VOA慢速英語(yǔ):壁畫(huà)藝術(shù)為洛杉磯增添色彩

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Los Angeles is famous for its murals. The artwork covers the sides ofbuildings and bridges over busy roads. They add color and personality to thecity.

Many people drive by a huge mural of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestraevery day as they go to or from work. The mural is easily seen from a majorroad near the city center.

Kent Twitchell created the mural in 1991. Twenty years earlier, he paintedanother mural on the side of a two-floor house.

“I decided to paint my favorite actor -- Steve McQueen. You know, I, I didn’tfancy myself to be some heavy-duty modernist artist. I just painted what feltgood to me.”

Photographs of that Steve McQueen mural made Kent Twitchell famous.

His other works include a work in honor of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympicsand paintings of America’s founding fathers. Some important murals,however, have been painted over or damaged.

“I was so naïve I thought I was living in Florence, and that people would justappreciate it and, and love it. But that didn’t turn out to be the case in manyinstances, and a lot of the, the great L.A. murals are gone now.”

Some historic art in Los Angeles has been repaired. Leslie Rainer is with theGetty Conservation Institute. She says experts carefully repaired a mural from 1932 by visiting Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros.

“He painted this very controversial image of a crucified central figure with aneagle looming above him, and some revolutionaries aiming their rifles at theeagle.”

She says the message of the painting is not clear. The eagle could representthe United States or Mexico. Each country has chosen the bird as its nationalsymbol. But local leaders objected to the image, so workers painted over theSiqueiros mural. Yet the mural served to motivate and influence other artistsover the past half century.

A tourist takes a photo of a mural on the side of a building in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles

Artist Lydia Emily uses wall art to express a social message. In one mural, she tells the story of a victim of the sex trade. The artist says her work showsthe face of the young woman named Jessica and a bird that representsfreedom.

“I did an interview with Jessica where I learned her entire story -- how she waskidnapped, how she was sexually trafficked for her whole life, how she wasrescued, how she became who she is today. And then I tried to paint thenarrative.”

Lydia Emily also painted a mural in Skid Row, a neighborhood where manyhomeless people live. It shows an African woman of the Masai tribe and nativebirds of Kenya. The artist says the image represents the difficult life of the world’s indigenous, native, peoples.

Los Angeles officials once opposed murals and other street art. Now they areproviding support, as long as the owner of the property gives permission.Officials recently eased rules about street murals in an effort to get more artand color in the city.