As Chavez and Maduro images disappear, is Venezuela entering a new chapter?

Caracas, Venezuela – In a small square in central Caracas, Victor Rodriguez pauses at a giant mural of a figure draped in teal green. It’s the man he credits with giving him the opportunity to become an artist: former President Hugo Chavez.

Rodriguez, who paints under the name Forastero, helped create the image for the late Venezuelan leader's birthday on July 28. He says Chavez opened up new spaces for art and culture, giving artists from poorer neighbourhoods opportunities they never had before.

But today, Forastero is dismayed. He worries about the future of such art.

“Chavez represents revolution. He is anti-imperialist,” Forastero told Al Jazeera. “But now Chavez murals are disappearing.”

In recent months, Caracas has seen a transformation. Monumental images of Chavez and other figures linked to his political movement, chavismo, used to be common.

But now, graffiti, murals and billboards are being painted over or taken down. The Palace of Justice, once flanked by twin portraits of Chavez and the 19th-century revolutionary Simon Bolivar, has seen both images covered up.

In their place, there are new blue banners, emblazoned with the slogan "Venezuela renace" or "Venezuela reborn".

The changes come as Venezuela undergoes a period of political change after nearly three decades of chavista rule.

Since the United States launched a military operation to abduct and imprison then-President Nicolas Maduro in January, the country has been under intense pressure to reimagine its socialist government.

For some Venezuelans, the cosmetic changes are happening faster than any substantial ones. Some don’t want any changes at all.

Forastero sees maintaining his murals as a way of pushing back against the US influence in his government. “Now, painting Chavez is resistance," he said.

'Venezuela reborn’

In parts of Caracas, the smell of fresh paint lingers on walls and buildings where the new government motto "Venezuela renace" now appears.

Bright blue and yellow billboards are plastered across government housing blocks and motorway roadsides, advertising the catchphrase.

The "Venezuela renace" campaign began in the weeks after the country was struck by twin earthquakes on June 24. At least 6,500 people were killed.

The government of interim President Delcy Rodriguez came under heavy criticism for its initial response to the disaster. It then moved to put reconstruction at the centre of its public messaging.

Orlando Perez, a political scientist at the University of North Texas at Dallas, sees the new imagery as part of Rodriguez's efforts to establish her own political identity, separate from chavismo.

After all, until January, Rodriguez was Maduro's vice president. Maduro himself was Chavez's handpicked successor.

“Rodriguez is asking to be judged on [Venezuela's] reconstruction rather than on revolutionary lineage or history,” Perez said. “What makes it interesting is that it is contested.”

Perez explained that chavistas are divided over the removal of the images. In June, the governor of one Venezuelan state, Freddy Bernal, criticised efforts to replace Chavez and Maduro portraits in government institutions.

But much of that internal tension predates the "Venezuela renace" campaign, according to Perez.

“The fight is about who owns chavismo, who owns the movement,” Perez told Al Jazeera.

Since 1999, Venezuela has been led by Chavez and his successors. But after almost three decades of political dominance, chavista leaders now are contending with a new factor: a US leader who seeks control over Venezuela's government.

US President Donald Trump has leveraged his influence since Maduro's abduction to push Venezuela to pursue economic reforms, including greater foreign access to the country's oil and mining sectors.

He has also exercised control over Venezuela's fuel exports and landed a deal last month that would give the US a majority stake in 65 billion barrels of oil reserves in the country.

Despite the US-led upheaval, many Venezuelans say they’ve noticed few changes in their everyday lives.

Change or rebranding?

Javier Hernandez is a retiree who receives a state pension equivalent to just $0.14 a month. This year, he said food prices have risen, and the electricity goes out several times a day.

But he welcomes the disappearance of the chavismo-themed images. He hopes political and economic changes will follow.

“These chavista figures have brought nothing but damage and hatred and bad things to our country. They don’t deserve for anyone to be looking at pictures of them,” Hernandez told Al Jazeera.

Still, their replacements leave him feeling ill at ease. Hernandez lives in La Guaira, the area hardest hit by the June earthquakes. Three of his nieces and nephews died, as well as other family members and friends.

Amid the destruction, he noticed the bright blue and yellow "Venezuela renace" signs starting to rise.

“When I see or hear that phrase, it angers me because those politicians don’t live here, and they haven’t suffered the impacts of the earthquakes like we have,” Hernandez said.

“People are still searching for bodies. They’re still taking people out of the rubble.”

The government has promised to rebuild La Guaira, one of Venezuela’s main tourist areas, known for its sandy beaches.

It has also launched the Gran Mision Venezuela Renace, promising temporary accommodation for those displaced, new housing before the end of 2026 and subsidies for affected families buying homes.

But Hernandez said La Guaira is far from being "reborn".

“Many people in La Guaira are now unemployed because the main source of jobs and activity is tourism, hotels, restaurants, businesses. We're having a very hard time here — very, very hard," he explained.

The ‘ghost’ of Chavez

Political imagery has often grown more prominent in Venezuela when residents are struggling, according to Irina Troconis, author of the book The Necromantic State, about Chavez's lingering influence.

Such imagery can serve as a counternarrative to real conditions on the ground, she explained.

“The imagery is used at certain times to represent supposed change that people are actually not living through at all," Troconis said

She pointed to government slogans like "Venezuela has been fixed", which were used in 2022 to project optimism despite hyperinflation and economic collapse.

Troconis also argues that the enduring presence of Chavez in public art allowed his influence to endure even after his death in 2013.

The pervasiveness of Chavez-themed imagery puts later leaders like Maduro constantly in dialogue with the late president's leadership. It also projects the image of continuity, from Chavez onward, according to Troconis.

“Chavez remained the president in this sort of ghostly figure, and Maduro was more like the vice president to that ghost,” she said.

But she cautions that Venezuela's changing imagery may not signal deeper political transformation.

"What makes chavismo unique in some ways is its capacity to mutate and adapt and change through a process of rebranding that doesn't always require real internal, inherent change," Troconis said.

Art as propaganda

Chavez’s eyes still gaze from walls across Caracas. So too do the eyes of other figures, like Maduro and independence leader Simon Bolivar. Some images are faded. Others are accompanied by slogans like "To doubt is treason".

Forastero has worked on government projects, including under Rodriguez. But he is critical of some of the newer images. He remembers a time when he painted murals of Chavez playing with children or riding a bicycle, not slogans.

“When Chavez was alive, people painted Chavez because we loved him very much. It’s as simple as that,” he said.

In recent decades, he argues that Venezuela's public art has fallen increasingly under government control, with murals commissioned to carry explicitly political messages.

“Muralism is a story told on a wall," Forastero said. "What we really see on the walls now are propaganda posters. I’m a chavista, and I’m disgusted by it."

Still, the removal of the artwork is another form of propaganda, in Forastero's eyes. He believes the Rodriguez government is seeking to project a more "neutral" appearance to better appeal to the US.

He also accuses Rodriguez of abandoning ideals key to the chavismo movement: namely, anti-imperialism and revolution. He pointed to the US's role in shaping Venezuelan policy.

“The United States is forcing our government to behave this way," Forastero said.

Rafael Araujo, a Venezuelan activist, has a different view of the changing landscape.

To him, there was something “jarring” about seeing chavista figures plastered across city walls, especially the leaders who have caused the country so much pain.

During their time in power, Chavez and Maduro both faced allegations of overseeing human rights abuses, including through the violent suppression of dissent. Venezuela's last two presidential elections have been widely denounced as illegitimate.

Known in Caracas as Senor Papagayo, Araujo has used colourful, handmade kites to protest against government violence and economic policy.

He sees the Chavez murals as a form of oppression, an ever-visible reminder of a repressive government apparatus.

His kites are a way of sending a different message. His favourite carries aloft a single word: "Freedom".

“Freedom is what all countries need. Democracy is the most balanced system a citizen can live under,” Araujo said.

Structural changes or cosmetic ones?

Under pressure from the US, the Rodriguez government began negotiations with certain opposition lawmakers, though critics argue some of the most prominent voices have not been included.

A first round of talks in August resulted in an agreement to overhaul the government-aligned Supreme Court (TSJ), housed in the Palace of Justice, where Chavez's portrait once hung from the facade.

But Perez, the political scientist, warns against mistaking the court's cosmetic changes for deeper institutional ones.

He pointed out that the chavista movement remains in power, and no new elections have been set.

“The iconography, the symbols have moved considerably faster than the institutional changes,” Perez said. “There’s still no electoral calendar.”

A second round of talks this month is expected to focus on the political, civil and electoral guarantees for such a vote.

But the perceived subservience of the Rodriguez government to the US might hasten the transformation of Venezuela's chavismo movement, according to Perez.

He pointed to the August oil deal, which transfers a significant share of Venezuelan oil reserves to a US-controlled public-private partnership.

“Handing 65 billion barrels to a private operator on 100-year terms — or 25, depending on which government you ask — does more damage to chavismo as a political project than the removal of every mural in Caracas,” Perez said.

For a certain group of chavistas like Forastero, such a deal is a “very open surrender” to the US.

“They kidnap our president and then we negotiate with them? No," Forastero said, shaking his head in disgust.

Protecting the images he believes in is his way of taking a stand. From the small Caracas plaza, Forastero walked towards another mural he recently painted, of Chavez in his signature red beret.

“Chavez’s images are being removed all over the place. But I’ve never allowed it to happen here,” he said. “This square here, this is my bastion of resistance.”