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Life & Times Transcript
05/30/05 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- It took some detective work to locate this mural by a major artist. The question is, why was it painted over in the first place? Luis Garza>> A black man with a child, a white woman with a child, at the height of the Depression. These are messages that the authorities did not want conveyed to the masses. It was too provocative. Val>> And then, the changing face of Los Angeles, a photographic record of the city's journey from past to present. All that and more straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times. Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Val>> It was like finding buried treasure. A small group of art scholars discovered a mural that many thought had been destroyed. It was by one of world's greatest muralists, David Alfaro Siqueiros, but it was covered over, painted over, and the question now is can it be uncovered and preserved? Hena Cuevas takes us to an old building near MacArthur Park where this exciting discovery was made. Hena Cuevas>> It was here near MacArthur Park in downtown Los Angeles that an unexpected discovery happened. Dave Tourje>> This whole panel right here, if you see this little rectangle, is hollow underneath. Hena Cuevas>> Beneath more than seventy years of paint and plaster is an amazing find, a piece of a puzzle in the picture of art history that most people thought was destroyed. Dave Tourje>> Apparently, what's happened based on what we found is that it was painted over. Hena Cuevas>> Dave Tourje is the Director of the Chouinard School of Art in South Pasadena. He says this might be the mural long thought to be painted over by Mexican mural master, David Alfaro Siqueiros. Siqueiros, along with Diego Rivera and Jose Orozco, is considered one of the great muralists of the twentieth century. He lived in Los Angeles for only six months in 1932, but in that brief period, he made an indelible mark on the city's walls. One called "The Portrait of Mexico Today" is currently at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Another called "America Tropical" is on Olvera Street. But his very first mural, "Street Meeting", hasn't been seen in decades. It was painted on a wall at the original Chouinard School of Art where Siqueiros briefly taught. Most experts considered it gone and Siqueiros' followers had resigned themselves to having only two of his three Los Angeles murals. But then last summer, the first mural long thought destroyed resurfaced. Luis Garza>> For this exhibition, I wanted more background information on the block of painters that worked with Siqueiros at Chouinard. Hena Cuevas>> Curators Luis Garza and Jose Luis Sedano were doing research for an upcoming Siqueiros exhibition. So last June, they went to the Chouinard School of Art in South Pasadena for additional research. Dave Tourje>> The conversation just kind of drifted toward the mural itself and we started questioning, well, who said it was destroyed, right? Why would they do that, right? And we just kept probing. Hena Cuevas>> Garza and Sedano had a book with this picture, the only known photograph of "Street Meeting", the name of that first destroyed mural. While they were talking about it, Nobuyuki Hadeishi, a member of the Board of Directors and a former student, walked in and saw the photo for the first time. Nobuyuki Hadeishi>> And when I looked at it, I knew exactly where it was and the reason why they couldn't find it if anyone had been looking for it because it'd been modified and a room had been made out of the courtyard. Hena Cuevas>> What about the picture led you to know exactly where it was? Nobuyuki Hadeishi>> The windows, the three windows. That's the only place in the Chouinard building that has three windows in this particular way. Jose Luis Sedano>> The building is still there and that's when we all realized. Internally, we sort of looked at each other and said, oh, my God. It really just might be there. Dave Tourje>> I cross-checked that wall with the blueprints and then I could see on the blueprints the three windows on the second floor and then one door on the lower floor. In just cross-referencing everything, we knew we had it. Hena Cuevas>> With the excitement of what they had discovered, the group went to the former art school downtown. The building is now owned by the Korean New Times Church. Sure enough, in the back of the courtyard were the three windows seen in the photograph. Using a ladder, the group was able to get a closer look at the upper portion of the mural where small sections have already been revealed. Dave Tourje>> Initial reveals are showing that there is color. It has not been wiped away by time nor by rain. Hena Cuevas>> With the photograph and windows as reference, they were able to see how these indentations in the cement correspond to the outline of the mural. Dave Tourje>> That ball right there above the window is the two hands that are clasped together, and the shadow. Hena Cuevas>> But why was this mural hidden for more than seventy years ordered destroyed? Garza, who took these photos when he met Siqueiros in 1971 in Hungary, says the painter's pro union message was too much for the authorities. Luis Garza>> It had a red shirted orator who symbolizes socialism and communism and equal rights because he's speaking to a multi-racial group of laborers. A black man with a child, a white woman with a child, at the height of the Depression. These are messages that the authorities did not want conveyed to the masses. It was too provocative. Dave Tourje>> And it was David Alfaro Siqueiros' first mural painted in this country and he went on to paint some very significant murals mainly in Los Angeles. Hena Cuevas>> Sigueiros' murals have often sparked controversy. Take the most visible mural on the side of a building on Olvera Street. Its depiction of a crucified Indian was so politically controversial that the city ordered that it be painted over. Efforts to restore it have taken over twenty years. The best preserved example of his work and least controversial is his third and final mural, "Portrait of Mexico Today". It was found in the back yard of a home in Pacific Palisades and, in 2002, was moved to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The big question now is what will happen to this new Siqueiros discovery? This door which is incorporated into the lower left hand side of the mural leads into the church's kitchen and its ceiling splits the mural in half. The Chouinard Art School wants to buy the building to turn it into a second art school and, together with the mural, turn it back to what it originally was. Because some portions have pulled away from the wall, nobody knows how much of the mural remains intact. Dave Tourje>> For instance, here you see de-lamination of the material here. It's come off. There's going to be some extensive work in here to get that glued back into place. Hena Cuevas>> Paint and mural experts have started the painstaking job of opening up small sections to determine just how much of "Street Meeting" remains. Luis Garza>> Yes, there is anticipation, but (laughter) you try to hold back your excitement and such like that because you don't want to be disappointed. Hena Cuevas>> They will need a lot of patience and money. "America Tropical" on Olvera Street, for example, has been under restoration for more than twenty years. So they've established the Chouinard Siqueiros Mural Conservation Fund to continue exploring if the mural can be restored. But before any work can begin, Tourje needs to buy the building, which is something he's been working on since 2001. Dave Tourje>> We've been moving along on that path slowly and then we find this mural and that may hold something of the key to seeing it all happen. Luis Garza>> It's Los Angeles history that everybody in Los Angeles can share. It is for all of us to take pride in. We actually are recipients of an art form that we can say it started right here in Los Angeles. Hena Cuevas>> They all agree this is an opportunity for Siqueiros to get the recognition he deserves and for a vital piece of Los Angeles's rich art history to be revealed. I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times. Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times". Val>> There are many voices critical of the war in Iraq, but when one of them is a retired Marine General, people listen. He is General Joseph Hoar and, back in 2002, he warned Congress about the costs and challenges of invading Iraq. In the early 1990's, General Hoar was Commander in Chief of U.S. Central Command which now runs the war in Iraq. The general talked with NewsHour correspondent, Jeffrey Kaye. Jeffrey Kaye>> General Hoar, thank you very much for taking the time. General Joseph Hoar>> My pleasure, Jeff. Jeffrey Kaye>> You've written a commentary entitled "Critical Commentary: Loyalty Versus Honesty". What inspired you? What motivated you to write the column? General Joseph Hoar>> There is so much dissatisfaction among people that have had experiences with the Department of Defense, with Mr. Rumsfeld, with the conduct of the war, of all of those things. And the issue really is are you loyal to the Secretary of Defense? Are you loyal to the President? Or are you loyal to those precepts that have made this country strong? Is the loyalty to the Constitution of the United States or is it to these people that have led us down this garden path in Iraq? Jeffrey Kaye>> In what way are we being led down a garden path? General Joseph Hoar>> Well, I think to begin with, this was a preemptive war. It was based initially on the belief by some that the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction. In the framework of the post-9/11 period, the argument was that, if we didn't go and destroy this weapons of mass destruction capability, it would be sometime in the future in which these weapons would be used against us. We know now, of course, that there were no weapons of mass destruction. We also know that, despite the best efforts of all our elected leadership and those people that they've appointed, truly there was no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq either. Jeffrey Kaye>> Let's come to today. General Joseph Hoar>> Okay. Jeffrey Kaye>> You've been out of it for a number of years. Are you talking to military leaders today? And what are they telling you about this war? General Joseph Hoar>> I think that what I am hearing from active duty people, from retired people that are still in the Washington area that are much closer than I to the day-to-day running of the Department of Defense, that this thing's being badly run by the civilian leadership. Jeffrey Kaye>> By the civilian leadership? General Joseph Hoar>> Yes. Jeffrey Kaye>> And the military? General Joseph Hoar>> The military, as they should, are doing what they're told. That's an immutable fact in our government that we have civilian control of the military, but there comes a point when, after the decisions are made by the civilian leadership, that the military then should be allowed to go ahead and carry out the details of a military campaign with supervision by the civilian leadership. It shouldn't be the other way around. The civilian leadership is deciding how many divisions, how many aircraft, how many ships and then the military is told to go ahead and execute this plan. Jeffrey Kaye>> Let's come to the central premise of your article where we started where you said there is this dilemma between honesty and loyalty. You wrote that "honesty has been a casualty in the past two years as the United States government made major errors planning and conducting the war in Iraq" and you explained earlier what you meant by that. If that is the case, what should be the response of the military leaders? General Joseph Hoar>> Well, there should be more people willing to speak out. Jeffrey Kaye>> How do you do that? General Joseph Hoar>> Well, I think there's a couple of ways. I saw in the paper today that the President said if we need more troops in Iraq, I don't know about it. The military should tell their Commander in Chief. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Myers, is included on all National Security Council discussions. I am sure that he has heard from the commanders in the field that there are not enough troops. I've heard it from commanders in the field. I've heard it from retirees. I've heard it from active duty people that there are not enough troops today in Iraq and have never been from day one. Jeffrey Kaye>> Is this war, as it's being prosecuted today, winnable? General Joseph Hoar>> In my judgment, it is not. Jeffrey Kaye>> Why not? General Joseph Hoar>> It is not because a counter-insurgency campaign is, first and foremost, about political objectives. The political objective, as I understand it today, is to create a democracy in Iraq with a rule of law and with protection of individual minorities within the country. So if that's the strategic objective, how do you square that with the operational objective of destroying a city of three hundred thousand people, Fallujah, in order to root out the insurgents that are in that city? Jeffrey Kaye>> You are suggesting -- I mean, the whole purpose of your article was to suggest that commanders and civilians are picking loyalty over honesty? General Joseph Hoar>> My contention is that there is a large number of people in the government today, foreign service officers, civilians in CIA and the defense intelligence agency and in the uniformed service that do not agree with the current policy, and the issue is the one that you've raised. If it is so abhorrent, then they need to do something about it. If it becomes a moral issue, they need to, first of all, talk to their immediate bosses about their feelings. Or perhaps if that doesn't work, to go public and put their papers in and leave. Jeffrey Kaye>> To make this very personal, if you were still in a leadership position, the commander of CENTCOM, what would you be doing today? General Joseph Hoar>> I would like to think that -- because John Abizaid's boss is Mr. Rumsfeld, there's nobody else in between. The chain of command goes from the commander at CENTCOM to the Secretary of Defense to the President. I would like to think that I would have had a door-closed discussion with Mr. Rumsfeld about this and, depending on how that went, probably ask to go see the President. Jeffrey Kaye>> To do what? General Joseph Hoar>> To explain my reservations. The President said in the paper today that nobody is talking to him about the need for more troops. I don't know what else they're not talking to him about. Jeffrey Kaye>> And if the President disagrees with you? General Joseph Hoar>> Well, then I think you'd have to go. Jeffrey Kaye>> We can leave it there. Thank you very much indeed. General Joseph Hoar>> Thank you. To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org. Val>> He does with pictures what historians do with words. Photographer George Jezek has made a specialty of finding archival photographs, then locating the exact spot and taking the same picture decades later. His latest book is "Los Angeles: Past and Present" with an introduction by Katherine Mulholland and captioned by local historian, Mark Wanamaker. George Jezek, it's nice to see you again. You've now documented Orange County, Hollywood, San Diego and now Los Angeles. George Jezek>> The newest book, the City of Angels. Val>> Was it harder or easier than the others? George Jezek>> I would say that it's about like Orange County. It's a big geographical area. I wanted to cover as much of the area as I could in Los Angeles and not leave a few of them out, so we really went to, I guess I should say, overtime to try to go into some places that other people don't really document. Val>> And, of course, the change in only fifty or sixty years is phenomenal. We're right here. This is one of the locations that you took a picture of. Lookout Point, is it called? George Jezek>> It's called Lookout Mountain. Val>> Lookout Mountain. George Jezek>> And there is an inn in it. There was a trackless trolley that ran up from Sunset up Laurel Canyon Boulevard and I think you could ride it for a dime and it would get you pretty much all the way up the canyon. Then you could hike in to Lookout Mountain or they had a bus that would come down and pick you up. Val>> Which is right here where we are? George Jezek>> No, it's actually right behind us. Val>> Oh, where that huge house is. It used to be an inn, you say? George Jezek>> Yeah, there was an inn right here. Val>> And, of course, unless you know local history, you don't know a lot of things like there used to be a bridle path down in the middle of Beverly Hills? George Jezek>> It was actually on Sunset Boulevard and the photograph that's in the book is on Rodeo Drive. So it ran from Sunset all the way down through to Santa Monica and then I think you could ride your horses out to the beach from there, if you could believe that. It's just an amazing thing. [Film Clip] Val>> You also looked at our historic center, Olvera Street. I think there's a church or a mission there? George Jezek>> Yeah, Our Lady of Queens was one of the original churches in California. It dates back, you know, I don't know the exact date, but it goes back a long way. It was one of the most attended churches in California, you know, for a long time or is still one of the most attended churches. Val>> Not far away from that is Dodger Stadium which used to be Chavez Ravine. Now that's gone through some dramatic changes, a famous story. George Jezek>> It's really a story that, you know, I've heard that the hill was just cut off a little bit. It's not a little bit of the hill cut off. I mean, they shaved a foothill down. It was just an amazing sight to look at that. I think it was pretty tough on a lot of people really. I think they just gave them the boot and said see you later. Val>> Venice has gone through some changes. George Jezek>> Venice is just something that, you know, I look at as somebody that just had an incredible idea. I don't know the gentleman's name, but he came over from Venice and wanted to build some canals. There are some original canals there, but where the circle is downtown next to the post office over there was the main lagoon. It was like a wagon wheel and all the canals went off that in that area. [Film Clip] Val>> There are some places I've never heard about, a place called Inceville? George Jezek>> Yeah, Inceville was a movie studio that Thomas Ince put together when he came out from New York. There was a migration of motion picture makers, I guess, back then at the forefront and they moved from New York. He built a studio right at the end of what is Sunset today. He did westerns. He did all sorts of movies. Actually, I think he even brought in real Indians for movies at the time. Val>> Of course, that land is no longer in any kind of movie production. George Jezek>> No, no, no. It's right where Gladstone's is, right down there, so it's kind of changed from being way out in the middle of nowhere to pretty much downtown or part of Los Angeles today. [Film Clip] Val>> And then you also traveled south down to San Pedro where there's also a little bit of history still alive. George Jezek>> There is a lot of history down there. You know, the forefathers of Los Angeles knew that, once they kind of brought the water in, they would need a port. So they started dredging San Pedro and that's where that started. You know, between San Pedro and Long Beach, it's one of the biggest ports in the world now. It's just amazing. If you want to get a touch of what the Red Car was back in there because everybody talks about the Red Car -- Dad rode it or Grandpa rode it -- it looks like there was a Red Car that runs down there and I was surprised. It runs the one mile right along where the kind of tourist cruise ships come in in San Pedro. You get a little taste of the past and how people used to ride around in Los Angeles. Val>> Was there one place that was really tough? George Jezek>> Well, I'll tell you, there's one shot in here which is downtown from the Federal Court Building. I knew that you couldn't really go down in there because, you know, of all the stuff that's going on in the world. It says three minutes and there's armed guards out there. You know, you're kind of a little skittish, I would say, because I went on the weekend and took my shot and three guards came out (laughter). They came out and had a little chat with me, but once they saw a couple of my books, they were fine with it. Val>> You weren't some terrorist (laughter). [Film Clip] Val>> What were some of your favorite locations? George Jezek>> Well, you know, I think that some of my favorite locations, I would say that Catalina was a great location to go out to. You could see that the people -- it was really a built-up town, Avalon in Catalina, at the turn of the century, in the 1910's and stuff like that. You know, sailing ships and small boats. I mean, no GPS, no motors. They must have just took a compass bearing and headed straight out to Catalina and hoped they saw the island. You know, in the fog, I just can't believe they took it out there. It was just amazing. We went to a great extent to get some new pictures that have never been published before, older photographs. Val>> So out of there, almost sixteen hundred archival pictures, you ended up with sixty-three that you went and matched with current photographs? George Jezek>> Well, no. We ended up with sixty-three that we put in the book. Val>> Put in the book? George Jezek>> Yeah. The locations, we got probably close to two or three hundred areas by going around and looking and seeing if there was something that existed that is still there today. Val>> So you could tell if a particular point of reference was still there. George Jezek>> If it was still there, then you knew it was a genuine shot because there are other people that try to do these books and they don't always try to get the exact shot. They'll kind of just, oh, that must be close. You know, I have the pride of getting it correct or as close as I can get. I can't always say that I get the exact shot, but within a couple feet, I would say. [Film Clip] George Jezek>> These books take about a year or so. You know, there are other shots that you will go to that, you know, one of the Rose Bowl where you kind of go up above the Rose Bowl and then you kind of go through some bushes and then there's the shot. It was just amazing. Sometimes you're like a kid in a candy story, you know. It takes a lot of effort to do it and then you're kind of rewarded once you find it. Val>> Well, George Jezek, thank you for all your work and bringing a little perspective to Los Angeles history. We really appreciate it. George Jezek>> Thank you. I appreciate your taking a look at the book. Val>> And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Val>> Next time on Life and Times -- It could be our best natural feature, so when is Los Angeles going to start treating its river with more respect? >> We killed it. Now it's fighting for its own life. You can see here now the trees, the shrubbery, the flora and fauna, bursting through the cement. You see doves, you see egrets, you see natural wildlife. We're not going to beat nature. Nature is going to beat us. Val>> That's next time on Life and Times. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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