In the late eighties Tim Rollins + KOS (Kids of Survival) received a commission for a large work intended to be a gift to the Bathgate neighborhood. Amerika-For the People of Bathgate is painted on the side of C.E.S. 4, overlooking the plaza of the Bathgate Industrial Complex. The work is based on Franz Kafka's novel "Amerika." Its imagery is drawn from a passage in the last chapter in which the hero sees hundreds of women dressed as angels and blowing long golden horns. In a flyer distributed throughout the school, Rollins asked the school community-teachers, students, parents, and friends-to "show your freedom, your individual voice, your spirit in the form of a golden horn." The individual horn designs collected at the school were adapted and combined by Rollins + KOS to create the final composition. The mural won the Art Commission's Award for Excellence in Design in 1989. (It is located opposite artist Alice Adams' Glider Park.)


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