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San Diego artists have always sought to create an arts and culture center in downtown San Diego. The bulk of the contemporary arts initiative began with the Chicano Arts Movement in 1970 with the creation of the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park and Chicano Park (designated a historic site by the San Diego Historic Site Board in 1980). In 1976, Mario Torero and his father, renowned artist "maestro" Guillermo Acevedo, opened Acevedo Art Gallery International, the first art gallery in downtown San Diego, located at Eighth and Broadway. In 1977, Torero, Maestro Acevedo and a group of area artists moved the Art Gallery to a new space creating the Community Arts Center, a multicultural arts and exhibition space occupying all four floors of the Knights of Pythias building located on Third Avenue and E street. The Community Arts Center launched the birth of arts and culture in San Diego. To commemorate this birth, Torero painted a fifteen by sixty foot mural on the Community Arts Center building's south side wall spanning the third and fourth stories. Pablo Picasso, one of the great artists of the twentieth century and who had just passed away in 1973, became the inspiration for the piece, and so it was painted: The Eyes of Picasso. The mural was completed in 1978. The "Eyes" mural was so massive that it became part of the city's skyline and could easily be viewed from across the bay in Coronado. Meanwhile, the Gaslamp Quarter was making efforts to rid its red-light district "peep-show" reputation, to pave the way for a revitalization project in hopes of driving new business and tourism to the area. In these early days of the Gaslamp Quarter cleanup, space was cheap and although the City did not participate in the arts enhancement of downtown, area businesses encouraged artists and the arts scene by offering free exhibition space or very affordable live/work lofts. The exhibits and arts activities are what eventually helped the Gaslamp shed its seedy reputation to become one of Southern California's premier dining, shopping and entertainment districts. Success has its price and what helped make the Gaslamp Quarter the success that it is, unfortunately priced itself out – that being the arts community – because as one would expect, high rents forced virtually all of the artists out of the Gaslamp District. 1 | 2 |
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