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Painting the Town Red? The Contemporary Legacies of One Hundred Years of Public Muralism and the Left
  • ISSN: 2042-793X
  • E-ISSN: 2042-7948

Abstract

This article explores Diego Rivera’s mural cycle as a site of contested meaning both at the time of its creation in 1933, as well as at the time of the city of Detroit’s municipal bankruptcy in 2013. These two historic moments of economic precarity raised critical questions about the social value of art and its relation to the working class. The article returns to the existing literature on the mural in the 1930s as a way of thinking through the more recent debates around the role of art in the recovery of the city of Detroit in the twenty-first century. The contemporary instrumentalization of murals towards urban revitalization efforts and branding initiatives in Detroit calls for renewed consideration of the mural form’s relationship to left politics. As such, offers a salient example of an artist’s successful navigation of the confines of corporate patronage to create art for the working class.

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2025-02-28
2026-04-20

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/content/journals/10.1386/aps_00104_1
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From the Motor City to a Mural City: The legacy of Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry
Art & the Public Sphere 13, 29 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1386/aps_00104_1
/content/journals/10.1386/aps_00104_1
/content/journals/10.1386/aps_00104_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): art and labour; art-washing; creative city; Mexican muralism; murals; public art; street art; urban development

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