Events & Programs

Pablo Neruda wrote that "Murals are the people's blackboard." Energizing New York City's visual landscape since 1968, community murals -- collaborations among artists and neighborhood organizations -- are large-scale, site-specific works that reflect the social, cultural, and political climate of their times and the neighborhoods in which they are located. Community murals beautify, educate, protest, celebrate, affirm, organize, and motivate residents to action.

Join Jane Weissman, a writer and arts administrator, for this slide presentation as she tracks the evolution of themes and aesthetic styles found in New York's community murals, placing these powerful walls in the larger social, historical, and political context.

About Jane Weissman

Jane Weissman is co-author of the cultural history, On the Wall: Four Decades of Community Murals in New York City (with Janet Braun-Reinitz, University Press of Mississippi, 2009). In conjunction with the publication of On the Wall, Jane developed and curated the traveling exhibition Images of the African Diaspora in New York City Community Murals. She is a longtime member of Artmakers Inc, an artist-run, politically oriented community mural organization that creates high quality public art relevant to the lives and concerns of people in their neighborhoods.

Photo credits: (c) Artmakers  Inc., "Shirley Chisholm" detail from When Women Pursue Justice, 2005, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, photo (c) Jane Weissman; Heriverto "Eddie" Alicea, Building the Community, 1980, Harlem, Manhattan, (c) CITYarts, Inc., photo (c) Heriverto "Eddie" Alicea.