Comments on: Five Controversial Murals

By: Jessica

Jessica — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 17:28:45 +0000

The O’Charley’s restaurant in Winston-Salem, NC, next to Hanes Mall, has a HORRIBLE painted mural. I will try to take a picture of it the next time I am there. It is supposed to represent the city of Winston-Salem but it doesn’t really say anything about the city at all. There is a section in the upper left hand corner that is supposed to be two children having fun on a fair ride, but one of them is making the SCARIEST face. The middle of the mural is a giant twenty foot head of an unattractive girl.
I think that the man in the Disney painting is scary, but most certainly not a Nazi. He looks as if he has a gun, though.

By: DJS

DJS — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 02:07:23 +0000

I attended Indiana University of Bloomington where there was a controversial mural in Woodburn Hall:

http://uits.iu.edu/~ocmhp/032902/text/timeline.html

By: Weakly

Weakly — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:19:39 +0000

Nazi or man in a blue shirt? You be the judge!

By: Man or Monster

Man or Monster — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:06:20 +0000

That DIA one is very clearly pushing an overwrought ecological message. C’mon… a forest burning (not a city), dead animals, dead Indians? “O NOES! They are killing animals and putting them in museums!” I thought it was going to be controversial because of how ridiculous it is, not because people thought it had hidden messages. And yeah, poor choice for a place where thousands of tourists arrive each day. As if airports weren’t stressful enough without having to see depictions of calamity.

By: dan

dan — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:43:48 +0000

the ‘nazi’ looks like aquaman

By: TV Spy

TV Spy — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 09:57:40 +0000

Very interesting, the first one doesn’t seem right for an airport - so I can understand why they wouldn’t a picture of dead children on the wall as tourists enter the city.

By: Jonn

Jonn — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:38:02 +0000

In terms of Disney Nazism, Walt Disney was in fact a strong supporter of the Nazi party and quite an anti-Semite.

The guy in the mural is somewhat irrelevant…

By: Tempscire

Tempscire — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 06:00:45 +0000

I second Doug. Perhaps it’d help if I were more familiar with Hercules’ deeds? Nonetheless, the one second from the left and the one second from the right both look to me rather…phallacious, as it were.

By: ad

ad — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 02:05:06 +0000

plus Siquieros’s America tropical. He was deported for this mural in fact!

By: RSMilward

RSMilward — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:40:32 +0000

You forgot the mural, “The Historic Struggle of the Little Guys to Finish the Mural”!

By: thejungleman

thejungleman — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:25:56 +0000

In the Disney one, I never new NAZIS wore modern era police uniforms. I always thought they wore the brown ones they wear,….constantly, in damn near every picture I’ve ever seen.

By: scooter

scooter — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:18:50 +0000

right on about DIA…..lots of strange stuff is happening there. do a google search on DIA or on “subterranean structures”, followed by your introduction to the “subterrene” and you will get the begeezus scared out of you. the Mormons are in on it as well! prepare for battle, soldier.

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:17:49 +0000

I can’t make out much of anything in that Hercules mural.

By: redfishjohn

redfishjohn — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:39:03 +0000

The Rivera mural incident inspired E.B.White to publish the following poem:

I Paint What I See
– by E.B. White

“‘What do you paint, when you paint on a wall?’
Said John D.’s grandson Nelson.
‘Do you paint just anything there at all?
‘Will there be any doves, or a tree in fall?
‘Or a hunting scene, like an English hall?’

‘I paint what I see,’ said Rivera.

‘What are the colors you use when you paint?’
Said John D.’s grandson Nelson.
‘Do you use any red in the beard of a saint?
‘If you do, is it terribly red, or faint?
‘Do you use any blue? Is it Prussian?’

‘I paint what I paint,’ said Rivera.

‘Whose is that head that I see on the wall?’
Said John D.’s grandson Nelson.
‘Is it anyone’s head whom we know, at all?
‘A Rensselaer, or a Saltonstall?
‘Is it Franklin D.? Is it Mordaunt Hall?
Or is it the head of a Russian?

‘I paint what I think,’ said Rivera.

‘I paint what I paint, I paint what I see,
‘I paint what I think,’ said Rivera,
‘And the thing that is dearest in life to me
‘In a bourgeois hall is Integrity;
‘However . . .
‘I’ll take out a couple of people drinkin’
‘And put in a picture of Abraham Lincoln;
‘I could even give you McCormick’s reaper
‘And still not make my art much cheaper.
‘But the head of Lenin has got to stay
‘Or my friends will give the bird today,
‘The bird, the bird, forever.’

‘It’s not good taste in a man like me,’
Said John D.’s grandson Neslon,
‘To question an artist’s integrity
‘Or mention a practical thing like a fee,
‘But I know what I like to a large degree,
‘Though art I hate to hamper;
‘For twenty-one thousand conservative bucks
‘You painted a radical. I say shucks,
‘I never could rent the offices—–
‘The capitalistic offices.
‘For this, as you know, is a public hall
‘And people want doves, or a tree in hall
‘And though your art I dislike to hamper,
‘I owe a little to God and Gramper,
‘And after all,
‘It’s my wall . . .’

‘We’ll see if it is,’ said Rivera.