Political
murals
Up against the wall: the power of the political mural
'Free Derry' mural, St Colomb Street in Derry's Bogside, Northern Ireland (Creative Commons: www.flickr.com/photos/neilrickards)
As murals go, it doesn't have a lot of artistic merit, consisting solely of six words, unevenly painted in black letters on the whitewashed gable end of a small terrace. But the image quickly became iconic and, in the four decades since it first appeared, it has been repainted many times over. The gable end itself has been preserved long after the original terrace was demolished.
There are some who dispute that the 'You Are Now Entering Free Derry' slogan on the wall in St Colomb Street in Derry's Bogside, Northern Ireland, really qualifies as a mural at all. What is certain is that the handiwork of a group of civil rights activists from the 1960s helped provide the impetus for one of most prolific bursts of political mural painting ever seen.
Loyalist paramilitary mural, Belfast, Northern Ireland (Creative Commons: www.flickr.com/photos/gustaf08/)
Upwards of 2000 murals have appeared on the walls of Northern Ireland since 1969. Until recently, most have been sectarian, often marking 'territory', and many associated with (and celebrating) particular paramilitary groups. The unionist tradition of mural painting is in fact the older, dating back to the early 20th century when images of William III and other Orange symbols were used to mark Protestant working-class areas in Belfast. But the largest category of post-1969 murals was republican. Many memorialised people killed by the British army or police, or paid tribute to prisoners, including the hunger strikers of the early 1980s.
Since the Northern Ireland peace agreement, the focus has become less political. For example, mural memorials to the footballer George Best appeared in both republican and unionist areas after his death in 2005. The art form has also entered the mainstream, with mural competitions being held as part of local community festivals and works being specially commissioned by arts organisations, local authorities and community groups. It's a far cry from when a young republican muralist was shot dead in 1980, police saying they mistook his paintbrush for a gun.
A view of Banksy's 'Separation Wall' project on the occupied West Bank (Creative Commons: www.flickr.com/photos/eddiedangerous/)
The street artist Banksy may have been taking a similar risk in 2008 when he led a group of artists to paint murals on Israel's 6-metre-high 'separation wall', cutting off Palestinian areas on the occupied West Bank. But political muralists in the UK risk no more than a court appearance and a fine. Indeed, such is Banksy's inflated valuation in the art market today that even his more political works are likely to be welcomed by property owners.
Diego Rivera's repainted mural, New Frontiers, originally painted on the Rockefeller Centre in New York in 1933 – with the offending image of Lenin, lower right (Creative Commons: www.flickr.com/photos/rosemania/)
Political mural painting as a tradition emerged most powerfully in the first half of the last century. The great Mexican muralists, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco, led a movement whose art portrayed ordinary people and their role in shaping history – including making revolutions. In the USA, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, thousands of murals were commission under the New Deal by the Works Progress Administration, focusing on workers and the daily lives of ordinary people – a tradition that was revived in the 1960s in California, New York and other US cities as part of the civil rights and other protest movements.
Slope Mural, Fourth Avenue & Sackett Street, Brooklyn New York (© Frank H. Jump)
Hispanic and other minority communities, such as the Chinese in New York, often used murals as a way of giving the unrepresented a voice. In the UK and other parts of Europe, political mural painting has been associated in recent years with squatting and occupations of empty property or campaigns to save particular streets or communities. In Latin American countries such as Cuba, Nicaragua and most recently Venezuela, meanwhile, murals have played a major role in election campaigning and other propaganda.
Supporters of Barack Obama also adopted the mural as a campaign tool in the 2008 presidential election. Local artists in Houston, for example, painted a 10-foot-high image of the candidate, with the word 'Hope' in large letters underneath, on the wall of Obama's campaign headquarters. Based on a screen-printed poster distributed nationwide by the Charleston street artist Shepard Fairey, it proved so popular with locals that it was allowed to remain after the election.
In artistic terms, the quality of political murals is as varied as their locations. But the muralists have one thing in common: an appreciation of the power of a simple image or a few well-chosen words to communicate a message that resonates way beyond its immediate setting.
