In 1934 Philip Guston and his painter friend Reuben Kadish traveled from Los Angeles to Morelia, the capital city of Michoacán, an interior state on Mexico’s Pacific coastline. Through the legendary Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros, their mentor, they had received a commission to paint a 40-foot-high wall in a majestic 18th-century Baroque palace belonging to the University of St. Nicholas (today, it houses the Regional Museum of Michoacán). It took 180 days for the two young artists to complete what turned out to be a monumental 1,024-square-foot fresco, The Struggle Against Terrorism. Now, after years of effort, this landmark work has been fully restored and is set to be unveiled in Morelia, Mexico, on Friday, January 31.
The monumental mural depicts scenes of torture and intolerance throughout the ages, from biblical times to the present day. Guston and Kadish wanted to create a timely and powerful visual warning against the spread of fascism across nations. While the Mexican Fascist Party, formed in 1922 in opposition to the Mexican Revolution, dissolved within a few years and had little influence, Sinarquism (Unión Nacional Sinarquista) was a significant and longer-lasting movement, animated by similar extremist nationalist authoritarian leanings, with an emphasis on martial discipline and strict organizational structure along with a militant aesthetic. Anchored on a return to Mexican traditions, Roman Catholicism, Spanish heritage and a Christian social order, it opposed communism and instead supported the fascist dictators Francisco Franco, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.
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Heavily influenced by Siqueiros’ bold colors, dramatic lighting and dynamism, the two-story painting amalgamates an eclectic mix of historical and cultural references while drawing its artistic inspirations from Surrealism, Futurism and the great frescoes of the Italian Renaissance masters. Massive looming figures appear to struggle, bent against inexorable waves of political forces and history, resulting in an epic, cinematic tableau. Weaving together an intricate set of allusions, Guston and Kadish juxtaposed in a tense symbolic dialectic religious references to the crucifixion of Jesus and the Inquisitions of Medieval Europe with Nazi and Communist symbols and instruments of torture. Some details reference Mexican art history, including a rendition of a 15th-century woodblock print depicting the persecution of the Jews of Trent, first identified by art historian Ellen G. Landau in Mexico and American Modernism (Yale University Press, 2013).
More importantly, some of the motifs that would appear later in Guston’s late figurative work, such as chains and Klan hoods, can be found here. As much as they’ve sparked recent controversy on the occasion of his major museum surveys, their presence in such an important early masterpiece is a testament to the artist’s long engagement with these painful themes. These motifs also confirm their reactionary connotation, being depicted in this symbolic and political context to convey a message against the conservative, nationalistic values represented by the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1930s and then again in the late 1960s, Guston used the Klan hoods as powerful symbols of racism and violence and as a way of confronting and condemning these evils. Far from showing affiliation and support for extremist groups, Guston captured the anxious and turbulent world he witnessed.
The mural, upon its reveal, was seen as so revolutionary and disconcerting that it was covered from view by a false wall, only to be rediscovered and exhumed in 1973. Over the years, unstable climatic conditions not only stripped the paint of its vibrancy but also left visible flaws. “When I first traveled to see the mural in 2006, its former power could only be imagined, ” Musa Mayer, Philip Guston’s daughter, said in a statement.
Acknowledging The Struggle Against Terrorism’s declining condition and recognizing that immediate intervention would be crucial to the mural’s survival for posterity and for continued art historical scholarship, the Guston Foundation’s executive director, Sally Radic, entered into a dialogue with Marina Núñez Bespalova, Undersecretary of Cultural Development in Mexico’s Ministry of Culture and enlisted the help of decorated Argentine architect Luis Laplace to conserve the mural.
In May of 2024, a contract was finally signed, leading to interventions that would eradicate the humidity issues that had accelerated the artwork’s deterioration. “The restoration of this mural has been a key focus for our Foundation over the past two years,” commented Radic. “We’re delighted with our excellent collaboration with the Mexican Culture Ministry, particularly the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature and the Institute of Mural Conservation.”
The actual restoration was executed by a world-renowned team of conservators managed by Mexico’s National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature. Notably, those conservators came from Mexico and Italy, the two countries with the most important fresco and mural traditions.
The long tradition of Mexican murals
While Italy’s breathtaking fresco tradition is widely celebrated—stretching back to the 1st century B.C.E. with Etruscan tomb paintings, evolving into the luminous works of Roman villas, and culminating in the masterful achievements of the Renaissance and Baroque—Mexico’s mural tradition is equally rich, deeply embedded in the nation’s history, culture and social movements.
Though Mexico is best known for the Mexican Muralist Movement of the 1920s, led by Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and Siqueiros (collectively known as Los Tres Grandes), whose influence extended into major commissions in the United States, the country’s mural tradition predates theirs by centuries. The Olmec civilization was creating murals as early as 1200 B.C.E., a practice that continued through the Mayan and Aztec eras, where murals served as vital tools for storytelling and visual communication. During the colonial period, Mexico’s murals, like their European counterparts, took on primarily religious themes. But with the Mexican War of Independence in the early 19th Century, their role shifted once again to reflect nationalist and patriotic ideals. By the period of the Mexican Revolution, murals had become a powerful vehicle for political expression, with the Mexican Muralism movement transforming them into public artworks designed to educate and inspire the masses, championing revolutionary ideals and social justice.
Now fully restored to its former splendor, this epic mural unmistakably demonstrates how Guston and Kadish embraced the revolutionary spirit and political urgency that define this art form’s very essence.
