David Avalos Messages to the Public: intifada: Birth of a Nation

David Avalos (1947–2025, b. San Diego, CA) creates work that addresses issues of ethnic self-determination. In 1989, Avalos, under the auspices of the Alternative Museum of New York City, traveled to the Middle East, visiting East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. In the town of Ramallah, Avalos developed a children’s art workshop. Much to the surprise of the artist, almost all these children, when given the materials to create something, would produce the image of the then-outlawed Palestinian flag. This image symbolized the group’s struggle for unity and self-determination. Struck by the way imagery can empower a people, Avalos decided to create a visual artwork which recognized other minority groups involved in similar struggles. The Palestinian flag is the main visual component of Avalos’ “Message to the Public.”

A second component of infitada: Birth of a Nation is the artist’s reference to the mythology of Aztlan. According to legend, the wandering Aztec tribes journeyed to Tenochtitlan, modern-day Mexico City, from Aztlan, an area now bisected by the border of Mexico and the United States. Although divided, the region has served as a point of spiritual and historical reference for those Mexicans and Mexican Americans who, while residing there, have also been discriminated against by those who now govern the area. Citing their historical precedence, Avalos hopes Aztlan can serve as a unifying mythological space for all Chicanos who have been displaced by nations and borders. He also intends, by associating this mythology with Palestinian imagery, to pay homage to the struggles, worldwide, of all such groups.

Avalos’ concern for the rights of minority groups originated from his continuing involvement with the Chicano rights movement of the southwest United States.

Messages to the Public formed a key part of the Public Art Fund’s long-term commitment to media-based artworks. Running from 1982 to 1990, the show featured a series of artists’ projects created specifically for the Spectacolor board at Times Square.

As Russell Miller from Ohio newspaper The Toledo Blade explained in his article on February 19, 1984, “every month, a different artist presents a 30-second animation on the Spectacolor light board—an 800-square-foot array of 8,000 red, white, blue, and green 60-watt bulbs that dominates the Times Square vista. The spot is repeated more than 50 times a day for two weeks, wedged into a 20-minute loop of computer-animated commercials.

“Jane Dickson, a painter, was working for Spectacolor, Inc. as an ad designer and computer programmer when, three and a half years ago, she first thought to use the light board to display noncommercial art.

“‘I picked that title,’ she said of Messages to the Public, ‘because I thought the propaganda potential from this project was terrific.’ The board, she noted, was regularly used for ‘commercial propaganda.’

“Dickson sought help from the Public Art Fund, an organization based here and dedicated to taking art out of the galleries and placing it in the city’s streets and parks.”

Project Director of the Public Art Fund Jessica Cusick explained, “We’re trying to do art that’s timely, has a message, is visually potent and is trying to deal with the fine line dividing fine art and commercial art.”