ANTI-POLICE INSTALLATION CAUSES STIR IN ESCONDIDO
Arts center says piece depicting officers as pigs will not be taken down
The board of trustees of the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, on Wednesday morning voted to keep an installation artwork depicting police officers as pigs days after public outcry about the piece as well as statements denouncing the art by Escondido Mayor Paul McNamara, City Manager Sean McGlynn, Police Chief Ed Varso and members of the Escondido City Council.
The California Center for the Arts, Escondido’s (CCAE) board of trustees, led by chairwoman Sara Matta, held a special meeting Wednesday, and made an official recommendation on what to do with the installation, which was unveiled Friday as part of “Street Legacy: SoCal Style Masters.”
A statement, released Wednesday, reads in part: “The Board voted to continue CCAE’s support of the Street Legacy: SoCal Style Masters exhibition and of the installation in question without removing, covering or otherwise editing it. In conjunction, the Board also committed that CCAE will take a leadership role in brokering private and public discussions among the exhibit curators, artists, City leaders, community groups and others to further public education and foster the respectful exchange of ideas. As these plans are finalized, we will make announcements about ways the public can participate.”
The board statement acknowledged the “installation has sparked passionate dialogue,” but it continued: “As a communityserving organization, CCAE has the opportunity to embrace and reflect diverse community viewpoints and bring people together to discover, create and celebrate the visual and performing arts.”
The art in question is from Los Angeles-based artist Slick (aka OG Slick). Titled “Three Slick Pigs — A.P.A.B Edition,” the installation is part of an ongoing series of works and features three fiberglass pigs in police uniforms dancing on a pile of donuts. The piece is also installed in front of a blurred photographic backdrop of real-life officers in riot gear and emblazoned with “A.P.A.B.” — the acronym is short for “all police are bastards” or “all pigs are bastards.” The installation is part of a larger group exhibition, “Street Legacy: SoCal Style Masters,” which explores varying aspects of street art culture, including graffiti, skateboarding, custom car and lowrider culture, and more.
After the Sunday meeting of the board of directors and other arts center leaders, Matta, who has served on CCAE’s board of directors since 2017 and was appointed
chair in 2020, issued a statement to the Escondido Times-Advocate stating that the “leadership of the CCAE Board of Trustees is proposing to remove a piece from the ‘Street Legacy’ exhibit for now, until they can address concerns expressed by city officials, the Escondido Police Department and others on social media.”
However, many arts center staff and curators are sticking by the exhibition. An official statement by the center’s staff, released on Monday, stated that Matta’s calls to take down the offending installation were only a “recommendation,” and that “her comments did not reflect an official Board action, which will be forthcoming.”
While the artist of the piece, Slick, whose real name is Richard P. Wyrgatsch II, declined to be interviewed for this story, he did repost a statement on Instagram about the intentions behind the “Three Slick Pigs” series, stating that it’s a “satirical look at excessive police force and abuse of power by some individuals who hide behind the badge of the largest ‘gang’ in the U.S.” He added a previous statement on the piece’s intentions, stating that it used the “3 pigs fairytale as a representation of the current plight of our country, the big bad wolves being us, hunted down, beat down, robbed of our civil rights, and even executed on site because of our skin color and social status. They were here to protect us, but who protects us from them?”
In a joint statement released to the Union-Tribune
on Monday, “Street Legacy” co-curators Bobby Ruiz and G. James Daichendt said that “ironically, the same power dynamic that the piece critiques is being played out in real life.”
“We are committed to facilitating conversations about artworks and the steps required for deeper scrutiny and meaningful dialogue,” the statement read. “Too often, we look without enough reflection and certainly without considering viewpoints outside our own. The CCAE just introduced a set of perspectives from artists who have not previously been invited inside its walls. Many of these artists use the visual arts to explore ideas around their own culture, upbringing, work, and daily experiences. Sometimes this involves abuse of power, marginalization, and firsthand experiences with racism. None of these ideas are easy to talk about but the art provides an opportunity for this community conversation to take place. Censorship of an image or idea that does not correspond with our own personal view is a dangerous practice. In this case, censoring Slick’s artwork demonstrates that one perspective in the community is more important and powerful than another.”
“What’s the point of holding a ‘street legacy’ exhibition if you’re going to sanitize and censor it,” remarked Marisa DeLuca, and Oceanside-based visual artist. “Police brutality, harassment and racist profiling are daily life for street artists.”
Gustavo Rimada, a Palm Springs-based painter who has a piece in the “Street Legacy” exhibition, took his support a step further, saying that he would consider
removing his own art from the exhibition if the center has Slick’s piece censored or removed.
“It’s disturbing that someone can use their position of power to attempt to censor an individual, in this case an artist,” Rimada said on Instagram. “Me personally, I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving my painting up if Slick’s piece is taken down.”
Despite the support from fellow artists and staff, it hasn’t dampened calls from local politicians, law enforcement and members of the public to have the piece removed. On Monday, Escondido Mayor McNamara, a Democrat, told The Times-Advocate that he was “extremely disappointed” and “angered” by “Three Slick Pigs” and that he found “the exhibit incredibly disrespectful.” He added that it “begged the question do we have the right leadership at the center, and should the council reimagine how this city asset is managed?”
The mayor reiterated this statement at a City Council meeting Monday. After comments from Matta and Councilmember Mike Morasco, the mayor seemed to double down on his assessment that the city would review its relationship with the arts center and even call for a change of leadership.
“I’d like us to have a review of the management relationship between the city and center,” McNamara said. “The center belongs to the city. I would like to have a presentation that reviews that management and offers us options to change that management.”
McNamara did not return multiple calls and
emails from the Union-Tribune for further comment.
Dane White, an Escondido Union High School District board member and McNamara’s GOP opponent in the November mayoral election, said on Twitter that the “anti-police bigotry at the California Center for the Arts is despicable and shameful.”
White told the Union-Tribune on Tuesday that he would be calling on city leaders to institute “a new set of standards” for exhibitions that are partially or fully funded by the city. The arts center is a city-owned facility and the City Council recently approved $2.5 million in subsidy funding.
The statement from the arts center seemed to rebuff these types of calls, however, reiterating that “CCAE is an independent, not-for-profit foundation. As such, the City of Escondido does not review, approve, or in any way inform the artistic choices that CCAE makes. In addition, CCAE employees are employed by the foundation, not the City.”