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Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los Angeles

1985 John Outterbridge with a group of students at the Watts Towers

Artist John Outterbridge (right), director of Watts Towers Art Center, seen with a group of students, from the El Segundo Center St. Elementary School, who are touring the Watts Towers. Photograph dated March 22, 1985. Outterbridge began teaching at the Watts Towers Arts Center in the mid-1960s. He became director of the arts center in 1975. Beginning in the 1960s, Outterbridge and other artists sought a new visual language to express the African American experience, one that did not depend solely on representation. Assemblage, coupled with the move toward abstraction, allowed such artists to work through themes and ideas that concerned them without having to fall back on visual types. For Outterbridge, the exploration through art of his heritage, his struggles, and his past intersected with his interest in community activism. (https://hammer.ucla.edu/now-dig-this/artists/john-outterbridge)

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1. 1965 Budd Schulberg (center) and members of the Watts Writers Workshop
2. 1965 First Watts Festival, boys climbing a tall chainlink fence First Watts Festival - After the revolt, Central Los Angeles, California, 1965. A black-and-white photograph of approximately twenty boys climbing or attempting to climb a tall chainlink fence. Joe Schwartz, Folk Photography: Poems I've Never Written (2000), 39.3. The Watts Summer Festival was founded by community activist Tommy Chaquette, whose shrewd organizational skills helped make this event a success (https://www.marquette.edu/haggerty-museum/documents/watts_catalogue.pdf).
3. 1965 Watts Renaissance
4. 1965 Watts Writers Workshop
6. 1968 Watts Summer Festival Parade Watts Writers Workshop Float
7. 1985 John Outterbridge with a group of students at the Watts Towers Artist John Outterbridge (right), director of Watts Towers Art Center, seen with a group of students, from the El Segundo Center St. Elementary School, who are touring the Watts Towers. Photograph dated March 22, 1985. Outterbridge began teaching at the Watts Towers Arts Center in the mid-1960s. He became director of the arts center in 1975. Beginning in the 1960s, Outterbridge and other artists sought a new visual language to express the African American experience, one that did not depend solely on representation. Assemblage, coupled with the move toward abstraction, allowed such artists to work through themes and ideas that concerned them without having to fall back on visual types. For Outterbridge, the exploration through art of his heritage, his struggles, and his past intersected with his interest in community activism. (https://hammer.ucla.edu/now-dig-this/artists/john-outterbridge)
9. 1967 Miss Watts in Watts Festival Parade