Judith F Baca - Killed by a Placa

           Lopez analyzes Baca's productions and cultural output during her key roles in working with communities of cultural diversity. Baca provides a unique opportunity to reconsider the terms of public art social practice and community muralism as they have been addressed in relation to the international contemporary art of the Americas. Through the narrative of Lopez, one can embrace the political and aesthetic influence and depiction of contested histories and historical struggles and conflictive subjects. While Baca was expanding her feminist influence she explored the discomforting sides of male violence through iconography. Baca witnessed this type of gang warfare while working in East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights. In 1974, after witnessing this type of experience, she created a wood stain on paper piece called, Killed by a Placa. This piece portrays a man after being wounded lying on a curb of the sidewalk, with the words "17 yrs" on the curb, and "Toro WF" written on the man's face. Baca personal interaction with the morning of Jerry Fernandez, a member of her mural crew, impacted her emotionally to speak out against the systematic violence affecting the youth in her community(59). Seventeen-year-old Jerry Fernandez was shot in the head, in Whittier, while buying clothes for his new infant. The "Toro WF" graffiti on the man's face and symbolizes, Jerry's younger brother, Julio's street name Toro, and the gang Julio was affiliated, White Fence. Baca channeled her emotions to not only express her grief but also present a broader message targeting violence in inner-city streets as well as the endless cycle of violence and death in gang warfare.