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Last Thursday, February 19 2009, the City Planning Commission again delayed their revision to Los Angeles’ citywide signage code.  After about two hours of (mostly oppositional) public comments from muralists, graph artists, lawyers and billboard companies the commission decided NOT to adopt the ordinance, but to continue the item, setting a new timeline this week.  Because of this the billboard moratorium will continue, and, due to red-tape, a mural moratorium ensues as the result.

No new mural be painted in the city of los angeles without a permit and no permits are being issued for public or private walls.  Therefore we continue to be a MURALESS City.

The commission did decide to keep a distinction between on-site signs ^{_{(a sign related in its subject matter to the premises on which it is located)}} and off-site signs ^{_{(a sign that displays any message directing attention to a business, product, service, profession, commodity, activity, event, person, institution or any other commercial message, which is generally conducted, sold, manufactured, produced, offered or occurs elsewhere than on the premises where the sign is located).}}  

They also decided to separate murals from sign issues, whis is a step in the right direction.

The commission has recommended that murals be incorporated into the ordinance as an amendment only after the rest of the sign ordinance issues have been resolved. What does this accomplish? Amending an ordinance follows the same process by which an ordinance is adopted. Therefore, though it is a (minor) victory that the committee has finally recognized art murals as a separate entity from advertisements, amending a mural code later only further postpones the revival of public art in LA.

Billboard blight is undoubtedly a disgrace.  But while LA’s Planning Commission holds meeting after meeting and while mural production is halted along with billboard erection, LA’s public historical murals are being neglected.  60% of LA’s murals are in a state of disrepair, either trapped under layers of graffiti or peeling off the walls.  While hearings continue and we are unable to create new murals, we can at least preserve our old ones.  To support this action, please sign our Mural Rescue Program Petition.

Finally, why have the courts directed the commission to have a “content neutral” sign ordinance?  The issue is really very simple as it comes down to intentionality. An ADVERTISEMENT sells something (a purse, a film, an airline, a cadidate) and ART does not.  

WHY is it so difficult for the City of Los Angeles to distinguish between art and advertisement?  Either the courts are surreptitiously protecting advertisers or they believe that we live in some sort of Orwellian society, a city run by advertising master-minds and rifed with conspiracy in which a Judy Baca mural is actually advertising Nike sneakers.

The Murals of Los Angeles remain hostage to the sign ordinance while we remain diverted from the issues of mural preservation and maintenance of legacy works of art.