La Lucha Continua The Struggle Continues: 1985 & 2017

An exhibition (April 8 - June 30), catalog and public programming that celebrate La Lucha Continua The Struggle Continues—Artmakers’ 26 political murals painted in 1985 and 1986 in a Lower East Side community garden to address six issues of paramount concern to both neighborhood residents and the artists. 

Four of the issues remain of deep concern: gentrification, police brutality, immigration, and feminism. Opposition to apartheid in South Africa has morphed into continued racism in the United States and the resulting Black Lives Matter movement. Today, opposition to U.S. interventions in Central America translates to the rise in militarism and U.S. involvement in ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

In the current political climate, these issues continue to affect (i.e., marginalize) our most vulnerable communities. More than ever, we need to engage in conversation, reflect, connect, and act. 

The project—collectively known as La Lucha Continua The Struggle Continues: 1985 & 2017— examines how the murals defined, protected and rehabilitated a community. The exhibition is more than an excavation of the past or an examination of the social, political and cultural context in which the murals were created. It is also a lens aimed at today’s Loisaida, focusing on how the issues and the neighborhood have changed over time. 

Eva Cockcroft, founder of Artmakers, famously said, “Painted images cannot stop wars or win the struggle for justice, but, they are not irrelevant. They fortify and enrich the spirit of those who are committed to the struggle and help educate those who are unaware.” In 1985, she gathered together 29 “activist artists” to create the La Lucha murals on four vacant buildings overlooking the then neglected La Plaza Cultural community garden (Avenue C, between East 8th & 9th Streets). Today, the garden is thriving but only two of the La Lucha murals still exist, the paint cracked and faded. 

Please visit Artmakers website ArtmakersNYC.org and Like Us on Facebook: Artmakers Inc.

La Lucha Continua The Struggle Continues: 1985 & 2017 will be on view at The Loisaida Center (710 East 9th Street), a half block from La Plaza Cultural.  It opens on Saturday, April 8 (please come to the 3 - 6 PM opening celebration) and runs through Friday, June 30.

Viewing hours are: Thursday, Friday and Saturday from Noon to 6 PM.  And by appointment.

All exhibition and catalog components have been collected and we are in the process of preparing the photographs for printing and framing and the catalog for publication. Documentation of La Lucha Continua consists of historical material (photographs, ephemera, and video documentation) and contemporary reflections (artist statements, related public programming, and art by today’s Loisaida artists that references La Lucha’s themes).

The public programs have been developed to encourage conversation around the issues that not only inspired La Lucha’s murals, but continue to affect people’s lives more than thirty years later. They include evening panels (April 19 and May 10) and talks (April 26 and May 23) as well as weekend afternoon gallery talks/garden visits (April 30 and May 27). Admission to all events is free.  

Artmakers was established in 1983 and over the decades its members—either as a collective or as individuals—have worked in collaboration with neighborhood groups to create murals that address the lives and concerns of its residents. 

The issues represented in the La Lucha murals were of utmost concern in 1985 and 1986.  Unlike the murals, those issues still exist and in today’s political climate their consequences are, perhaps, greater. 

La Lucha Continua The Struggle Continues: 1985 & 2017 does more than celebrate the murals and how they unified and rehabilitated a community. It also reminds us that our activism is still required.