http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-eric-garcetti-catherine-opie-lax-20131120,0,2017209.story#axzz2lhS8yGnp
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Mayor Eric Garcetti kayaking on the L.A. River
Catherine Opie
latmes.com |
Hello Everyone:
Those of you on the East Coast of the United States, I hope you all are managing to stay warm and dry in the face of those storms. Hopefully, you all will be able to make it in time to spend Thanksgiving and Chanukah with your families. For the rest of the world, I hope day is/has been going well for you. Today, I'd like to look at the image of a city. Specifically, what is a tourist's first perception of a city when they get off the airplane. In Los Angeles, newly arrived visitors are greeted by posters featuring a prominent politician welcoming tourists to the city. In a recent article for the
Los Angeles Times, "LAX getting new Eric Garcetti posters shot by Catherine Opie," David Ng discusses a new series of posters photographed by Catherine Opie featuring recently elected Mayor Eric Garcetti in well-known locales, such as the Los Angeles River. Mr. Ng seems to overlook the obvious issue, what kind of first impression does Los Angeles want to make on tourists?
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Beach culture
vepca.wordpress.com |
The new posters created by Ms. Opie will feature Mayor Garcetti doing things like kayaking along the L.A. River, posing in front of cultural landmarks such as Watts Tower and Chris Burden's "Urban Lights," and the Hollywood Farmers Market. The latter is no big shock because prior to being elected to mayor, Mayor Garcetti was a member of City Council representing Hollywood. One cannot help notice that Los Angeles' new mayor seems to be the very embodiment of stereotypical Los Angeleno, young, successful, good looking. Those qualities were certainly an asset during his campaign. However, I would like to draw your attention to the image on the left. It is a poster created by United Airlines of a tanned, bikini-clad young woman standing against a backdrop of sunshine and palm trees. Here, UAL is trying to sell the image of Los Angeles as a place of sun tanned babes in a land of sunshine and swaying palms. What does this image say to us? UAL is selling tourists on the idea of what Los Angeles is like, a place of "healthy", beautiful women who are waiting for you. I put healthy in quotes because by current standards, she appears to be a walking advertisement for skin cancer and anorexia. In making Mayor Garcetti the focal point of the new series of posters, Ms. Opie appears to be conveying the same message as the United Airlines poster, Los Angeles as a place where young, good looking men and women engaged in outdoor sports. You can aspire to be one of them.
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Coastal Southern California
ebay.com |
On the heels of the bikini babe image is this poster of the Southern California coast. Like the previous poster, this image is rendered in bright colors, a city bathed in sunlight. This section of the coast is presented as a chaotic place where urban life and water sports all collide at the edge of the continent. The idea is you can live in the urban core, yet not be so far away from the ocean that you can go sailing or water skiing anytime. The urban part is represented by the city of Santa Monica. Santa Monica was originally conceived as a sea-side resort. It eventually became a city of contradictions, affluence meets socialism. Yet this dichotomy seems to work, occasionally crashing into each other on various socio-political-economic issues. Yet, at the water''s edge everyone can enjoy the sun and surf, suggesting a place of happy coexistence. In creating this poster, the graphic artist sought to convey the image of Los Angeles' playground by the sea. Overlooking the chaos in the foreground are buildings designed in the Mediterranean mode, a reference to the image the city wishes to project. If you move further back, you see structures built in the mid-century modernist manner. Look carefully, and you see that the modernist buildings seem to dwarf the Mediterranean buildings, implying the old losing ground to the new. Santa Monica, by extension the Southern California Coast, is the place of the future.
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City Hall
ebay.com |
Here's another iconic image of Los Angeles, City Hall. Look very closely at the background of the poster, you'll see Los Angeles' Spanish Colonial/Mexican heritage in sepia tones. City Hall rises in the foreground, in bold colors. The building is strong and proud. The new city emerging out of the mists of the old. The caption reads "The wonder city." The poster was created in 1931, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the city's founding. Yes, Los Angeles is over two hundred years, a babe in the urban jungle. Los Angeles in the thirties was a growing and dynamic city. The Great Depression had barely made a sizable impression in the City of Angels. Los Angeles sought to fashion itself as a Mediterranean metropolis. The Pacific Electric Railway was expanding the city outward. The film industry was creating escapist images of the city as this glittering place where dreams could come true. The Oil and utilities industries formed the infrastructure of a city that was propelling itself forward in the face of crushing economic times. City Hall echoes the modernist architecture popular during this time with its flat plain and right angles as if to say, "this is a modern city built on the ashes of the old." Los Angeles as the city of the future.
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Los Angeles as the "film capital"
internationalvintageposters.com |
Finally, we have this poster of Los Angeles as the "film capital" of the world. The image the graphic artist has chosen is Charlie Chaplin in soft blue tones behind a muted green old style movie camera. Charlie Chaplin is one of the film industry's most iconic people. You mention his name and most people associate it with movies such as
The Little Tramp,
City Lights, The Gold Rush, and
The Great Dictator. I would posit that the choice of Charlie Chaplin was no accident. Charlie Chaplin rose from a hard scrabble life to become one of the film industry's best-loved and well-known actors. Though he engendered controversy in his lifetime, his films remain touchstones of comedy. Hollywood has always been looked at as an aspirational place. A place where fantasies could be played on the screen. Charlie Chaplin aspired to be a great actor, director, and producer. He got to do that and more. Very few actors, writers, producers, directors, et cetera successfully scale the heights of stardom, languishing in obscurity. For those like Charlie Chaplin, his contemporaries, and those that came after him, stardom found them. Thus in using the image of the "Little Tramp," the artist is conveying the idea of Los Angeles as a place of aspirations.
The series of posters being created by Catherine Opie and the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board through Mayor Garcetti's office are intended to convey the best that Los Angeles has to offer. Yet, the image of a young good looking mayor being photographed around town conveys an image of what Los Angeles and its residents could be like. The reality is far from it. Happy Thanksgiving Day and Chanukah to all of you. Enjoy your holiday.
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