An American artist’s mural in Mexico City was defaced with graffiti less than a week after it was painted.
Cartoonist Sarah Andersen painted a mural featuring the main character from her comic strip Sarah’s Scribbles in the capital’s hip Roma neighborhood on January 29.
“I painted a mural in Mexico City! The mural is designed … in the hopes that people will try to pose alongside the character. I would love to see your photos next to the mural!” she tweeted upon completing it.
The mural is part of graphic design studio Pictoline’s Internet Walls public art project, sponsored by Samsung and the social media app Tik Tok.
But it didn’t last long before being damaged by graffiti on Monday. Social media users called out the vandalism as suppressing the expression of a woman.
Others claimed it was an act of hate directed specifically at Andersen herself, whose art often mocks macho culture, while others said it was directed at the corporatization of art.
Some claimed to know the identity of the graffiti artist by connecting the design to other walls around the city tagged with the graffitero’s moniker, Zombra.
“The graffitero ‘Zombra’ ruined Sarah Andersen’s mural,” said one Twitter user.
Rather than simply post outrage online, some concerned Mexico City residents went to the corner of the streets of Tabasco and Mérida to clean the graffiti off of the mural, scrubbing almost half of it away by Monday evening.
Aside from satirizing toxic masculinity, Andersen’s Sarah’s Scribbles also deals with themes of existentialism, adult responsibility and the behavior of cats.
“My comics are semi-autobiographical and follow the adventures of myself, my friends and my beloved pets,” she said on her website.
She is also an illustrator. She graduated from the Maryland Institute of Art in 2014 and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Source: El Financiero (sp)
