Pat O’Neill

As a young boy growing up in the 1940s at Western Avenue and 90th Street in South Los Angeles, Pat O’Neill occasionally went to the dump with his father as a way to pass the time. In those years, Los Angeles was quickly modernizing and entering the boom of midcentury consumerism, becoming a place where Hollywood met the growing aerospace, music, and fashion industries. These themes are evident in Bump City. Made during O’Neill’s final year as a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, the four-minute film is a portrait of the city post-1950, with its oversized, kinetic, sculptural, and neon advertisements and hyperconsumerism.