El Salvador: Destruction of Cathedral Mural Angers Citizens · Global Voices
Update (1 February, 2012):
The Cathedral's website, catedralsansalvador.org, which included pictures of the mural is no longer online.
El Salvador has a bloody history: 75,000 civilians were killed by the armed forces and death squads during the civil war (1980-1992) and the religious community suffered the assassination of Archbishop <PERSON> in 1980, the murder and rape of four United States churchwomen, and a massacre of Jesuit priests. The Catholic church was particularly harmed by State violence during this period.
After the signing of a peace agreement, memory and reconciliation became priorities for many citizens. Any act in the opposite direction tends to spark a lot of reactions, as happened recently regarding the controversial destruction of one of the most visible Salvadoran memorials: a mural in the facade of the capital's San Salvador Cathedral. The Internet quickly flooded with shocked comments and calls to actions.
San Salvador Cathedral. Image available on Wikipedia (GNU Free Documentation License).
<PERSON> [es] explains on Tumblr:
Esta semana fue destruido sin previo aviso el mural que adornaba la fachada de la Catedral Metropolitana de San Salvador;realizado por <PERSON>; por parte de la autoridades eclesiásticas del recinto; particularmente nunca me ha gustado ni el mural ni la catedral , pero el acto en si es indignante, una falta de respeto para el artista(y la comunidad de artistas en general) que concibió la idea, y las personas que colaboraron en su construcción.
This week, without previous notice, the mural that adorned the facade of the Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador, by <PERSON>, was destroyed by the ecclesiastical authorities of the precinct; I've never actually liked the mural or the cathedral, but the act itself is outrageous, disrespectful to the artist (and the artistic community in general) who conceived the idea, and to the people who helped in its construction.
Blogger <PERSON> [es] gathers several reactions and posts pictures of the destroyed mural. She wonders:
Cómo se les ocurrió este atentado contra la autoestima de las y los salvadoreños, la historia de este país, el arte…?
How could they come up with this assault on the self-esteem of Salvadorans, on the history of this country, on art …?
On his website [es], <PERSON>, the artist who created the work as a tribute for peace, describes his work on the Cathedral:
The Catholic Church of El Salvador asked me to design the facade for the Cathedral. This was one of the most inspiring artistic moments of my life, because it meant to me that I was putting my art on a very important symbol of my country, with huge historical significance. It was a work that took us (me and a group of artisans) around one year to finish.
Llort's mural was a symbol of peace, as <PERSON> states in an extensive post where she explains the meaning of the art work, and draws a timeline of El Salvador's history. 186
In “On pueblo and cathedral, ruin and rebuilding” she writes:
La Armonia de mi Pueblo is the title of the work that Salvadoran artist <PERSON> created in 1997 to adorn the front of San Salvador’s Cathedral. Armonia is easy to translate into English – it means harmony. Pueblo is a bit more difficult. It’s a term in Spanish that includes the notion of both place and people. It comes from the Latin populus and can refer to a) inhabitants of a nation, country or region who share a similar culture; b) a population that farms in a particular zone (eg., a village or community); or c) the peasant or working class. So in essence, the title of the work is “the Harmony of my People”.
<PERSON> adds:
Church leaders have since apologized to the <PERSON> family and to those who are upset by the surprise removal of the tiles. They contend that they consulted with the congregation of the cathedral, and got their approval to remove the tiles. But the Secretary of Culture has called the Catholic church out for their actions, condemning ’the destruction of the face of the Cathedral,’ and accusing the church of violating the ‘Special Law on Protection of Cultural Patrimony’ which states that ‘although the mural on the Cathedral of San Salvador was not declared a Cultural Site, it was in process of being declared, meaning that under no circumstances should any interventions have been made. 736