Restoring the city’s oldest street mural
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“Un Pueblo Sin Murales es Un Pueblo Desmuralizado” (A people without murals is a demuralized people)
Latino art continues to be an important subgenre in the Washington mural cycle
Washington D.C.’s oldest street mural was part of a first wave of street art that swept, so to speak, into the District from elsewhere around the country half a century ago, a time when murals helped to brighten up beleaguered and downtrodden city neighborhoods. Dramatic changes have taken place in the ensuing decades. Unfortunately, those changes have spurred the destruction of many of the murals. “El Pueblo …” has endured but not without brushes with mortality. Most recently in 2011 when its Adams Morgan building suffered earthquake damage. The mural was finally restored this year by local artist Juan Pineda thanks to a community effort to raise nearly $7,500 from a variety of sources. The D.C. Commission on the Arts and the Humanities was the largest contributor but the project could not have been completed without help from Adams Morgan ANC; the Mayor’s Office of Latino Affairs; Ward 1 Council Member Jim Graham; Perseus Realty; the building’s owner Manh Phung; and of the Adams Morgan Partnership Business Improvement District, according to Kristin Barden, the BID’s executive director, who spearheaded the initiative along with DC Arts Center.
To commemorate the restoration of this witty and captivating local landmark we invited Perry Frank, the founder and executive director of DC Murals: Spectacle and Story, a nonprofit project dedicated to educating the public about the extraordinary street art in Washington DC.
Un pueblo sin murals (“A people without murals,” also known as the Adams Morgan Mural or the Riggs Mural, is the oldest piece remaining in place from the beginning phase of the contemporary mural cycle in Washington. The work was designed and executed by Carlos Salazar and Filipe Martinez, Chilean immigrants who joined thousands of their compatriots in fleeing the repressive Pinochet regime in the 1970s. The two co-founded Centro de Arte, a nonprofit cultural organization seeking to promote Latino artistic expression and community.
The crowded surface conveys the frenetic and confusing Latino subculture of the period, a time when thousands of immigrants from Latin American and Caribbean countries converged on the neighborhood to join relatives and seek political asylum. At the top of the mural a small Washington Monument establishes the setting, but the action clearly takes place far from the Federal City.
“The painting is far from universally bleak, however: Below, cubist-style figures work with paints—perhaps representing the muralists themselves.”
According to Carlos Arrien, a local artist and arts administrator who worked on the mural as a youth, the ghost-like figure with the center eye in the upper left represents the omniscient, oppressive presence of the government (perhaps immigration authorities). The upper right contains monstrous figures gathered around a table, playing monopoly under an unshaded light reminiscent of Guernica. The image symbolizes the real estate speculation that decimated affordable housing in the area, with bankers financing the conversion of historic apartment buildings into condominiums.
The painting is far from universally bleak, however: Below, cubist-style figures work with paints—perhaps representing the muralists themselves. The bottom foreground, from left to right, shows a multi-racial group, a dancing couple of indeterminate gender, and a lively band. A small painting adjacent to the mural carries the caption that expresses the work’s theme: Un pueblo sin murals es un pueblo desmuralizdo (“A people without murals are a demuralized people.”) In both English and Spanish, “demuralized” is a pun on “demoralized,” suggesting that the rise of public art expressing Latino life in Adams Morgan helped draw immigrants from many different homelands together into a single community.
“Centro de Arte completed six murals over several years”
Centro de Arte completed six murals over several years, picking up on the energy that was sparked by Chicago’s protest mural, the Wall of Respect (1967); the movement spread to Latino communities and causes, linking the Civil Rights struggle of African Americans to issues taken up by the United Farm Workers under the leadership of Cesar Chavez and others. Latino art has continued to be an important subgenre in the Washington mural cycle, with the Latin American Youth Center in Columbia Heights providing sponsorship and direction.
—Perry Frank
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