{"id":96781,"date":"2025-07-27T13:16:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T13:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/96781\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T13:16:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T13:16:13","slug":"the-story-behind-the-lady-justice-sculpture-in-downtown-la","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/96781\/","title":{"rendered":"The story behind the Lady Justice sculpture in downtown LA"},"content":{"rendered":"

More for families.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re enjoying this article, you\u2019ll love LAist\u2019s early childhood newsletter. Every two weeks, you\u2019ll receive top reads and resources on issues affecting families with kids ages 0\u20135. <\/p>\n

Artist Alison Saar remembers being in a meeting before she was awarded the commission to create the sculpture of Lady Justice in front of the renovated L.A. County Hall of Justice in 2014. Former L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca was there.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came into the office and plopped down a traditional Lady Justice and he says, \u2018This is what I want,\u2019\u201d Saar said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The L.A. County Hall of Justice in 2025. <\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez\/LAist<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

Baca\u2019s statuette wielded a sword, held scales and her eyes were covered with a blindfold. That traditional depiction is thousands of years old.<\/a> It was jarring to Saar, given her life experiences and world views.<\/p>\n

The story behind the Lady Justice sculpture in downtown LA<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sword\u2026 which to me just talked about the violence in the judiciary system\u2026 and the scales\u2026 they’re monetary scales. It felt to me like if you\u2019ve got money, you’ve got one kind of justice,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

And the blindfold? To Saar, it makes Lady Justice blind to compassion.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The sculpture Embodied, by artist Alison Saar.<\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez\/LAist<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

Saar\u2019s 12-foot-tall bronze sculpture was unveiled in 2014<\/a>, when the L.A. County Hall of Justice was re-opened after extensive renovations.<\/p>\n

\"Words<\/p>\n

The L.A. County Hall of Justice was finished in 1925 and re-opened in 2014 after repairs from earthquake damage. <\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez\/LAist<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

The piece is called “Embodied” and it is one of many pieces of public art in Southern California that have rich back stories which reveal important aspects of the region\u2019s history and changing demographics.<\/p>\n

This corner has seen a lot of injustice<\/p>\n

Stand in front of the statue facing east, toward the L.A. River, and despite the many buildings that block much of the view you can sense the natural slope of the land.<\/p>\n

From the 1850s to the 1870s, when most of the buildings were one story, you may have seen mobs congregate here, some in broad daylight, carrying out dozens of lynchings.<\/a> Vague accusations were made against the victim before they were violently killed.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The sculpture Embodied, is located at Temple and Spring streets in downtown Los Angeles. <\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez\/LAist<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

Saar was thinking of that history as she made the sculpture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the last documented lynching took place up on that hill; a lot of bad stuff happened on that hill,\u201d Saar said.<\/p>\n

The nearly 90-year-old U.S. Court House<\/a>, across the street from the statue, sits on property that was a slave market in the mid-1800s. During that time a California state law was used to sell incarcerated Indigenous people into bondage.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Alison Saar created Embodied for the re-opening of the L.A. County Hall of Justice.<\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez\/LAist<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

Add to that the false charges in the 1940s Sleepy Lagoon case<\/a>, the infamous people jailed at the Hall of Justice<\/a>, and autopsies of famous Angelenos in the building\u2019s morgue, and you get a sense of how much has happened on that site.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a powerful, kind of intense space,\u201d Saar said.<\/p>\n

She chose to depict Lady Justice with elements that reflect people rather than the institutions represented by the building.<\/p>\n

\"Ten<\/p>\n

Men charges in the Sleepy Lagoon murder case exit the L.A. County Hall of Justice after being exhonerated.<\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Phil Stern www.philsternarchives.com<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

L.A. is in the statue<\/p>\n

Walk up to the bronze statue and you\u2019ll see words in English, Spanish, Chinese and other languages. They include \u201cadvocate,\u201d \u201cpunishment,\u201d \u201cvirtud<\/a>,\u201d and \u201ckousei<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Words inlaid into the bronze surface of the sculpture Embodied.<\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez\/LAist<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

Saar gathered the words from students at the nearby Cortines high school for visual and performing arts, Valley College, from L.A. County Art Department staff, as well as people she encountered outside courthouses. The prompt? What words come to mind when you hear the word \u201cjustice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeace we have, I think, in every language,\u201d Saar said. \u201cThe idea that people could come and see this piece and find the word that they submitted, or find words that really were in their language, was really important to me.”<\/p>\n

\"Drawing<\/p>\n

Preliminary drawings by artist Alison Saar for the sculpture, Embodied.<\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez\/LAist<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

Saar wants people to use their eyes and their hands when they\u2019re up close to the sculpture. She wants “Embodied” to appeal to the intellect and to the touch.<\/p>\n

The figure\u2019s face is a composite of different races and ethnicities of people in the L.A. area. From the back of her head, a long braid falls down her back and loops up and over the figure\u2019s right arm. Saar says the braid\u2019s three strands symbolize law enforcement, the courts, and the people. The interconnection of these three is needed for justice to work.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Detail from the sculpture Embodied, by Alison Saar.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see that these things are more crucial than ever,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Visit Lady Justice<\/p>\n

Public art is an important part of Saar\u2019s practice. She created an outdoor memorial to Harriet Tubman<\/a> in Harlem, New York, and the International Olympic Committee chose her to create a sculpture for the 2024 Paris games.<\/a> Closer to home, a public art piece at the Artesia Transit Center<\/a> highlights a nearby willow marsh, one of the last of its kind in L.A. County.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The sculpture, Little Big Sister by Alison Saar. <\/p>\n

\u201c[Public art] is a really important component of what Los Angeles is,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

That’s because it\u2019s free and when it\u2019s located where people congregate and meander, it gives them the opportunity to stop and look at the art and meditate on what they see and the art\u2019s ideas, she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it’s just really important to have art that’s available to everybody,\u201d Saar said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More for families. If you\u2019re enjoying this article, you\u2019ll love LAist\u2019s early childhood newsletter. Every two weeks, you\u2019ll…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":96782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[63580,63581,1582,276,63583,2961,63582,224,5337,11642],"class_list":{"0":"post-96781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-alison-saar","9":"tag-black-artists","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-injustice","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-la-art","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-public-art"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114925390076054801","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}