The Murals of El Salvador: Reconstruction, Historical Memory and Whitewashing

Abstract

Walls define El Salvador. Littered with advertisements, political propaganda, murals and graffiti, the nation's walls reveal tensions, propagate values and narrate everyday life. In a country still negotiating a brutal civil war (1980–1992), El Salvador's search for collective identity actively defines its socio-political life and, consequently, public walls.

Despite this, Salvadoran mural painting has never been internationally studied, celebrated or defined. It has existed for decades, influenced by Mexico's mural legacy, while deeply reflecting El Salvador's cultural and political identities. Since the 1990s, painted symbols, themes and motifs specific to Salvadoran history have become active material markers in the struggle for nationhood. Mural painting has become a leftist tool to reclaim local identities, subvert contemporary struggles and exert political power. Pieced together, El Salvador's murals reveal attempts to construct a shared cultural identity as it actively defines, interprets and debates the nation's historical memory. This article provides an introduction to postwar mural painting in El Salvador with particular focus on its relationship to the philosophy of historical memory and the politics of whitewashing. It concludes with a discussion of contemporary Salvadoran mural projects.

KEYWORDS::

• El Salvador
• mural painting
• whitewashing
• public art
• historical memory

FUNDING

This work was supported by a 2011–2012 Fulbright Grant, Fulbright U.S. Student Program, U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Notes

¹Eva Cockcroft, John Pitman Weber and James Cockcroft, Toward a People's Art: The Contemporary Mural Movement, 2nd ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998), xiv.

²Astrid Panamá Bahamond, Procesos del arte en El Salvador (San Salvador, El Salvador: Secretaría de Cultura de la Presidencia, Dirección de Publicaciones e Impresos, 2012), 30.

³Bahamond, Procesos del arte en El Salvador, 75.

⁴ Ibid., 73.

⁵ Isaías Mata, in conversation with the author, 17 Oct. 2011.

⁶ In the late 1970s, 10% of the landowners owned 78% of El Salvador's arable land; see Raymond Bonner, Weakness and Deceit: U.S. Policy and El Salvador (New York: Times Books, 1984), 16–17.

⁷ Citizens were largely inspired by the Second Vatican Council, U.S. Civil Rights Movement and socialist theory.

⁸ The F.M.L.N. is named after Salvadoran Farabundo Martí, who led a 1932 revolt against the military government that became a defining moment for the Salvadoran left.

⁹ Carlos “Santiago” Henríquez Consalvi, in conversation with the author, 7 Feb. 2012.

¹⁰María Lopez Vigil, Oscar Romero: Memories in Mosaic (New York: Epica Task Force, 2000), 356.

¹¹David Kunzle, The Murals of Revolutionary Nicaragua: 1979–1992 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 6.

¹² This lack of victory, in many ways, creates a parallel between post-war Salvadoran murals and the murals of Northern Ireland. Related themes include martyrdom, the marking of sites and whitewashing.

¹³ Cruz Portal, e-mail correspondence with the author, 31 Jan. 2011.

¹⁴ This intense focus on remembrance has been passionately adopted into the imagery and rhetoric of the left as seen in the Introduction to Equipo Maíz's 1999 publication, Images We Must Not Forget: “The Peace Accords in 1992 asked for forgiveness, reconciliation and to forget. There can be forgiveness. There can be reconciliation. But there should also be justice, and never ever forgetting.” In Edgar Romero, ed., El Salvador, Imágenes para no olvidar, 1900–1999 (San Salvador: Asociación Equipo Maíz, 1999).

¹⁵Elisabeth Jelin, State Repression and the Struggles for Memory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), xv.

¹⁶Jelin, State Repression and the Struggles for Memory, 14.

¹⁷ During the civil war, Mata was a participant in the Chicano Mural Movement in San Francisco's Mission District. See Annice Jacoby, Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo (New York: Abrams, 2009).

¹⁸ Cruz Portal, e-mail correspondence with the author, 31 Jan. 2011.

¹⁹ The use of Catholic iconography reflects the influence of Mexican Muralism, particularly Diego Rivera.

²⁰Marilyn A. Zeitlan, Art Under Duress: El Salvador 1980–Present (Tempe: Arizona State University Art Museum, 1995), 15.

²¹Isaías Mata, “La influencia de Monseñor Romero en las artes plásticas,” A.S.T.A.C. Blog, 29 May 2010. http://astacultura.wordpress.com (accessed 3 Mar. 2011).

²² In some instances, this also reflects the influence of the Mexican Mural tradition.

²³ The murals that do survive have been actively retouched by the local community or organizational partner, such as A.S.T.A.C.

²⁴Kunzle, Murals of Revolutionary Nicaragua, 13.

²⁵ To illustrate, consider a response from former Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani (ARENA) when questioned about the massacre at El Mozote. His reply: “I think it's better for the country if we don't always look back.” In Mark Danner, The Massacre of El Mozote (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 259.

²⁶Nora, “Between History and Memory: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations 26 (1989): 17–24.

²⁷ América “Dina” Argentina Vaquerano, in conversation with the author, 17 Feb. 2012.

²⁸ Claudia Verenice Flores Escolero, in conversation with the author, 17 Feb. 2012.

²⁹ Used in this essay, graffiti can be defined as a drawing or stencil on a wall using aerosol spray.

³⁰ Tagging can be defined as the writing of one's name on a wall.

³¹ “Alcaldía capitalina pone a trabajar a su unidad antigrafiti,” La Pagina, 22 Jul. 2011: 1. http://www.lapagina.com.sv/ampliar.php?id = 54215 (accessed 14 Sep. 2012).

³² José Alberto “Joalgar” Garcia, in conversation with the author, 28 Oct. 2011.

³³ “El Salvador Murals in Ataco,” S.P.A.R.C. Murals, http://sparcmurals.org/ucla/index.php?option = com_content&task = blogcategory&id = 90&Itemid = 191 (accessed 21 May 2010).

³⁴ Gomez said, true or not, that he was responding to community desires, specifically those of the homeowners who gave their walls to the project.

³⁵ “Alcaldía borra tres murals en Ataco,” La Prensa Gráfica, 23 Jan. 2011. http://www.laprensagrafica.com/el-salvador/departamentos/166659-alcaldia-borra-tres-murales-en-ataco (accessed 9 Dec. 2011).

³⁶ “Murals in Ataco, El Salvador Whitewashed by Mayor,” S.P.A.R.C. Murals, Press Release, 19 Jan. 2011. http://www.sparcmurals.org/sparcone/images/stories/homepageImg/Ataco_SPARC_Press_Release_2011.pdf (accessed 12 Oct. 2011).

³⁷ Journalists immediately refuted this claim and the Archbishop has yet to publicly respond. Most believe it was destroyed because wealthy, conservative supporters of the Church found the mural plebian.

³⁸Nora, “Les Lieux de mémoire,” 7—25.

Additional information

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Rachel Heidenry

Rachel Heidenry is a freelance writer and curator. Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, she is a graduate of Bard College in New York where she studied art history and human rights. In 2011, Heidenry began The El Salvador Mural Project, documenting mural art and graffiti on El Salvador's walls. The project was funded by a 2011-2012 Fulbright Research Grant and sponsored by Centro Arte para La Paz in Suchitoto, El Salvador where an exhibition of her photographs opened in April 2012. Heidenry is currently creating an online resource for the study of Salvadoran mural painting. She resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is the Research and Curatorial fellow at the Slought Foundation.