Side-by-side images of the Virgin Mary, Cesar Chavez, Pride flag
Notre Dame commissioned Juan Sánchez for a large mural printed on ceramic tiles and installed in the middle of Duncan Student Center in 2019. The work, titled Prevalence: Sacred Traces, includes images of the Cross and Our Lady of Guadalupe alongside portraits of Gandhi, Frida Kahlo, and other contemporary figures. Additionally, the mural incorporates political symbols, including a pride flag and a modified American flag representing black liberation.
The Rover spoke with Sánchez about his artistic process behind the piece and with members of the Notre Dame community about its impact on campus life.
Sánchez, currently a professor of painting, photography, and combined media at Hunter College, is a nationally recognized artist with pieces in the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Prevalence was his fourth commissioned mural, and the only one created outside of New York, where Sánchez has lived and worked for nearly his entire life.
Creative Process
When the construction of Duncan Student Center was nearing completion, Professor Gilberto Cárdenas of the Institute for Latino Studies contacted Sánchez, whose work he had long followed. As part of his application, Sánchez produced a mock-up proposal based on his visit to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Sánchez told the Rover, “When I saw that church … it blew me away, and so visually that influenced much of the design of [the mural].” His proposal was accepted and he began work on the mural.
As he refined his design, Sánchez sought input from members of the Notre Dame community. “One of the things that I wanted to do was to work with MFA [Masters of Fine Arts] graduate students,” he said. “I wanted them to be involved, I wanted them to have an input in the design.” Sánchez ran a series of workshops with eight volunteer graduate students in the MFA program, all of them women.
During the workshops, several students created some of the tiles used in the final mural, including a collage representing the year Notre Dame allowed female students and an image of past Notre Dame football players.
When asked by the Rover whether Notre Dame’s Catholic character played a role in his thought process, Sánchez responded, “No, I don’t think so.”
Nonetheless, the mural features several Christian elements, including a verse from Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians from the NIV translation of the Bible. Sánchez said, “I knew that in the bottom of the design, I wanted to incorporate text, and I started looking at quotations … like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy. … I said, ‘You know what, I have to take something biblical.’ And so I found a quote from Jesus Christ, I think.”
Prevalence depicts symbols from other religions, including a Native American “spirit circle” and “medicine wheel.” Alongside religious symbols are images relating to the history of Notre Dame, such as a photograph of Father Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C. standing with Martin Luther King, Jr. Additionally, the mural features political figures including Cesar Chavez, a Chicano activist, socialist, and labor union leader.
At the top of the mural are three images that represent the Trinity, according to Sánchez. Sánchez further explained this element: “Even though there is a little bit of left-wing elements in the work, I try very hard as a born-again Christian myself.”
The Artist’s Perspective
Describing the tone of his work overall, Sánchez said, “It’s very politically loaded, politically layered. … It’s about colonialism. It’s about racism.”
Through Prevalence, Sánchez sought to weave together Notre Dame’s history with his usual artistic subjects. “My concept was to integrate certain aspects of the history of the university in relation … to events that had gone on throughout the years, throughout the decades,” he said. “So, there are elements in that mural that speak to the civil rights movement, it speaks to Native American culture. … I tried to cover as many different groups as possible.”
Sánchez confessed that, during the approval process, his characteristic style and artistic focuses led to censorship “on a number of occasions.” When he submitted his design to the Notre Dame committee in charge of the mural, he was asked to remove certain elements. Sánchez told the Rover, “I [had] an element that spoke against police violence on youth, black youth and brown youth. … I changed the police violence to just violence, gun violence, period.” At the committee’s request, Sánchez also replaced an image of Angela Davis, a Marxist and feminist activist, with poet Maya Angelou.
Overall, Sánchez found the committee very accommodating to his ideas: “Very much to my surprise, they were fine with a lot of stuff that I had in there … but with certain things … they offered [suggestions].”
Campus Reactions
One senior studying political science told the Rover, “I think the mural is pretty with lots of bright colors, but I have no idea what the point of it is or what the meaning behind it is.”
Students with more negative perspectives cited the mural’s depiction of miscellaneous religious content as an issue. An O’Neill Hall senior expressed concerns, saying, “The pride flag, which represents an understanding of sexuality at odds with the Church’s teaching, should not be enshrined in the image of stained glass, a traditionally sacred medium.”
Maria Sermersheim, a PhD student in the theology department, remarked that her “least favorite part is the use of social justice leaders’ quotations in parallel with the Bible. It gives too much a sense of equality in my perception, and as wonderful as these leaders of social justice are, they simply are not the Word of God.”
Sermersheim identified one of the mural’s main themes as “ecumenism,” saying, “Ecumenism is good, but … I’m wary of the ways in which the mural might blur the lines of identity at a Catholic university such as Notre Dame.” Skeptical of this theme, which she called “a classic move of a particular flavor of DEI Catholicism at Notre Dame,” Sermersheim worried that the mural “may fall into a blind incorporation rather than an ecumenical charity which does recognize distinction and difference.”
Philip Bess, Professor Emeritus in the School of Architecture, reflected on the mural’s aesthetic qualities: “It’s a competent piece of art in its composition, thoughtfulness, and formal organization. It’s flat, but modern art is flat, so I wouldn’t necessarily expect something different.” He noted the work’s triptych organization, its ordered subdivisions, and its detailed border ornamentation.
Bess also commented on the mural’s significance as a piece of art in a Catholic university: “I think the most generous reading of it is that [the artist] doesn’t seem to be against [the Catholic Church], and so he’s for us. Most of the themes presented are not contrary to the Gospel, but they’re also a little over-congratulatory to Notre Dame. They tend to reaffirm the way many of us at Notre Dame would like to think of ourselves.”
Bess continued, “We might have been better served by daily encounters with some of the sharper biblical passages better suited to our present moment — “male and female He created them,” “be fruitful and multiply,” [etc.] — that instead of patting us on the back, kick us in the ass.”
The mural remains on public display at the main entrance of Duncan Student Center.
James Whitaker is a PhD student who loves to critique art but does not have an artistic bone in his body. He sings, but he’s not sure that counts. If you would like him to investigate any other campus artworks, please send a proposal to jwhitak5@nd.edu.
Haley Garecht is a junior who loves to critique things, and this time it happened to be art. She says she paints, but few have seen her “artworks.” If you would like to commission her for a permanent mural installation, email her at hgarecht@nd.edu.
Photo Credit: Irish Rover
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