David Alfaro Siqueiros
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David Alfaro Siqueiros painted only three murals in the United States, one in a private home and two in public spaces in Los Angeles. The public murals were highly political--protesting American imperialism and labor practices and featuring strong socialist statements. They created storms of protest among city officials and the first was destroyed while the second, entitled America Tropical, was painted over. In the 1970s it was found that the second mural was, though damaged and faded, largely intact under layers of paint and by the 1980s various groups had become involved in restoration efforts. The Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) assumed the work of restoring the mural and some of the burden of funding the project. The project has involved technicians from several institutions and has provided the opportunity for innovative approaches to restoration. This work has continued into the 1990s and, despite the passage of so much time and vast changes in social conditions, the restoration efforts have managed to stir up some degree of protest based on the content of the mural itself. Siqueiros was a lifelong revolutionary. He entered the San Carlos Academy of Art in Mexico City in 1911, the year after the revolution had deposed the corrupt regime of Porfirio Diaz. His teachers there were imbued with the spirit of the Revolution and the quest for human rights and Siqueiros' subject matter--the struggles of the peoples of Latin America--was determined for life. Afte
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traged civic leaders and Ferencz, conceding to pressure, whitewashed the central portion of the mural. A short time later the entire surface was whitewashed.
Ironically it was the overpainting of the mural that preserved it. Even with the best of materials the mural would have been directly subjected to the intense sun, rains, and highly acidic pollution of Los Angeles. But Siqueiros had chosen to work with materials "suitable for 'dialectical-subversive painting' [including] the electric drill, the cement gun, white water-proof cement, the airbrush or spray gun, the blow-torch, pre-colored cement" and commercial automotive paints (White 149). Though a contemporary reviewer exulted that "rains will never wash it off, nor sun dim its details" because it was painted on cement the commercial paints were actually less stable and more readily affected by sunlight than traditional wet fresco technique would have been (quoted in Levin).
The white paint over the mural slowly eroded over the years and the painting underneath began to fade and peel in some places. Portions of plaster slowly detached from the wall and bricks were dislodged by earthquakes. Because pollution levels were so high in downtown Los Angeles the surface of
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Documentation Program, Los Angeles, America Tropical, Angeles Siqueiros, Rainer Palumbo, Meeting Streets, Scientific Program, Art London, Clemente Orozco, Institute GCI, los angeles, america tropical, sept 1998 available, 30 sept 1998, 30 sept, rainer palumbo, buzzanca rainer, conservation institute, internet 30, 1998 available, buzzanca rainer palumbo, internet 30 sept, bishop buzzanca, getty conservation institute, sept 1998,
Approximate Word count = 2668
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
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