Judith F. Baca: Killed by a Placa

In this book by Anna Indych-López, we are able to see how Judith F. Baca centers her work around issues of race, class, and gender and the hierarchy within these categories. As I was going through her work, one piece that really stood out to me was the one titled Killed by a Placa, a wood stain piece done in 1974. As I was going through this book, there were a lot of pieces that had the same initial theme of cultural and social awareness through an alternative perceptive. As we see in this piece one thing that is evidently different is that the colors used, are a lot darker and it makes sense as she is representing the death of a very young boy, Jerry Fernandez, who was a part of her mural crew. The message in this image extends past informing the public of an occurrence but rather Baca is able to express her grief and thought of injustice. On the curb of which Jerry is laying, there is a white stenciled drawing of the words “17 yrs” to represent Jerry’s age at his death. A placa is a tag or barrio calligraphy and we can see that the young boy has a placa over his face that makes it seem as if Baca’s work were graffitied on or written over. The message behind this is expressed to represent the masculinity of these young men by showing larger arms in the image, while also maintaining a sense of vulnerability by showing twisted lines over his body. Baca began to explore the concept of male violence and the destructive actions that come along with it, with an emphasis on gang violence.