The Zapata Mural

Eza Chavez

@ezachavez · 13 Jul 2021

The Zapata Mural

#readtoday

A book by Soledad Mendoza from Diagrama Editors.

One of the most important murals by the artist Pedro León Zapata, being the most extensive, is 165 meters of 45 thousand colorful pieces of stoneware tiles of the artwork, located at the height of the highest studios, The Central University of Venezuela.

In the book he tells us about his inspiration and production, as he wanted to capture, with his unique cartoonish language, a mirror-metaphor between road drivers and drivers in the country.

The work was inaugurated in 1999 and shows “the confluence between anonymous drivers, citizens without identity, and renowned figures in Venezuelan history, among the familiar faces of all relevant aspects of our cultural memory we can see, for example, Simón Bolívar, Simon Rodríguez, Teresa de la Parra, Armando Reverón and José María Vargas, driving in the midst of the crowd of unknown citizens who recharge the mural and make it fit in with the spirit and usual state of our busy and indispensable Francisco Fajardo.