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Rahm Emanuel's Face Removed From E.T. Mural Along The 606

By Paul Biasco | September 17, 2015 5:51am
 A mural of mayor Rahm Emanuel along The 606 was buffed to remove the mayor's face this week.
A mural of mayor Rahm Emanuel along The 606 was buffed to remove the mayor's face this week.
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DNAinfo/Paul Biasco

HUMBOLDT PARK — A commissioned mural of Rahm Emanuel depicted as E.T. along The 606 has been wiped clean of all traces of the mayor.

The Rahm removal comes just a few days before a weekend of public arts events on the city's new trail that includes a "how to read graffiti" walk near where the mural is located.

The graffiti artist who said he spent 25 hours crafting a E.T. mural called the act clear censorship and a slap in the face.

A spokesman for Emanuel said the mayor's office had nothing to do with the paint job.

Slide the white, middle bar to see before and after shots of the mural.

Alejandro Ayala, the artist of the piece, said he thinks the organizers of the wall received pressure from the city about the E.T. mural.

The curator of the wall, Flash ABC, said he made the decision to take down the mural last week in order to keep the relationship between graffiti writers and the mayor's administration strong.

Paul Biasco says the artist feels like he's been censored:

Flash, a well respected and major player in the city's graffiti community, called it an "old school" decision and denied pressure from the city.

"It's been a big difference in the city of Chicago from the Daley administration on those same walls until now," Flash said. "It's a different environment that we are in now."

He said the city entrusted him with the project and he was trying to work with the city rather than make any political statements.

Ayala, the artist, didn't buy Flash's take and claims Flash later told him he did not personally paint over E.T. and did not know who did.

"I don’t live off my art, I do it as hobby. It is a slap in the face in a way to an artist," said Ayala, who grew up in Humboldt Park. "If you want it redone, don’t spray paint over it. Give me a deadline and I'll take over it.”

Ayala said there were no issues with E.T. scene for the first four weeks it was up.

DNAinfo Chicago published a post about the photo with a headline "Check Out This Mural of Rahm Emanuel as E.T., Other Scenes from the 'Hood" in late August.

"When I reflect on it, if you are policing this wall and saw this progress at one point you should have said this can not go on here," Ayala said. "It lasted four weeks and then it got on DNAinfo.”

Whoever painted over Emanuel's face also painted over a portion of the mural that depicted a drill digging into the letters "CPS."

Ayala, 31, said he was inspired to create the mural of Emanuel as E.T., and the CPS letters being drilled into, by the community and teachers who were walking by as he was working on the piece.

He hoped the piece represented long-time residents of the changing community.

"People were passing by saying 'The 606 is not for us, paint something for the community that's for us,' " Ayala said. 

Ayala said he spent two weeks painting the E.T. scene and spent about $200 of his own money on materials to put it up.

Ayala said he was told to paint something beautiful for the community and after sketching out about 20 other proposals, settled on the E.T. scene as a sort of editorial cartoon.

The artist said Rahm as E.T. represented the mayor coming into the city for his second term.

"Do we know he's in it for the long run?" Ayala said. "It was satire saying Rahm is coming into Chicago making all these drastic changes, but is he like E.T.?"

Ayala, 31, said his crew, which has been painting since the '80s, was asked by the nonprofit Kuumba Lynx to paint over a spot that had been tagged before it was primed.

Kuumba Lynx, a 19-year-old arts education and youth development organization, was selected by the Trust for Public Land to curate a roughly two-block stretch along the side of The 606 near Spaulding Avenue.

"That particular mural on the trail, it definitely says where Chicago is on public education and housing and I find it interesting that this is the piece that got painted over," said Jacinda Bullie, co-director of Kuumba Lynx.

Bullie said she didn't know if it was "a random act of chaos" or if there was something more to the removal.

She called the incident unfortunate and said it would be fixed.

"We just hope that people will honor the work that went into it and honor the philosophy and the statement that’s being made by the organization and all of the individual artist and crews," Bullie said. "This statement is about the city being carved out for some folks and other folks being left out of that."

None of the other work by the more than 20 crews brought in from around the city was touched.

"That used to be a place where graph writers always got up illegally," Bullie said. "It was important to us because of our mission and the work that we do around marginalized communities thinking about what The 606 might mean for the future of that community and who gets to live in that community."

Ayala, the artist, said the mural represents change in the city, especially in the areas near the western end of The 606, and was meant to remind users of what used to be there as well as touch of gentrification.

"These are all discussions that are happening and concerns of the community," Ayala said.

The Trust for Public Land is celebrating the arts along The 606 all September long and has scheduled a number of public events this coming weekend on the trail.

The group is dedicating the restoration of the "Children Are Our Future" mural at California and Bloomingdale on Saturday and is hosting a "reading graffiti" walk Monday night.

The reading graffiti event includes a walk down Bloomingdale Avenue from Kimball to Central Park.


A forest scene along Bloomingdale Avenue where the walk will take place near the E.T. mural.

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