Angels

 
 
Starting on April 29th, 1993 (the first anniversary of the Los Angeles civil unrest) volunteers and I began depositing the first of 4687 bright magenta, 12-inch plaster sitting angels throughout the entire city of Los Angeles (ten per square mile.) We left these angels to be happened upon by motorists and passers-by, and "adopted" by interested parties. I intended the random and chaotic appearance of angels to serve as a catalyst for personal and communal reflection. It was my hope that the experience of seeing an angel (and even more importantly, as word got out, the act of looking for an angel) would remind each person of their place within the City of Angels. Each of the over 100 volunteers became active participants in the art-making process as they chose sites for the angels, talked with people they encountered on the streets and documented their experiences with photographs, video, and written stories. The piece was completed on November 13, 1994, after angels had appeared in every square mile of Los Angeles. Administered in part by LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the Presenting and Commissioning Program of the National Endowment for the Arts. This project was also made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department. Special Thanks to Thomas Bros. Maps.