George Floyd, gentrification murals vandalized in Denver
Murals that depict social justice and political themes have been defaced or painted over in Denver in recent days, and at least one artist thinks the timing is anything but coincidental.
“It’s the election,” said Jolt, a longtime Denver street artist whose mural at 2706 Larimer
St. — on the wall outside American Bonded in the River North Art District — was painted over with white paint sometime in the last week.
On Wednesday afternoon, the acclaimed, Denver- based artist Detour posted a picture of his George Floyd memorial mural on East Colfax Avenue ( between Race and High streets). The face of Floyd — who was killed by police in Minneapolis in May, touching off weeks of sustained protests — had been splattered with yellow paint.
“If anyone is capable of power washing latex paint off, Let
me know,” Detour, a. k. a. Thomas Evans, wrote in the message. “The mural is coated so there’s a protective layer.”
About a month ago, someone also spray- painted “Fentanyl Floyd” across his face, according to Denverite. Less than 10 minutes after Detour posted about the new vandalism, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock responded on Twitter:
“Where is this mural?”
Evans was not immediately available for comment.
Graffiti used to be a bane of Mile High City businesses, from north Denver to South Broadway. But in the past decade, Denver’s street art has been embraced as everything from city- beautification to a marketing tool. That has led to conversations about what constitutes street art, and its recent use in protests against police violence. “There was another Black Lives Matters mural that got defaced in north Denver that I noticed yesterday driving to my studio,” said Jolt, a. k. a. Silas Ulibarra.
“There were a bunch of people out there working to clean it up, and I offered to put this stuff called Vandal Guard over it, like a clear coat.”
Jolt said he knows why his mural was whitewashed, and he claims to also know who did it, though he declined to share details. The wall- sized image in RiNo, which he painted as part of the 2020 Crush Walls street- art festival, depicted hulking, sport- coated animals gathered around table, their claws hovering over a small home. A speech bubble, in red stylized lettering, reads: “So a rhino, a wolf and a vulture walk into a It’s the second part of a mural that Jolt started last year, he said, which also riled some with its commentary on gentrification in Five Points and RiNo. The previous mural depicted a white developer holding money bags, a yoga practitioner, a shopper and a generic hipster riding atop a menacing, orange rhinoceros as it bounded ( a wolf at its side) toward a small home guarded by a woman of color smacking a rolling pin in her palm.
“These are visual representations of what’s going on in the city, and unfortunately people want to censor our voices,” Jolt said. However, he has no plans to repaint the 2706 Larimer St. mural. In fact, it’s becommunity…” come something of a message board since the whitewashing: First, Jolt returned to add his own comment in unmistakable black lettering: “This mural has been censored … due to white fragility!” And since then, more wording has appeared on the white wall, accusing Jolt of bigotry, racism and hate speech.
“I’m half- white, so when I talk about white fragility, that’s the part of me that’s talking about it,” he said.
“The whitewashing of the mural is simply creating a platform for the conversation to continue, which is what good art is supposed to do. I almost feel like it’s more powerful than it was before.”