Judith F. Baca — Great Wall of Los Angeles

The 1970s- A Decade of Defiance and Dreams

February 21–April 4, 2026

925 N. Orange Drive, Los Angeles

Opening reception: Saturday, February 21, 6-8PM

In February 2026, SPARC (Social and Public Art Resource Center) will return to Jeffrey Deitch to exhibit the latest complete segment in the expansion of The Great Wall of Los Angeles mural, fifty years after its initial production.

The 1970s marked a pivotal decade of resistance, reckoning, and reimagining in the United States, and this segment of The Great Wall of Los Angeles captures the heartbeat of its most consequential movements. Beginning with the Native American occupation of Alcatraz in 1969, a reclamation of land and identity that reignited Indigenous activism, the latest complete section of the mural next unfolds in moments that echo across the prisons of America, where political prisoners like George Jackson and Angela Davis embody the era’s radical resistance to state violence.

Next, the mural depicts protestors marching in the 1970 Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War, followed by interconnected uprisings reverberating across campuses from San Fernando Valley State College to Kent State. As Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” gives voice to a generation mourning its war dead and protesting systemic injustice, the mural shows new waves of artists and activists rising from refugee communities. The mural’s overarching story is how art becomes a vehicle for testimony and transformation.

SPARC’s expansion of The Great Wall of Los Angeles is currently in production under the artistic direction of Judith F. Baca. Consisting of a team of three lead artists, four painting assistants, and visiting professional muralists, SPARC’s innovative artistic technology has blazed a pathway for year-round mural production. Painting on 12-foot high poly-synthetic panels that are upheld by a railing and scrolling system, SPARC’s Great Wall of Los Angeles is able to partner and travel to various studios, galleries, and community-centered locations with generous support from the Mellon Foundation, California Natural Resources Agency, California Community Foundation, and Adams-
Mastrovich Family Foundation.

For over forty years, Judy Baca has been innovating and spearheading the practice of working with local communities to create countless social justice oriented, large-scale vibrant works of art. She founded the first City of Los Angeles Mural Program in 1974, which evolved into a community arts organization known as the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC). Today, while continuing to serve SPARC as artistic director, Baca is one of the most celebrated Chicana artists, a world-renowned muralist, social activist and UCLA Professor Emeritus. In March 2023, Baca was awarded the National Medal of Art Recognition by the President of the United States, Joseph Biden.

Baca’s collaborative, portable mural World Wall: A Vision of the Future Without Fear was shown in an enveloping installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) in 2022. She transformed the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (LACMA) into her studio in 2023, adding on to the Great Wall in real time during her exhibition, Painting in the River of Angels: Judy Baca and the Great Wall. That same year, The Great Wall of Los Angeles, Judy Baca’s first major exhibition at a commercial gallery, was shown at Jeffrey Deitch in Los Angeles.

On March 7, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel, and Gabriela Ortiz will unite a group of composers inspired by The Great Wall of Los Angeles for an hour-long symphonic tribute to the Angelenos who have shaped the city’s history, featuring an original film by director Alejandro G. Iñárritu.

“I want to use public space to create public voice and consciousness about the presence of people who are often the majority of the population but who may not be represented in any visual way. By telling their stories we are giving voice to the voiceless and visualizing the whole of the American story.” — Judith F. Baca

Image: Judy Baca working in her studio. Photo by Isa Moreno / SPARC.