Destination Crenshaw receives approval to redevelop Crenshaw Wall
Destination Crenshaw has reached another milestone.
On Wednesday, the The $100 million public art project underway in South LA announced that the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission has approved its plans to redesign the neighborhood’s historic Crenshaw Wall. The structural renovation includes the creation of a new panoramic mural by the RTN crew, who painted the iconic but now faded and peeling mural on the wall in 2001.
When it debuts in late February, Destination Crenshaw’s public art corridor will stretch 1.3 miles along Crenshaw Boulevard, reflecting and celebrating Black Los Angeles through monumental works by artists with ties to the region. Organizers called it the “largest commissioned project ever undertaken for Black artists,” with permanent outdoor works by Kehinde Wiley, Charles Dickson, Alison Saar, Gerard Basil Stripling, Patrick Henry Johnson and other.
The project also includes 4 acres of additional green space and several murals. The signature mural is the work of RTN Crew and has long been in need of an update.
“Since Destination Crenshaw’s inception, improving the wall has been the most important public art project for residents of the Crenshaw District,” Jason Foster, president and chief operating officer of Destination Crenshaw, said in the announcement. “It is an honor to do this work and give this landmark a second life.”
The Crenshaw Wall has been a focal point of the neighborhood for more than 50 years, a public canvas that gives voice to a cross-section of local graffiti artists. The RTN Crew (Rocking the Nation) was founded in 1989 and was one of the only all-black graffiti crews in the city at the time. With the original mural “Our Mighty Contribution” from 2001, it gave the wall a new identity. The work — 10 feet tall and more than 780 feet long — has long been a point of neighborhood pride and features Black greats such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, as well as other prominent cultural figures. Sports and politics.
A rendering of the RTN crew’s new mural for the Crenshaw Wall, “The Struggle Continues.”
(Perkins & Will)
The new mural, “The Struggle Continues,” builds on these ideas, broadening the focus and adding images of everyday life in the neighborhood—all in neon-bright colors. It will include “representations of Africa, the Black Diaspora and the Great Migration from the U.S. South to Los Angeles,” Destination Crenshaw said in its announcement. “Pioneers of black Hollywood, including Billie Holiday, Dorothy Dandridge and the Nicholas Brothersappear alongside images of the Black struggle against police brutality in the Watts Uprising of 1965 and the Rodney King Uprising of 1992.”
Eric “Cre8” Walker – RTN President and an original crew member who was in attendance at Wednesday’s Cultural Commission meeting — said in an interview that the new mural will be “like a real open-air museum that people can look at and enjoy, but also study as a history lesson.”
“A lot of people interpret black history to mean that we started as slaves and ended up here and that’s it,” he said in an interview. “But in the new mural we talk about before all this happened – it shows the ancestors teaching young people and the young people looking to the future. It’s inspiring.”
Aesthetically, according to Cre8, the mural will be particularly vibrant and will be executed in the dynamic style of spray paint art.
“The end result will be stunning,” he says. “As artists, all of us as a team, we are definitely excited. We are excited to bring new life to the community through our art.”
The modernization of the wall currently includes a new viewing platform. Both the new mural and patio will be completed by the end of February when Destination Crenshaw celebrates its grand opening.
“The narrative is powerful,” said Dr. V. Joy Simmons, Destination Crenshaw’s senior art and exhibition advisor, on the new mural. “The images are bold and the RTN crew is truly commendable. They respected their previous work while offering the community something completely new.”
