Inglewood Stories, is Michael Massenburg’s homage to his City. Inglewood’s past and present are blended in atmospheric painted passages. Today’s generations and diverse ethnic communities are depicted amid historic streetcars and a 2012 photo of NASA’s Space Shuttle that travelled on Inglewood streets. Massenburg used photographs, postcards and letters from the Inglewood Public Library Special collections alongside his original photographs.

In the top right of the artwork, a 1936 postmark and cancelled stamp accompany a handwritten letter from an Inglewood resident to President Theodore Roosevelt. Thematically uniting the artwork is the writer’s central question to the President: Are we family?

Michael Massenburg is an Inglewood artist and educator exploring visual and social issues in collage, paint and digital media. His creative goal is to inform, provoke thoughts or inspire the viewer by incorporating everyday images reflecting the culture and history of a community.

Mr. Massenburg is committed to making art with a social purpose. His public art has been commissioned by the Forum in Inglewood, the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, Missouri and, with Robin Strayhorn, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Rosa Parks Station, and grants from the California Arts Council and Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

Date: 2015
Collection: City of Inglewood Permanent Public Art Projects
Medium: Mural
Material: Acrylic paint over wall-mounted digital prints
Size: 30’ x 30’

Location:
Inglewood Public Library, Lobby
101 W. Manchester Boulevard
Inglewood, California 90301

Michael Massenburg, Inglewood Stories