Worldwide Emotion: Interhemispheric Dialogue in David Alfaro Siqueiros’s América tropical oprimida y destrozada por los imperialismos

This article reconsiders the significance of the two riflemen in the top-right corner of David Alfaro Siqueiros’s outdoor mural América tropical oprimida y destrozada por los imperialismos of 1932 in Los Angeles. The mural was painted on the second story of the Plaza Art Center and required a rooftop view to be seen in totality. The artist’s placement of these marginal figures, however, ensured their visibility to street-level passersby. While the mural was gradually whitewashed over the ensuing years, the segment with the riflemen was covered first. Comparing América tropical with Siqueiros’s two other California commissions, I consider how he pushed the mural’s formal and material possibilities by incorporating a proliferation of angles and perspectives. Using documents from the Siqueiros Papers at the Getty Research Institute, I highlight the interhemispheric dialogue between Siqueiros and Peruvian Marxist José Carlos Mariátegui, and I interpret the riflemen as figures for a transnational revolutionary cause.