Signs Writ Large

Several years ago, I wrote an article, “From Gonfannon to Grand Format” (see ST, November 2005, page 96), that delved into the traditional materials and paints used to produce medieval- and colonial-era signage. I was intrigued to hear about signs decorated with vegetable dyes, milk, animal blood and other materials that I can’t imagine artisans using in today’s antibiotic-laden, germophobic culture.

Although these organic components have been replaced with water-based paint or inkjet printing, the impact of supersized wall art hasn’t waned. In particular, murals, a long-time public-art bastion, have regained popularity as civic leaders increasingly embrace them as investments that engender greater civic pride and create destinations that enhance local economies.

Though often more abstract than commercial signage, murals play the same placemaking role with landmarks and neighborhoods that signs fulfill for businesses. Here are several examples of murals that have played a vital role in recounting a community’s history:
• After years of watching their team finish as an also-ran behind the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles fan were enthralled with the team’s postseason run (although the Kansas City Royals brought it to a halt last week with a four-game sweep in the American League playoffs). To honor the occasion, “Charm City” muralists Landry Randriamandroso and Stefan Ways bedecked walls with murals. Landry’s work features a realistic depiction of the team’s orange-and-black, winged namesake, while Stefan’s art depicts a slightly impressionistic depiction of a nest full of baby orioles.
• San Diego’s Mission Valley Mall has installed seven murals that honor several prominent area neighborhoods. Brandon Matzek, the mall’s marketing manager, dedicated an area in the wall alcoves between two stores for the murals, and hired Egyptian-born artist Michael Makram Nicole to paint seven, 8 x 8-ft. murals that celebrate Kensington, Normal Heights and other dynamic San Diego neighborhoods.
• HOODsisters, an all-female, Hispanic art collective, has decorated the walls of Van Nuys Blvd. in Pacoima, CA, with an array of murals. HOODsisters has decorated the Mural Mile area with an homage to Toypurina, a Native American medicine woman who led an 18th-century revolt against the San Gabriel Mission, and Assanta Shakur, a radical feminist who’s lived in exile in Cuba for 30 years.
• On a somewhat more negative note, real-estate investor Artur Susskind is seeking to topple two of Berlin’s most popular murals. Painted by Italian street artist Blu in 2007 and 2008 in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, the murals are surreal: one depicts a headless man straightening his tie, and the other two figures trying to unmask each other. According to the Berlin paper The Local, an online petition seeks to protect the murals under the city’s monument-protection statute. A local urban-development official lamented that the murals may be too recent to have garnered the cultural significance necessary to preserve them.