When the Wall Breathes: Interview with David Alfaro Siqueiros

Interviewer: Maestro Siqueiros, from your earliest works, politics has flowed through your art like blood through veins. Why this path?

Siqueiros: Because in a world full of silenced screams, the artist must shout. Art, to me, is not decoration—it is a weapon. In the face of injustice, silence is betrayal. I’ve placed my art at the service of struggle, not of bourgeois salons.

Interviewer: Let’s talk technique. You used industrial sprays, photography, and dynamic perspectives. Why such innovations?

Siqueiros: Art must evolve to speak the language of the people. I’ve always seen art as a science. The wall must move, must breathe, must strike the viewer’s eye. We are no longer in Picasso’s era—we live in the age of industrial revolution, and our tools must be revolutionary too.

Interviewer: Your relationship with Diego Rivera is often described as complicated: friend, rival, ally, opponent. Which is it?

Siqueiros: All of the above. We were two roaring rivers—sometimes clashing, sometimes flowing side by side. Rivera was a poet of color; I was a warrior of form. But our goal was one: to awaken the people.

Interviewer: Some of your murals, like Death to Fascism or The Heroes of Latin America, are intense and violent. Why such harsh tones?

Siqueiros: Because truth is not gentle. Blood, tears, torture—this is the reality my people endure. My job is not to hide pain, but to scream it onto the wall, so it may never happen again.

Interviewer: You’ve also invested in education. How do you train young artists?

Siqueiros: By urging them to stand, not mimic. I don’t want anyone to become me—I want them to become themselves, but with commitment. Art must be aware, creative, and brave. Without courage, teaching is only replication.

Interviewer: How do you see the future of muralism?

Siqueiros: As long as oppression exists, the wall will live. If the streets fall silent, the walls will still speak of what people endured. And if no one hears, history will.

Interviewer: Lastly, if history remembers you by one sentence, what should it be?

Siqueiros: “Walls are silent—unless we give them voice.”