Institutional Whitewash
by Thomas Lawson
In downtown Los Angeles, the history of whitewashing controversial public murals is persistent and oddly echoic. After a half-finished mural by Italian street artist Blu was erased from MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary in 2010, Thomas Lawson revisited the troubled saga of América Tropical, David Alfaro Siqueiros's 1932 commission on Olvera Street.