Olvera Street's once-whitewashed mural by Mexican master David Alfaro Siqueiros gets a needed cleani

[Judi Lynn]

Olvera Street's once-whitewashed mural by Mexican master David Alfaro Siqueiros gets a needed cleaning

- click for image -

http://www.trbimg.com/img-58dc4fb3/turbine/la-1490833418-qv5yo9stn0-snap-image/650/650x366


Carolina A. Miranda
April 7, 2017 1:25 PM

. . .

“América Tropical,” painted by Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros on the side of the old Italian Hall on Olvera Street in 1932 and later whitewashed for stirring controversy, is getting tender loving care from conservators at the Getty Research Institute.

“We photograph the paint regularly to monitor it,” says Leslie Rainer, a mural conservator and senior project specialist with the Getty Research Institute. “We have representative spots that we look to to monitor for changes. And what we see is that the mural is filthy — just from all of the particulates in downtown Los Angeles.”

Rainer says that the mural’s location — at a busy intersection in downtown and above the exhaust fans of Olvera Street restaurants — means that it accumulates grime at a rapid rate.

Conservators are vacuuming up some of the soot and giving the mural a gentle cleaning with water and sponges. They are also giving it a thorough examination, through the use of digital microscopes among other techniques, to make sure that the surface of the piece is stable and to further study Siqueiros’ use of materials. (The mural was made using an unusual technique that included painting directly into wet cement, like a fresco.)

More:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-david-alfaro-siqueiros-mural-20170407-story.html

[Basic LA]

1. Thanks for that - I'll be near there tomorrow.

I'll check it out.