How A Providence Mural Fits Into A National Culture War

Bill Bartholomew sits down with Christopher Gavin of the The Boston Globe to unpack the controversy surrounding a Ukrainian solidarity mural in Providence—and how a local story can quickly become part of a much larger national narrative.

What began as a piece of public art tied to global events soon sparked questions about public space, messaging, and civic process. But as the reaction grew, so did scrutiny over how and why the story spread—raising broader questions about amplification, influence, and the role of decentralized, well-funded networks in shaping modern culture war flashpoints.

In this conversation, Bartholomew and Gavin separate fact from reaction, examine how local issues get pulled into national discourse, and explore what the Providence mural moment reveals about media ecosystems, political narratives, and the forces that drive them.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Cultural war conversations can sometimes feel disembodied from reality, and at other times they mirror patterns that are really happening in front of us. I think the latter applies in the case of a Ukrainian solidarity mural that went up in the city last month and quickly ricocheted around political and cultural circles. The mural, funded in part at least, by a decentralized right-wing billionaire network, similar to others around the United States. I made Providence's response unique, and why was Providence selected for a mural like this to begin with? I invited the Boston Globe's Christopher Gavin onto the show to talk about his reporting on the story. Remember, you can follow me on Instagram at Bill Bartholomew. Christopher Gavin, Boston Globe, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Bill. This is a story that it touches on so many different things simultaneously. For anybody who kind of needs that executive summary of what the story is based on your reporting for the globe, give us that sort of general takeaways of how we got to where we are today.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Sure, yeah, I'll try to do it in a nutshell here. But so basically, um, you know, last year uh people probably know from if if you follow the national news cycle, uh there was a Ukrainian refugee, Irina uh Zarutska, who was um murdered on a public transit train in uh Charlotte, I think, North Carolina. I know it's North Carolina, and um that really became this flashpoint politically. Uh you saw the President Trump talking about this thing that happened, uh kind of going after crime in blue cities, uh to to put it you know short. Um and so that that became a whole thing. And and we saw uh in the weeks after that, um Owen McCabe, who's uh the CEO of this software company. Um what's the name of it? I I'm trying to remember it off the top of my head. Intercom. That's it, yeah. Intercom. And he was basically like, you know what, I'm gonna try to start this thing, fund this thing, get her face on murals all over uh you know, buildings and walls in cities around the United States. Um, you know, Elon Musk said he would contribute it. It got a little bit of buzz online. Um so fast forward to uh, you know, this month or this past month, March, now that we're in April, in Providence. And um we're we there was uh uh one of these murals that was going up being painted by a local artist, uh Ian Goudreaux. And um we saw a lot of uh you know controversy break out here, you know, a lot of chatter online because it was going up on the side of uh the Dark Lady, which is this LGBTQ plus nightclub in the middle of downtown Providence. Um a lot of people were questioning why the the club was allowing this, just given some of the backing of this project. I should say McCabe has been like a Trump supporter, has donated to his campaign before. Um so we saw that that blowback uh and you know, try to speeding things up here a little bit. No, it's good. We're we're in we're in the zone here.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

This is I mean, this is the detail that's essential to really understand the story.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Well, so this past weekend, uh, you know, the when this kind of conversation hit its, I would say, first crescendo, right? It's kind of gotten even louder since. But um, you know, we saw Mayor Brett Smiley uh sit, you know, say that he he would like to see it come down or he would want to see it come down through his spokesperson. Um and uh and and then by Monday, you know, the artist uh had told me that um it was it was gonna be taken down. Um you know, and and I can kind of get into it from there. But uh now we're seeing kind of the ripple of uh this decision um, you know, now proliferating out through Twitter on a national level. Uh and it's um you know a lot of conservative voices coming in now in the last few days.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Yeah. I want to touch on the hyper-local aspect of that, including now there's a petition to get the mural restored. And I actually spoke with the organizer of the petition, Anthony Delana, who's kind of a perennial Rhode Island Republican voice, runs for town council, is works for a Patricia Morgan campaign, whatever it may be.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

The amount of support that's just been coming through is amazing. We're already past 2,000 signatures. I think it's like 2,200 at the moment. Um, and we just got a new endorsement. Ian, the uh painter of the mural has endorsed the mural and put his name on the petition as well.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

You get the sense that very much so that this is now uh an issue that is playing into culture wars at minimum, if not an outright representation of culture wars uh here on a local level, something that's kind of abstract and all of a sudden forget about everything else. This is this is the ideology breakdown that that really defines America right now.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Right, right, right. Yeah, I it's I think it's um what's made this kind of unique is kind of the for lack of better phrasing, like conservative uh focus on Providence, which obviously is a very liberal uh blue city in in liberal ma uh New England, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Um I mean it is what it is, right. Let's take a step back on on the origin of this. So what I find interesting about it is that you've got people like Elon Musk involved in the funding of the project, and there's been opposition to these murals as they've popped up in places like in New York, there was criticism from residents that this was emblematic of you know the the great replacement theory, which is essentially the idea that whites are being replaced by other races here in in the Western world, so to speak. That that's one thing that that there was an outcry on. Um but Providence is kind of an outlier. But what's important to understand is there's no centralized group. It's not like there is a central group that's saying, hey, we're putting up these murals. This is a very decentralized and well-funded effort. So how did Providence and Mr. Goudreau get involved in this to begin with?

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Well, um, the artist had told me he had he had offered, he had saw McCabe, you know, uh it is a a bit of an organized thing, right? Because it McCabe has an online fundraiser for this. He was very out in front, being like, you know, uh this is something I want to do, and uh has been posting updates the last couple of months as we've seen the murals go up in other parts of the country. Um so there is like uh some organization there, uh as far as I can tell.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Um, you know, uh what was the second part of your did you have a part to the terms of the organization of it, but then how did how did Providence and how did Mr. Goudreau get selected or involved in this? What's the connection there?

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Yeah, the artist had told me he had um, you know, he had offered to he had heard about this and he had offered uh you know, he'd reached out to the you know kind of McCabe uh camp and uh had said um you know that this was something he wanted to do. Um because he and he has told me he had been very uh moved by um you know the incident that happened last year, the murder that had happened.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Yeah. And now he's uh signed the petition for this for the restoration of that mural, at least um that's what the the person who organized the petition, Mr. Delena, has has claimed. You know, there's an interesting aspect to this as well that you covered quite well, which is the mayoral race, if you will, the politics and provenance around this, where Brett Smiley, the mayor of Providence, being challenged by David Morales, uh certainly to the left, democratic socialist, who is trying to also simultaneously run a bit of an economic populism campaign to get some sort of realistic coalition built. Neither of them have played too far into the general culture war stuff for the most part. But this one Smiley was really out in front on it wasn't it wasn't long before we had an opinion from Brett Smiley. In fact, David Morales, his voice was, I think it was Channel 10 that interviewed him first, came after Smiley. So the politics in Providence are interesting as well, where you have a city council and a mayor's office that aren't always aligned. You have a mayor's race that is really about technocratist versus democratic socialist, and yet, politically speaking, this was a non-starter. How did that come come to be as far as your reporting can tell?

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Well, uh, you know, I should say I, you know, haven't dabbled much in the uh how this impacts the mayoral primary part of my reporting. You know, to to to kind of reference what you said, Channel 10 was actually the one who had the interview with with uh David Morales the other day. I mean, I it's it's I I think, you know, like in some ways for we've seen in the culture wars here, there is kind of a barometer of liberal politicking, right? Some of the folks on the left are Democrats, whomever who wants to get democratic votes or sometimes have to, you know, are state stating their values in a way. And and and um but I I I can't speak to the strategy of one campaign over the other, whether or not they're dabbling in this. You know, right.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

What about the the dark lady? When when speaking with them, that how did they get involved in this? Why why were they chosen or did they volunteer their exterior to be the site for this mural?

SPEAKER_00 11:39

I mean, uh from what I can remember the the other day, the artist had told me that he had uh approached them about it. I mean, they're they're private. I I think he had said that they um had had temporary m murals there in the past. Um it would be something that he can get approval for. You know, they didn't return my request for comments uh on Monday directly. I so I I can only go off of the public statements that they've been releasing on social media. Um, you know, at first it they were kind of when they got this backlash in their comments section over this, um, they they had uh kind of been saying, you know, we're we're Democrats, we're progressive people. They were trying to explain more of the meaning behind the art itself. Uh it seemed, and um the the statement that they they ended up putting out um uh uh on Monday was that um, you know, they they are uh um gonna discontinue the project, that they were uh deeply and sincerely sorry for everything that has taken place over the past week. Um and they put out uh a quote that said, We remain committed to fostering unity, safety, and care for all members of our community, and we'll continue to listen, learn, and act with those values at the forefront.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

It's an interesting scenario where it's not usual allies of well, let's just be honest, demographics here, where it seems like the venue, the dark lady, just seems like they were like not expecting the backlash or prepared for it in any way, shape, or form, and it's not really connected to any specific demographic what it the fact that it's an LGBTQ bar in this case is it could have been any demographically aligned facility and the backlash would have been the same. There's no overlap, at least that I can tell, unless you've seen is there any particular specific reaction there uh that you're seeing from any community.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

I mean, I I'm just um reading the comments like we all were probably on that post, and and there were some in there about people feeling that this wasn't uh aligned with the values of the LGBTQ plus community. Now, I don't want to speak specifically for any individual or any specific community, but you know, we know like in the past, Elon Musk is um there's been uh uh he he seemed to be unaccepting of his trans daughter. Um, so that could be alarming, right? That that uh a funder of this project maybe doesn't share um those same values around uh transgender issues and and and and maybe the broader issues, I don't know. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

That's definitely true. I think it would have the same psychological impact, no matter if it was on an LGBTQ-oriented bar or right next door. I think it would but you're right, yeah, there is an extra layer there that makes sense that there would be backlash.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

No, I I I should point out too, obviously this is private property, right? So, like, you know, um the the mayor came out and said, you know, I I would want this to be taken down or I would like to see this being taken down. But um, you know, the city, uh the city hall's mayor's office rather confirmed to me uh that there is no mechanism that the city could actually or could have used to force this thing to come down or um or were they pursuing one, right? Right. Very interesting.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Yeah, last thing, it reminds me a little bit of obviously big difference between, like you just said, private property and public property, but I'm reminded of the Columbus statue saga. We've seen this kind of stuff all over the country, but here in Providence there was a Columbus statue in Elmwood that was the source of a lot of contention, a lot of acts of protest, throwing paint splattered on it, so on and so forth. And eventually then Mayor Alorza ordered it removed, and there was a kind of dramatic scene where they came with a truck and they lifted the statue of the pedestal and off it went to live in a basement until Johnston mayor Joe Palasina Jr. kind of a you know, I think self-described MAGA Democrat announced that he was gonna bring that statue to Johnston and they installed it there. And you just saw this sort of red-blue line the same way that this particular issue sort of divides very easily along those lines. You saw it play out on a municipal level where the reaction in Providence was, let's cover this thing with paint and get it the hell out of here, for the most part, or maybe not for the most part, at least from the vocal uh constituency. Where in Johnston they had a celebration, they had Gene Balasente, the the news guy, come and do a big announcement, everybody high-fived. It was like a big deal. It's like this is great. Does that set up an opportunity for a Joe Palasino Jr. or a Charlie Lombardi or whoever to step in and say, hey, we'll take the mural?

SPEAKER_00 16:19

I mean, I I think you know, you mentioned that change.org petition earlier. I I think that's part of, I could be wrong. I was just looking at it earlier today. I think part of the petition is maybe we can um you know move this somewhere else. Uh, you know, the the artist had told me when we spoke on Monday that uh, you know, he'd be looking for a a new home for it. So in theory, yeah, I don't know if that means it goes to Johnston, but uh, you know, m if there's another private property, uh, maybe in Providence even that could accumulate it, I you know, we could see this play out again, but that remains to be seen.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Yeah, it could be something that goes on and on, you know, and there could be others as well. There could be others just like it. And I think there's an important conversation as well around First Amendment and public art installations and who gets to decide what goes up on a wall. And traditionally that's been juried by in arts, culture, tourism, or the curators downstream. Maybe it's the avenue concept here in Rhode Island. Who gets to make that decision though, of what's acceptable public art, if not a private business on their own property? I think it sets up a precedent that could be I don't know if it's dangerous, but it's tricky. Yeah, we'll have to watch for that, see what happens. Christopher Gavin, the Boston Globe. Make sure you subscribe to the Boston Globe, Rhode Island. They're uh an invaluable resource in our community. Thank you very much. You can find us at Boston Globe.com slash R I.