF