Art Professor Victor De La Rosa Takes Stand Against BART Censorship

GOLDEN GATE XPRESS -- Victor De La Rosa, associate professor in the School of Art at SF State, is the creator of the tapestries for his collection “La Gente De Tu Barrio/The People of Your Neighborhood.” He is taking a stance against what he said was BART’s recent censorship of his art. It started when he entered a competition held by San Francisco Planning’s Mission Street Public Life Plan and was selected to create four woven portraits to be featured at the BART station, De La Rosa said. The series of posters depicts four people from the Mission District standing next to words and phrases that range from positive feelings about the Mission to more controversial topics like gentrification. De La Rosa said that the Planning Department had been trying to work with BART to find a solution. He said he waited almost a month for BART to respond to San Francisco Planning Department’s proposal that they blur out the word “bitch” on the fourth poster.