Okay, so one of my staffers at The Athens NEWS (Athens’ FAVORITE newspaper, of course) came to one of our meetings a few weeks ago with an story idea – to figure out the story behind the new multicultural mural entitled “Children of Peace” on the side of a house on 16 S. Congress St.
For those of you who haven’t seen this piece of art yet, don’t feel silly – I usually never go down that stretch of Congress that lies between Washington St. and Bromley Hall. And even after reading the article it still took me a little bit to figure out exactly where it was. But it’s on the side of an otherwise plain white house, overlooking a big parking lot.
Here is the article that Megan Helgeson wrote about the story behind the mural. The artist, a fine arts graduate student named Alberto Torres Cerrato, teamed up with his landlord James Coady of Coady rentals, whose office offers a prime view of the piece. Coady is a former linguistics professor at OU.
As you can see, the mural depicts children around a globe, decked out in different ethnic dress holding banners that say “peace” in different languages. The catch is this: The languages on the banners don’t match up with the costumes. So, the Mexican child is holding a sign that says “Peace” and the Indian girl is holding the translation in Spanish. Other decorative elements include a cardinal and butterflies as well as an ariel view of Athens.
Cerrato says that the mural’s mesage is about globalization, which is pretty obvious.
Apparently the kids who live there seem to not really like the mural, as it blocks windows and therefore keeps natural sunlight from entering a window in the staircase. Nobody that Megan talked to in the article seems too pumped on it, actually. One source told me that some of the criticism was that it’s too “cartoonish” and tacky.
My opinion? I think that all public art is pretty cool, whether it’s aesthetically appealing or not. Putting something out there for everyone to see isn’t the easiest thing in the world. But after all, Cerrato has left the country, so Athenians’ criticisms probably won’t have too much of an effect on his well-being any time soon. I think that the decorations of the bird and the butterflies are ridiculous, but overall it’s kind of a cool addition to an otherwise lame brick wall above a rather ugly parking lot.
So if you guys are walking along that stretch of Congress, go ahead and check it out. Let me know what you think.
Pingback: Athens Gallery Hop Map « athens artistry