Jose RL #3 10/8/88 "B" Roll of Murals From Descriptions

Transcript (Download)

This is Jose Guerrero talking about Smash Plan 21.

This is roll one.

So can you tell me a little bit about this mural? Can you describe the composition a little bit? The composition? What are these babies in here? What's this? Well see the babies actually come less because that's, this is showing like the people pushing the wheel this way and the city hall pushing this way.

How did you decide to paint this mural? Because during that time they were talking about, they had a suit against the plan.

A lot of people had a suit against it.

And the plan was to dislocate people from the area as they're doing now and replace them with upper middle class people.

So that's where we got the idea to do the Smash Plan 21.

So how did, how did the, how did the images in here, what's your message? Well the message is that the people, not all of them, but a large group of people are still fighting to keep their neighborhoods, see.

And of course the money people fighting to renovate the area and also you know, dislocate the people that live here.

Like happened over there, Truman College where they, at Uptown, they built a college and dislocated about 1200 units of housing for the poor.

And they're doing that here too, see.

So whatever happened with Plan 21? It's, it's worse I know, it's still in effect and people are moving.

See the reason people came to this area like in the 50s, they came from the, from the South, Appalachian, Blacks, Hispanics, people from Puerto Rico.

This was the area that they settled in, see.

Yeah, so can you tell me what this is about? Well see the image is actually, it shows the people from the neighborhood, working class people, struggling against the people from City Hall, you know, like the realtors and the money people.

And of course that up there, that top over there, we got that from drawing that one up there, see.

We drew it and then painted it there.

It symbolizes the plan, you know, instead of drawing a lot of plans we do the, that is a symbol.

The people back in the plan, you know, like the politicians, the police, the clergy, not all the clergy, you know, but some of them.

And then of course the wheel, it indicates like something spinning.

In other words, it symbolizes also like machinery or working class, a working class symbol I would say.

And then the people up there on that side, pushing, you know, like a struggle.

And hopefully, like the other guy said, the other artist that worked with me, says that from that struggle that maybe new people, you know, come out of this, you know.

And then it shows a little girl there planting a tree because they had mentioned they were going to plant trees here.

But that was 10 years ago and I guess they did plant some, you know, but she had one there.

At that time there weren't any sidewalks here.

There was just this one here and a bunch of parking meters.

And she's about to plant a tree and then there's people coming out of school, you know, because education is part of, you know, struggling against whatever, you know, whatever the thing is that they're fighting.

Well, the star, you know, they got their politics and the people here got theirs, you know, like a bright shining star.

And then they got a banner that says, save our homes.

In other words, not to be dislocated, but they want to stay here.

Okay, take three.

Did you hear that snap on his mic? Yeah, I think.

Better do it again.

Okay, take three.

Okay, so we were talking about the big heads, I think.

Yeah, so it is actually better with you over there.

The description? Yeah.

Well, like I said, the description is, the description is that that wheel, and this was some of the guys that sponsored the crew, not them, you know, but some of the, what do you call them? Ancestors or whatever.

Anyway, the wheel indicates, you know, like a symbol of working class people, see? And the people over here, or the people of the neighborhood, of course, are more advanced because they're the ones that are doing the fighting back.

And they're pushing the wheel and these people over here pushing it back, see? Those are the people, the realtors or the money people.

And like I said, that top over there represents like Plan 21.

Who are these big heads up here? And then also, what are the big heads? Well, see, the other guy was two guys working, me and this other man, and other people helping, of course.

I was doing mostly the bottom part, and he was doing the heads.

And he says that the heads symbolize youth rising up from what's going on now, you know, to better living conditions.

That's the way he put it.

But other people said, you know, that they thought that it represented, you know, girls having babies.

What about this writing down here? Well, I asked him this morning the same thing, but I already knew, but I told him that somebody had asked about it.

And he said, it leads to nowhere.

He just put it there so people would ask or get close to the mural, you know, to bring them from across the street and start trying to figure it out.

How did you, when you were painting this mural, how did you do this? How did you prepare the wall? Well, like I said, we didn't prepare it that well, you know, as we do now.

We do a better job on them now.

But basically, we just put some base paint.

We didn't bother too much to scrape it or anything, you know.

We clean it off and then put the base paint on it, started drawing on it.

Did you do this drawing first, or what parts came out? Well, first we did like this, like a circle.

And then we started putting the figures on the, you know, the figures on the wall there, on both sides.

And then we started doing the dots.

And he started doing the, you know, the figure of the girls there.

I think it's something else to ask.

What are some of these, like, what's that swastika doing down there? Well, that's due to the fact that a lot of the planners, since they're trying to separate people, we figured that they were those type of people, you know, that they were racist.

And that's how we use, well, I use a swastika a lot of times, you know, to represent racism.

And then who's this figure here with all the muscles? That, the other guy, Martinez, Oscar Martinez, he works in anatomy, you know.

So he started doing the, he did that one with the muscles, you know.

He likes going to stuff like that.

And where did you get the idea for these different characters? Well, they represent the different people that they associate with each other, you know.

For instance, like the politicians or the realtors or the people who own the buildings.

And then, of course, the, you know, people from, that have a lot of money, they invest, you know, for the...

Is that who that woman is? Well, she's one, she represents like some high society woman, yeah.

And then, of course, the police, the companies on the back that tend to gain from taking over the area, standard all commonwealth and the telephone companies and whatever, you know.

I noticed you have the Sears Tower and the Jayanthani.

Why did you put those in there? Well, like I said, it represents, you know, people from downtown.

It represents people that got money, you know.

Because also the people that, actually, the middle class people is the one that they want to bring back to this area.

And the people from here are supposed to move down to, further down, you know, into already crowded areas over there now, Cicero and Berwyn.

Identifier

F.2021-10-0031

Date Of Production

October 29 1988

Abstract

Muralist José Guerrero talks about "Smash Plan 21", a mural painted by Guerrero, Oscar Martinez, and Judith Motyka in 1978. The mural--located on the southeast corner of North and Spaulding in Humboldt Park--condemns the 1970s urban renewal plan to stop white flight by building a residential and commercial ring around the downtown area. The mural was whitewashed in the late 1990s.

This footage was shot for an unfinished documentary about the visual language of murals in Chicago's Hispanic communities.

Format

16mm

Color

Color

Sound

Silent

Reel/Tape Number

1/1

Has Been Digitized?

Yes

Notes

The digital representation attached to this record consists of a 16mm negative picture element (F.2021-10-0031) synced with portions of a separate ¼" magnetic audio reel (Dobinsky 096).

Language Of Materials

English

Element

Negatives

Genre

Documentary

Form

Unedited

Subject

Art
Street art
Hispanic Americans

Related Collections

Susan Dobinsky Collection

Related Places

North America ➜ United States ➜ Illinois ➜ Chicago ➜ Humboldt Park

Main Credits

Dobinsky, Susan (is co-producer)

Dobinsky, Susan (is filmmaker)

Bayly, Ronn (is co-producer)

Regele, Susan (is co-producer)

Kurtz, Julia (is co-producer)

Participants And Performers

Guerrero, José (is participant)

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