Muralists and community members are continuing their fight this week to save murals at the old Memorial Prep Middle School in Logan Heights, as the campus undergoes a massive renovation.
The artists have obtained an attorney and help from art conservator Nathan Zakheim to spur the removal of two murals by artist Salvador “Sal” Barajas from the buildings.
Barajas, an influential artist who was one of the first muralists in Chicano Park, said he was not notified that his murals would be destroyed during the construction process.
Standing a few feet from the school Wednesday, Barajas and two other artists, Mario Torero and Salvador Torres, held printed photos of murals they painted for the campus. The artists said they are willing to seek a court injunction against the San Diego Unified School District if the school proceeds with destroying their artwork.
Barajas held up a photograph of his 18-year-old mural titled Graduating Students, which depicts two students wearing graduation caps and gowns and holding books and a diploma.
A community member held up a photo of Barajas’ other mural, Aztec School, which has the words “graduation, education and motivation” and portraits of influential civil rights leaders.
“The theme is education,” Barajas said, of his two murals. “There is nothing wrong with having something like this at the school…. Why they are tearing them down, I have no idea.”
The school district received a letter from the artists’ attorney, a spokeswoman said, but she would not comment further.
San Diego Unified officials said then that Torres’ mural could not be saved because it was painted on a building that contained asbestos.
The mural was documented in high-resolution color and black and white photos, district officials said.
The mural featured Memorial students, veterans of World War I, and Sharon “Christa” McAuliffe, a teacher turned astronaut who died in the 1986 crash of the space shuttle Challenger.
“The district initiated a good faith effort to reach out to the artists and community stakeholders during the design task force and California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) process,” said Jamie Ries, a district spokeswoman, in an email.
The project was designed with extensive community input, Ries said, adding, “The muralist and other stakeholders were part of these discussions going back several years.”
The artists argue that it is the district’s responsibility to notify them directly if their work would be destroyed or moved because of construction or renovations. They said the Visual Artists Rights Act gives artists 90 days to remove their pieces.
A mural by Torero located in the school library is the only one that could be saved, the district said, because it was painted on removable panels.
Torero said he has not been allowed on campus to remove the mural.
Logan Heights resident Wicho Flores said he was involved in the community meetings the district held to discuss the school’s renovations.
Flores, who is a former student and employee of Memorial Prep Middle School, said residents made it clear they did not want to lose the history and culture of the school.
“We are not against the project; we are not against the progress of education here in Logan Heights, because that’s what they are making it seem like,” Flores said.
The artists and community members also questioned the district’s reasoning for not saving Torres’ mural last week. Flores said that if district officials were so concerned about asbestos, why did they allow a food distribution event nearby while demolition was happening?
“All hazardous material (including asbestos) assessment, notifications and abatement was performed by licensed contractors in accordance with all applicable environmental regulations,” Ries said.
The campus is undergoing construction to transform the elementary school and middle school campuses into a complex that serves K-12 students. The first phase of renovation includes the demolition and reconstruction of several existing buildings.
Artists Mario Torero and Salvador Torres at the mural site before it was demolished on 9/11/2020.
The group of muralists have obtained an attorney, restoration expert to safely remove murals from Memorial Prep Middle School
SEP. 30, 20205:01 PM
By ANDREA LOPEZ-VILLAFAÑA
SAN DIEGO — Muralists and community members are continuing their fight this week to save murals at the old Memorial Prep Middle School in Logan Heights, as the campus undergoes a massive renovation.
The artists have obtained an attorney and help from art conservator Nathan Zakheim to spur the removal of two murals by artist Salvador “Sal” Barajas from the buildings.
Barajas, an influential artist who was one of the first muralists in Chicano Park, said he was not notified that his murals would be destroyed during the construction process.
Standing a few feet from the school Wednesday, Barajas and two other artists, Mario Torero and Salvador Torres, held printed photos of murals they painted for the campus. The artists said they are willing to seek a court injunction against the San Diego Unified School District if the school proceeds with destroying their artwork.
Barajas held up a photograph of his 18-year-old mural titled Graduating Students, which depicts two students wearing graduation caps and gowns and holding books and a diploma.
A community member held up a photo of Barajas’ other mural, Aztec School, which has the words “graduation, education and motivation” and portraits of influential civil rights leaders.
“The theme is education,” Barajas said, of his two murals. “There is nothing wrong with having something like this at the school…. Why they are tearing them down, I have no idea.”
The school district received a letter from the artists’ attorney, a spokeswoman said, but she would not comment further.
Last week, community members and artists unsuccessfully rallied to save a 32-year-old mural by Torres at the school. The building was torn down in the afternoon despite a sit-in protest at the demolition site by an Encanto resident.
Despite protests, construction crews tear down a building with a art work by muralist Salvador Torres in Barrio Logan.
Despite protests, construction crews tear down a building with a art work by muralist Salvador Roberto Torres at Memorial Junior High School in Barrio Logan on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2020 in San Diego, CA. (Eduardo Contreras/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
San Diego Unified officials said then that Torres’ mural could not be saved because it was painted on a building that contained asbestos.
Article reposted from the San Diego Union Tribune.
(NOTICIAS YA).- En cuestión de horas, la obra plasmada en un edificio dentro de la Secundaria Memorial en Logan Heights pasó de mural a escombros.
“Es un dolor muy fuerte pero tienen que aguantar esos fracasos que nos pasan como artistas,” dijo Salvador “Queso” Torres, autor del mural destruido.
A través de una reja, “Queso” Torres vio caer aquel mural que pintó en 1987 y dedicó a la secundaria donde estudió.
“Yo lo hice para que los niños de la escuela pudieran comprender y ver cómo se pinta un mural clásico,” explicó Torres.
La Secundaria Memorial está siendo renovada para convertirse en la primera preparatoria en Logan Heights donde además se impartirá preescolar, primaria y secundaria.
“Lo estamos apoyando lo único que pedíamos era número uno transparencia del distrito y buena comunicación y número dos, preservar la historia de las escuelas,” dijo Wicho Flores, exalumno de la Secundaria Memorial.
Activistas y artistas se reunieron en la Secundaria Memorial para pedirle al Distrito Escolar De San Diego que les dieran 90 días para remover y reubicar el mural de Torres a otro sitio y también dos del artista Sal Barajas y uno de Mario Torero que se encuentra en la biblioteca.
“Nueva escuela dicen que van a modernizar y van a tener mucho arte y murales y ¿cómo? Están destruyendo murales, no me han dicho que quieren hacer con el mío,” dijo Mario Torero, muralista cuya obra está en la Secundaria Memorial.
Al no ser escuchados y ver que las excavadoras se acercaban mas y mas al mural de Torres, una mujer corrió hacia la pintura pidiendo que detuvieran la construcción y se sentó entre los escombros para detener la maquinaria.
Alfredo, esposo de la mujer a quien identificó como Mónica dijo que este mural era importante para la comunidad y más para Mónica porque estudió en esta secundaria. Monica fue arrestada por policías escolares del Departamento de Policía de San Diego y hasta ahora no han revelado cuales son los cargos que podría enfrentar.
El Distrito Escolar de San Diego dijo que no podían salvar el mural ya que fue pintado directamente sobre la pared que según un análisis de calidad ambiental contiene asbesto y pintura a base de plomo. Agregaron que mantenerlo o removerlo sería un riesgo para la salud de trabajadores y estudiantes. El distrito asegura que tomaron fotografías para hacer una réplica en el nuevo plantel y para exhibirlas tanto en la biblioteca de San Diego como en la Universidad de California en Santa Barbara.
“Si ellos no lo querían aquí por motivos de salud, nos hubieran dado la oportunidad de llevarlo a otro lugar,” añadió Flores.
La concejal Vivian Moreno quien representa Logan Heights envió una carta al Distrito Escolar de San Diego en la que pedía que se les diera un plazo de 90 días para extraer el mural ya que era una inspiración para estudiantes y un tributo a la nave espacial Challenger que explotó en 1987. Sin embargo, fue demasiado tarde.
“Son testigos del racismo que existe en este país de no querer que nosotros que somos los artistas que continuemos con nuestra cultura,” dijo Torres.
Activistas y muralistas piensan seguir luchando por salvar los otros tres murales que siguen en la propiedad. El distrito por su parte, dice que una vez terminada la obra habrá espacios para murales incluyendo una réplica del que se destruyó.
Protester community members failed to save the demolition of a 32-year-old mural which was painted by a famed Chicano artist at Memorial Prep Middle School in San Diego. The school building posture that mural was torn down Wednesday. Consequently, Encanto resident Monica Bernal assets a sit-in protest for almost an hour before she removed by police. Ultimately, after an hour of Wednesday, police talked to Bernal and tried to convince her to leave the area of the protest but she refused. Unfortunately, Police then manacled her and carried her off-site.
Officials statements
Consolidated officials of San Diego stated that the mural could not be conserved because it was painted on a classroom building that curbs asbestos. As per the statement of officials breaking into the wall to protect the mural would have released the hazardous material. District officials in their statements mentioned that the mural has been cataloged and will be re-created soon at the new school location.
San Diego Unified spokesman Samer Naji said that in accordance with the Historic American Buildings Survey, the photos will be accommodated at the San Diego Central Library. Alon with it the pictures will be housed at the San Diego History Center as well as UC Santa Barbara Library Special assemblage.
Destruction of Chicano culture
Still, District officials had mentioned that the mural will be recreated at a new site but the community members saw the destruction of that mural just like a great loss for Chicano culture and their community’s history. Bernal, who went to Memorial Prep, said that for her, it was just as another form of deletion of history and civilization in an area that is being modified. She said that its an erasure of what and who we all are. According to her, the mural was all about their history.
Begging of Mural
The mural was painted in 1988 by Torres. Torres was the co-founder of the Centro Cultural de la Raza and lead a murals project at Chicano Park beginning in 1973. According to the UC Santa Barbara Library, the park now clunch the largest collection of Chicano murals in the world. The mural highlighted a diverse group of Memorial students and graduates, veterans of World War I, and Sharon “Christa” McAuliffe who was the teacher and later became an astronaut and who died in the 1986 space shuttle Challenger explosion.
Community members tried unsuccessfully to stop the demolition of a 32-year-old mural painted by a renowned San Diego Chicano artist at Memorial Prep Middle School in the Logan Heights neighborhood.
The school building bearing the mural was torn down Wednesday afternoon despite a community member, Encanto resident Monica Bernal, holding a spontaneous sit-in protest at the demolition site for about an hour, before being taken away by police.
The muralist, Salvador Roberto Torres, an influential artist who helped create Chicano Park in 1970, wrote to school district officials this week trying to enforce what he said is his right to remove the mural before it was destroyed.
San Diego Unified officials said the mural could not be saved because it was painted on a classroom building that contained a lot of asbestos. Breaking into the wall to preserve the mural would have released the hazardous material, officials said.
District officials said the mural has been documented and will be recreated at the new school site after it’s constructed.
Still, community members saw the destruction of the mural as a loss for Chicano culture and the community’s history.
Bernal, an Encanto resident who grew up in Sherman Heights and went to Memorial Prep, said she sees it as another form of erasure of history and culture in an area that is being gentrified.
“It’s an erasure of who we are,” she said. “Those murals are who we are. They tell our history.”
The mural was painted around 1988 by Torres, who co-founded the Centro Cultural de la Raza and spearheaded a murals project at Chicano Park starting in 1973. The park now holds the largest collection of Chicano murals in the world, according to the UC Santa Barbara Library.
The mural on the school featured a diverse group of Memorial students and graduates, veterans of World War I, and Sharon “Christa” McAuliffe, a teacher who became an astronaut and who died in the 1986 space shuttle Challenger crash.
“It’s a joyful, important, colorful mural that I enjoyed making,” Torres said at a press conference Wednesday morning in front of the demolition site.
There are at least three other murals in addition to Torres’ at Memorial Prep: two murals by Sal Barajas and one by Mario Torero. Torero’s mural, located in the school library, is the only one that could be saved because it was painted on removable panels.
“We want to take some control of our community through our art,” Torero said. “It’s history.”
Over the course of an hour Wednesday, police spoke with Bernal and tried to convince her to leave the site. She refused. Police then handcuffed her and carried her off site by her limbs, she said, and then gave her a misdemeanor ticket for failing to disperse.
San Diego School Police Captain Joseph Florentino said the last thing police wanted to do was put their hands on a peaceful protester. But he said Bernal endangered herself and others by being so close to the building, which was already partially demolished and was close to collapsing.
“It’s tough when a historical community landmark goes away. We respect that,” Florentino said. “It’s a tough one for everybody.”
The murals have been documented in high-resolution color and black and white photos in accordance with the Historic American Buildings Survey, said San Diego Unified spokesman Samer Naji. Those photos will be housed at San Diego Central Library, the San Diego History Center, and UC Santa Barbara Library Special Collections, which houses historical papers on Torres.
San Diego Unified School Board Vice President Richard Barrera, who represents south central San Diego, said he thinks replicating the murals is a better way to preserve them. He said the murals were painted on old, deteriorating walls, and the murals would deteriorate, too, if the district did nothing about it.
“These murals cannot be preserved forever,” Barrera said. “The way to actually preserve them is to replicate them onto spaces that can be preserved.”
Naji said that the Logan Memorial Educational Campus project has gone through years of planning, which included opportunities for community input. The public was notified more than a year ago of plans to demolish the school buildings, district officials said.
The demolition Wednesday was part of a massive renovation that will transform the Logan K-8 elementary school and Memorial Prep middle school into a complex that will serve children from infants to high schoolers.
The project will build Logan Heights’ first public high school, along with a Montessori program. The complex also will offer athletic fields, a health and wellness center, access to legal representation, counseling and dental services.
“We know that this is important to the community, and we know that the artist is really invested in this,” Naji said. “We really tried to look at every alternative, but this project really is so critical.”
Peruvian American artist Mario Torero was raised in a socially and politically aware environment, so in the late Sixties, when the boomer generation began to revolt against authority and old rules, he joined the Black Panthers and later the Brown Berets, using his art as a contribution.On April 22, 1970, Torero and other activists occupied San Diego’s Chicano Park to keep it from being turned into a California Highway Patrol station. They won the battle, and today the park is a symbol for the Chicano movement in the United States.
Torero briefly attended San Francisco Art Institute and San Diego State. He had dreamed of becoming a serious artist, but soon found the establishment “too slow and backward.” He left school and was again sucked into the revolution, doing street art, Chicano-style, always looking for a perfect wall to paint. Torero plans on renovating his famous Los Angeles muralWe Are Not A Minority!this summer and will be featured in the Smithsonian Institute’s upcoming exhibit,Chicano Revolution in Graphics, on September 11, 2020. I spoke to Torero about his artistic journey and aspirations on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the opening of San Diego’s iconic Chicano Park.
mario torero in 1975. photographer unknown.
Do you remember the moment you decided to leave academia?
The revolution was full-on outside. And [at the universities] they were acting like they didn’t know what to do next. They were wasting time and learning how to draw. I already know that shit. I’m here to produce. We just had liberated Chicano Park. If I had been more patient, I could have stayed there, perhaps. But I was too restless.
I had romanticized art school. [I had to go to art school] if I wanted to be a serious artist. Then I felt like I was wasting time. I was hanging out, didn’t know what to do, nobody was giving me any direction. I was walking in a hall in San Diego State in 1971, feeling lost. The students and faculty were playing softball. They were bored or trying to get inspiration as if they had all the time in the world. I just stood there and couldn’t take that. That farce, that lameness, that vacuum, that soulless place. They were turning them into idiots, disappearing from the world… I wanted the world to know I was here. I admit that.
How you define “Chicano”? Are you using this as “Latinx”? “Hispanic”? Traditionally Chicano means of Mexican descent. You were born in Peru and migrated to California before getting caught up in the Chicano art movement. How do you define your own identity as Chicano?
I was born in Lima, Peru and in 1960, when I was twelve years old, I migrated to San Diego. I was supposed to assimilate but because of the apartheid environment that I found myself in I was absorbed by the local black community and learned what racism was and how it worked. Later, in my early twenties, I joined the Chicano Revolution where I became a leader among the new artivists forming at that time. The new Chicano Movement called for a complete decolonization of our own recent culture, so we rejected all labels placed upon us indigenous by the invading European forces. Overnight in 1970 we transformed from Latin-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Peruvian-Americans, any kind of lesser-than-Americans labels, into our own new indigenous identity of being now “CHICANOS,” a new liberated people’s culture. So, the system didn’t like that. They called us “Indians,” “Hispanics,” “Latins,” now “Latinx,” etc., trying in vain to eclipse our movement. To me Chicanos means new humans, regardless of color or origins. We are “Americans” because we are citizens of this country, but in our own understanding we are indigenous Chicanos. That’s how I describe myself, as a Peruvian-born Chicano.
the mural we are not a minority! in east los angeles was created in 1978 by mario torero, rocky, el lion and zade. photograph courtesy of mario torero.
What is the creative process behind painting a mural?
First of all is the need: we need some color. Our murals came out of our wishes to express the plight of the community. They became the voice of the voiceless. Our murals reflected our way of life, our dreams, our nightmares that we wanted to change. We were facing ourselves. And of course, we were very influenced by Mexican muralists: Diego Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros, and Frida. It was an immediate way to get our art shown to the public. We wanted to be in galleries and in museums. But [those places] were closed to us. They wanted white art. Our shit is political art and they hated that. Now we have our own galleries, our own museums and our own murals. We didn’t ask for permission. We just did it. [We use] rainbow colors because that’s what you see when you eat magic mushrooms and peyote. There are rainbows everywhere. Everything has a purple line around it, vibrating. [Then we plan the mural] through the community. They give us support, they donate paint, food, they send their kids to paint with us. We gather everybody’s ideas and make a list to make sure we incorporate every one of these ideas in an image they want to project. We sketch it first [before we paint the mural].
Who are your inspirations and influences?
My father was one of the leaders of Lima, the Bohemians of the ‘50s. He always pointed things out to me. He taught me to use the eye. He taught me that if you master the eyes and the hands, the rest was easy. But I didn’t know I was going to be an artist. I started to do more art because it was in the psychedelic times in the mid ‘60s. In 1964 I dropped out of high school and joined the Black Movement. [I also] went to the library and checked out books. I wanted to know everything about every master. Modigliani, all the greats, classical, renaissance and modern. But when I ran into [the work of Salvador] Dali at 19, I said I got to be an artist. We took LSD and the colors and the dimensions, and our imagination… the doors were flung open and we were looking at everything. Everybody was on it, magic in the air… The natural way of being is to be artistic, to dance, music, the moment you express yourself, you’re making art. But Dali became a world unto itself.
mario torero in the selfie, mario inca(2010). photograph courtesy of the artist.
What makes you different from other artists?
What made me different than other artists was that while my father was accepted in the mainstream and was very successful, it didn’t bother me that I was going to be famous or not. I was already outstanding and I knew that.
Living in the U.S., I went to school with black and brown people. I got caught in the police raids and I started to understand what racism and what persecution and prejudice was all about. It triggered my curiosity of linking art and politics. I came to the black panthers as a young activist, as a young follower until a friend of mine got shot in San Diego and it scared me. Many of us went underground. And there for the first time, I made contact with Mexican Americans. Together we developed a whole new philosophy of peace and justice. I became one of the leaders of Chicano Movement. Chicanos are different from other Americans. We are influenced by our roots, by our colors, by our art, and how we’re persecuted by the police. How we were not let into the mainstream in a segregated society. We became autonomous, and rejected colonialism. We started developing our own world. Painting murals made us different. You go out in the world in the United States and everything is brown, white, and pale. There is no color. It’s very Puritan. It was very frightening thing for them to see colors. The police were definitely against colors. When we put colors on our walls in the Barrio, it was a defiance of 500 years of repression.
Do you have a favorite work you want to talk about?
El Picassois the one that is me. I painted it in 1969. When I was working in my father’s office in the ‘50s, I watched a lot of artists doing art. That’s why I’m so successful. I learned a lot of tricks from the masters. Some of the artists were painting bullfight scenes on tiles and then selling them to the tourists. I watched and learned all the passes of the bullfighting. I learned all about the bullfighting display. I started doing them. The artists started buying from me and selling to tourists.El Picassois a bullfight scene. I painted it when I was 22. It’s an example of what I call Cosmic Art. Primarily looks like an image of something in the space among the stars, in the galaxies, floating, very symbolic.
Where do you see your place in art history?
picasso(1969). mario torero. acrylic painting on board, 36 x 48. photography courtesy of the artist.
As an outstanding leader of the new Chicano school of art. Wherever the Chicano movement is, I want to reconnect us. We need an anthology of the pioneers because that’s how I want to be remembered. That’s the prophecy: 500 years ago, they said Quetzalcoatl is coming back. And Quetzalcoatl has come back in the spirit of Chicanos. We’re here now, and this is part of the change.
What are you working on now?
Three years ago I was discovered by the Library of Congress, who are collecting a good amount of my art, and then by the Smithsonian, which is featuring me in their upcoming art exhibitChicano Revolution in Graphics,opening in D.C. on September 11, 2020. After that happened, I began a lifetime of art work inventory, not only of my work but of my father’s art collection. The D.C. national institutions are also interested in my father’s works and they want to induct our archives into the Smithsonian Collection. As a celebration of 50 years of the Chicano Movement, I am being honored in Sacramento by the Royal Chicano Air Force, the RCAF, and Cal State Sacramento with a lecture, art exhibit, and painting a mural in the local Chicano Varrio of Sacra. I hope to finally renovate the most famous mural of Los Angeles, “the city of murals,”located in East Los Angeles, theWe Are Not A Minority!mural. Just in time at the end of summer for the opening of the Smithsonian art show where my iconic poster that gave birth to the East L.A. mural will be featured.
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