FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Los Angeles--Beginning on July 21st restoration teams will set to work on a selection of the top, high visibility, graffiti-marred murals located on L.A. freeways. Recognizing that the approximately 2,500 art murals now gracing Los Angeles’ freeways, public surfaces and the exterior and interior of numerous privately-owned buildings are a significant cultural asset, a coalition of State, City and private organizations are taking these crucial and unprecedented steps to eventually protect and restore more than 40 of these works of art on the freeways of Los Angeles from the corrosive effects of weather, air pollution and, most importantly, an unprecedented wave of graffiti vandalism.
“These murals -- from the late Terry Schoonhoven’s downtown ‘Cityscape’ to Michelle Obregon’s ‘Underwater Fantasy’ in the San Fernando Valley -- represent a broad range of artistic styles and subjects,” said Bill Lasarow, President of the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles (MCLA) and editor and publisher of ArtScene magazine. “They are important and valuable works of art and we need to them in full recognition of their cultural and aesthetic importance, not to mention their worth as publicly owned assets and their economic impact on the tourist industry.”
