Mexican Muralism

Street art  to jeden z fenomenów współczesnej sztuki. Uwodzi rozmachem, oryginalnością, jest wyrazem nieskrępowanej wyobraźni i nieograniczonej pomysłowości twórców. Łamie konwencje, niesie ze sobą posmak rebelii, pewnej nielegalności, czy wręcz zakazanego owocu. Zaskakuje formą i często pojawia się w najmniej oczekiwanych miejscach. Jako zjawisko dynamiczne wciąż jeszcze jest słabo opisany – niniejszy album stanowi próbę wypełnienia tej luki. Autorka w pasjonujący sposób opowiada o rozwoju sztuki w przestrzeni publicznej – od malowideł w jaskiniach naszych prehistorycznych przodków po  czasy, w których żyjemy. Prezentuje najważniejsze nurty i jej twórców – nie tylko tych najsłynniejszych, jak Banksy i Basquiat. Prowadzi czytelnika przez ulice miast (w Polsce i na świecie), zwracając uwagę na najciekawsze przejawy tej fascynującej dziedziny sztuki: murale polityczne, reklamowe, artystyczne, zaangażowane społecznie, a także pomniki, instalacje, plakaty, szablony itp. Poświęca także uwagę graffiti, z którym szeroko rozumiany street art jest związany. / z noty wydawcy

In this comprehensive collection of essays, three generations of international scholars examine Mexican muralism in its broad artistic and historical contexts, from its iconic figures—Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siquieros—to their successors in Mexico, the United States, and across Latin America. These muralists conceived of their art as a political weapon in popular struggles over revolution and resistance, state modernization and civic participation, artistic freedom and cultural imperialism. The contributors to this volume show how these artists’ murals transcended borders to engage major issues raised by the many different forms of modernity that emerged throughout the Americas during the twentieth century.

Se analizarán los murales que realizaron Marion y Grace Greenwood en Taxco y Morelia entre 1933 y 1934, con la finalidad de identificar los elementos que son afines al muralismo mexicano, la visión que tenían de nuestro país y las dificultades que encontraron en México, sin dejar de lado otros aspectos que permitirán entender mejor la obra en tanto que patrimonio cultural y el contexto social y político en que fue realizada.

Статья посвящена настенным росписям Давида Альфаро Сикейроса, исполненным в лестничных пространствах общественных зданий. Анализируется новаторский опыт художника и его попытки усиления воздействия стенописи на зрителя посредством включения в структуру произведения самого движения по лестнице. Впервые затрагиваются вопросы роли лестницы в творчестве Сикейроса, его интерес к сложной архитектонике лестничной клетки, социально-культурологические аспекты этого выбора, связанные с изменением восприятия пространства и времени в первой половине XX века.

This thesis focuses on the visual message made by the new Neo-muralist movement in México City, taking as a protagonist the collective of art Germen crew. The study asks: What is the message behind Mexican Neo-muralism, taking into consideration the visual elements involved, such as Indigenous and Pre-Hispanic images in a social context marked by exclusion toward indigenous communities and persons with indigenous background.
The material for this ethnographic study is based upon semi-structured interviews and observations made through fieldwork in México. The collected material is later analyzed by framing theories.
The results made by this study show that Neo-muralism movement is trying to preserve and rebuild denied Indigenous identities through an artistic narrative and non-violent practice. The contribution made by this movement as a non-violent group in resistance has made Neo- muralism the voice of those who have been silenced over time under conditions of exclusion.

Cet ouvrage retrace l'émergence d'une pratique de peinture murale à Orgosolo en Sardaigne et son évolution, à partir de la fin des années 1960 jusqu'à ses usages patrimoniaux et touristiques contemporains.
Ces murs affichent le portrait d'une société en changement. Ils peuvent apparaître tout autant comme le lieu d'une résistance acharnée des identités et des traditions, mais aussi l'endroit où s'exprime le débat relatif aux actualités et aux problèmes sociaux. Véritables dispositifs de maintien d'une société souvent qualifiée d'archaïque, mais aussi espaces hyperactifs d'expérimentation sociale, ces murs ne cessent de murmurer – et parfois de décrier – la fabrique du champ social.

Plus largement, le cas d'Orgosolo interroge l'impact des objets graphiques exposés dans un espace public. Dans quelle mesure interviennent ils dans la construction des relations sociales ? Comment l'anthropologie peut-elle ouvrir de nouvelles perspectives sur le pouvoir d'action des images et de l'écriture ? C'est à ces questions que cette enquête ethnographique sur la peinture murale à Orgosolo apporte également des réponses.

En el año 1950 México desembarca en Italia. Durante la XXV Bienal de Venecia se exponen por primera vez en Europa obras del arte mexicano posrevolucionario que, desde entonces, circularán en el continente europeo a través de exposiciones y publicaciones. Concretamente en Italia, las experiencias del muralismo mexicano están consideradas un modelo indispensable para muchos artistas e intelectuales. Además,
constituyen una inspiración para el nacimiento de un movimiento de arte público que se expresa a través de la producción de murales de claro contenido político durante el período comprendido entre 1950 y 1980. Este ensayo muestra cómo el muralismo constituye un espacio de intercambio fructífero entre los dos contextos abordados,
rompiendo el estereotipo que siempre ha visto con una mirada eurocéntrica la relación artística entre México e Italia de forma unidireccional.

El proceso de renovación que tuvo lugar en la cultura artística cubana durante la primera mitad del siglo XX, surgió en un momento donde la necesidad de transformar el orden de cosas existente, fue alcanzando má­xima prioridad. Fue así que una vez demostrada la inoperancia de la nueva República instaurada en 1902, se produjeron varios acontecimientos sociales de gran repercusión para el panorama nacional: la Protesta de los 13 encabezada por Rubén Martínez Villena; la Reforma Universitaria; el desarrollo y fracaso del Movimiento de Veteranos y Patriotas; la fundación del Partido Comunista de Cuba; la apertura de la Universidad Popular "José Martí"; el Manifiesto del Grupo Minorista, hechos que expresaban las ansias de renovación.

Cuando en junio de 1910, durante su viaje de España a México, el joven Diego Rivera llegó a La Habana, el castillo del Morro, el malecón y los viejos almacenes de la aduana se convertirían en imágenes perdurables en su memoria años más tarde, en que la cubana Loló de la Torriente se empeñaría en rescatar esos recuerdos de la primera estancia del gran muralista en la isla. Es entonces cuando la autora nos conmina a participar de aquellos momentos en los que Diego (...) se precipitó a los barrios donde todavía quedaban tras las historiadas rejas blancas de las ventanas, abiertas hasta el nivel de la acera, estancias frescas, enladrilladas, en las que habían mecedoras ligeras ante cancelas de vidrios de colores que las separaban del patio, y tras las rejas, maravillosas mulatas café y criollas verde­amarillo que desde sus 10 años habían condicionado, definitivamente, con las negras exóticas y las chinas raras y extraordinarias, su reflejo sexual. [1] Eran tiempos en que se fraguaba para el joven Rivera, una personalidad ávida de conocimiento, de experiencias, de curiosidades que se renovaban en cada momento, cuales estímulos que darían riendas al talento creador. Tras sus años de formación europea, regresó a México para incorporarse al llamado de José Vasconcelos, y de inmediato reveló el potencial que lo distinguiría entre los llamados Tres Grandes como un artista renovador e intensamente comprometido con la tradición y los valores culturales de su país. La repercusión de Diego Rivera como artista paradigmático del arte latinoamericano en Cuba, tuvo en las revistas modernas uno de sus escenarios más activos, allí se reflejó de forma casi simultánea lo que estaba ocurriendo en México, el surgimiento de una intencionalidad formal con significados enfocados al rescate de la cultura nacional, tanto por parte de escritores como de artistas mexicanos.

This paper aims to respond how muralism as a visual expression could transmit political ideas for the construction of a national identity in Latin American countries. In that sense, in the first part of the analysis it is briefly explained the importance of the construction of a “nation” for Latin American countries. In addition, the text points out the significance of art in that process of self-affirmation. Thereby, it is develop the relevance of art as an instrument for social change, which can be understood as an “art of compromise”.
Then, attention is centered in Muralism as an inclusive and popular artwork that has particular characteristics which allows the artist to promote political ideas. Moreover, the paper remarks the origin of Muralism in México. In this context it is mandatory to talk about the political ideas and consequent programme carried out by José Vasconcelos. Regarding that, the paper explains the role of Vasconcelos in the construction of pillars that sustain the development of the muralist movement: an artistic and political project borned in Mexico but then expanded through the rest of Latin American countries until today.
Finally the paper argues that this artistic movement, Muralism, which started as a political project to create national identity, was converted in a regional movement that creates also bases for a Latin American identity.

Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales  (FLACSO)
Sede Académica Argentina.
Global Studies Programme
Department: Culture & identity in Latin America
“Latin American Social Ideas"

Este ensayo analiza el papel decisivo de Diego Rivera y sus murales de la Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP) en la construcción del caudillo Emiliano Zapata como símbolo de la nación. A partir de la primera aparición de Zapata en la sección de Los Mártires Revolucionarios del Patio del Trabajo de la SEP, la activación gradual de este héroe es leída como parte de un programa mural nacionalista y socialista que, basándose en gran medida en formas católicas y en las teorías vasconcelistas, sirvió para reconciliar a las diversas facciones étnicas y políticas del país en los primeros años de la posrevolución. Asimismo, a través de la figura de Zapata, contrario a lo que la mayor parte de la historiografía discute, se demostrará que la entrada del historicismo a los programas murales es tan temprana como 1923.
Palabras clave: Emiliano Zapata, Diego Rivera, muralismo, José Vasconcelos, Posrevolución

Murales pintados en la Universidad Estatal de Guatemala, reflejan el repunte y transformación del mural contemporáneo, son una muestra única, casi un museo abierto d la historia del conflicto armado de Guatemala. Personajes de la cultura, la academia, la política y el arte entre otros, son retratados con mensajes políticos y ambientales.

In 1956, Diego Rivera (1886-1957) visited the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and was appointed as corresponding member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin for his lifetime achievements. When in East Berlin, he was asked to create some murals for the then still partly destroyed capital of the GDR, but neither Rivera nor the other two of Los Tres Grandes –Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974), and José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949)– ever executed a mural in Germany. However, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Spanish artist Josep Renau (1907-82), who was exiled in Mexico after the Spanish Civil War for about twenty years from 1939 onwards, brought his theoretical and practical experiences with Mexican Muralismo to the GDR. This paper presents Renau’s "Futuro Trabajador del Comunismo", an unexecuted Project for a Berlin mural of 1969,2 deeply inspired and influenced by the Mexican mural movement. I will explain the mural within the artistic and historical background of the so-called era of the scientific-technical revolution of the 1960s, in which there was a belief in an unlimited progress in science and technique. My text analyzes for the first time hitherto unknown archival records from Renau’s archive on the history of the mural and its failure.

Polo Castellanos es un reconocido artista visual y muralista con más de
30 años de trayectoria, con obra en México y en el exterior. Artista comprometido
con las luchas anticapitalistas, es también investigador sobre el muralismo y el arte
público. Doctor en Artes y Diseño de la Academia de San Carlos, FAD-UNAM. En esta
entrevista se aborda, entre otros temas, el arte como campo en disputa y el muralismo
comunitario como una propuesta revolucionaria de hacer mural, socializándolo.

Este ensayo indaga la cuestión del patrocinio gubernamental de 'Huacayñán' (1952) de Oswaldo Guayasamín y dilucida --basado en una investigación de archivo-- la participación de Benjamín Carrión en dicho proyecto y su articulación a la ideología del mestizaje. Asimismo, revisa el vuelco teratólogico de la colección; es decir, la aparición de monstruos distópicos que desafían la razón mestiza del nacionalismo de Estado.

Pour qui entreprend une histoire transnationale des avant-gardes picturales au XXe siècle, la période que couvre ce deuxième tome, de 1918 à 1945, est la plus périlleuse. Car l'auteur doit se colleter avec le grand récit dicté par les avant-gardes elles-mêmes. Tout commence-t-il avec Dada? Dès 1910 s'observait la remise en cause symbolique de Paris par les nouvelles générations dans de nouveaux centres : Berlin, Munich, Londres, Bruxelles, Cologne, Moscou, New York. Dada, certes né dans les charniers de la guerre, fut plus encore issu de l'histoire de la modernité artistique et littéraire depuis les années 1850. Les avant-gardes furent-elles idéologiquement progressistes? Les acteurs ne cessèrent de négocier entre les logiques révolutionnaires, leurs ambitions nationales et celle de continuer tant bien que mal à se faire connaître sur la scène internationale. Loin que Paris fût la capitale unique, d'une ville à l'autre, et en particulier à Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Vienne, Moscou, mais aussi à Amsterdam, Bucarest, Zagreb, Barcelone et jusqu'à São Paulo, Mexico et au Japon, apparurent régulièrement de nouveaux groupes décidés à se faire une place dans le courant du modernisme. En revanche, l'entre-deux-guerres fut une période de marchandisation aboutie de l'innovation artistique. Dans les pratiques et les débats des avant-gardes, une problématique était récurrente : quelle place faire au marché, surtout en cas de succès?

This thesis is about the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) and her works, with emphasis on her painted self-portraits. The objective is to place Frida Kahlo’s pictorial production in relation to a place and time specific context and test the theory of Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits as a project connected to a general striving towards a new formulation of national identity. The majority of Frida Kahlo’s pictorial production coincides with a historically delimited era in which there was a break from earlier role models and ideals, politically, culturally and ideologically. This phase was an artistically dynamic period with a redefining view of art and the history of the nation, a visualisation of the mythology and symbolism of the Indian cultures of origin, and an emphasis on the Indian ethnicity of the nation. Two chapters describe the ideological context in which Frida Kahlo’s works were created. The visual markers around which the post-revolutionary national discourse came to revolve are identified and certain concepts related to race are examined. The subsequent chapters are devoted to Frida Kahlo’s pictures. One chapter examines how her pictorial production in the 1920’s emerged in a dialogue with contemporary art theory. One chapter deals with body thematics based on the naked female body, and elements of sex education are put in relation to an ongoing debate on sex education in Mexican schools. Thereafter new features are explored that are introduced in her self-portraits during the late 1930’s and that came to be consistent features in her continued production of self-portraits. In the concluding section of the thesis, the self-portraits are discussed from a more general perspective. Some of the myths upon which earlier biographical interpretations were based on are questioned. Instead, the thematics of suffering found in the self-portraits are related to the reconstruction of the nation’s ethnic identity and problematic issues based on the 16th century Spanish Conquest of the indigenous Indian population. In her complex imagery, Frida Kahlo refers to a broad spectrum of disparate pictorial traditions, stylistic epochs, categories of motifs and symbolic imagery, and to historical, religious and mythical female personages such as Malintzín, la Chingada, Sor Juana, and the Virgin of Guadalupe. These references from different epochs represent the two fundamental components of Mexico’s cultural heritage —the 'Spanish' and the 'Indian' —and these are merged in Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits so that they thereby communicate a construction of identity based on a national heritage. The time perspective of the discussion reaches backwards to before the Spanish Conquest in the 16th century and forwards to the contemporary Chicana/Chicano movement north of the border to the United States.

At a time when the « Graffiti » or « Street Art » phenomenon is reaching Art galleries, international high street brands and even the « Political » sphere, the case study of Chile during the Transition to Democracy concentrates on the relation between that which animates the Chilean Graffiti writers and the emergence of « New Social Movements ». From Muralist Movements through to the beginning of « Graffiti » and « Street Art », the History is analyzed to trace the relationship between political commitment to Democracy and the transgression from a collective to an individualist mentality. The Graffiti Community is examined in order to highlight and compare its internal and external divisions with those of Society as a whole. Is the Graffiti writer an egocentric monster or an important figure in the creation and participation of Community Projects? Could the Graffiti writer not create a Movement within Social Movements, working both with the « Street Art » community and Society as a whole? With this duality, as a conclusion, a possibility of a popular education with the urban space is proposed.

Artículo publicado en el ICAA Documents Project Working Papers num. 4, diciembre 2016. Análisis del mural del SME, Retrato de la burguesía, realizado por el Equipo Internacional de Artistas Plásticos, bajo el mando de David Alfaro Siqueiros y con la importante participación del artista valenciano Josep Renau.

The following article is a historiographical reflection about the plastic´s arts role – more
specifically the Muralism Movement – in the construction of the Mexican nation in the postrevolutionary years. The perspective given to Marxism, its historical conception of class struggle and also the historical materialism and dialectic, started to constitute the new theoretical referential to understand the indigenous people. Distinguished from the
nineteenth century nationalism, the indigenous was not only part of the pre-Hispanic past, but a vivid and energetic reality to the contemporary man of the Revolution. Despite that, he was not considered as belonging to a particular ethnical/cultural condition; his peculiar characteristics were erased in favor of a class unity that was formed through the proletarian image.

Öz

Meksika sanatını; kendi başına bir devinim olarak ele aldığımız, köklü tarihinden yola çıkarak 20. Yüzyıla kadar gelişim sürecindeki arayışlarını, kültürel ve devrimlerle süregelen sanatlarını, bağımsızlık tutkularıyla birleştirişini irdeliyoruz. Bir yandan da sanatlarını toplum alegorisi ile temellendiren Meksika halkının yaşam mücadelesi ile sanatçıya yansıyan tarafını keşfediyoruz.





Anahtar Kelimeler: Duvar Hareketi, Muralizm, Meksika Sanatı, 20.yüzyıl, Devrim, La ruptura (Rüptür)

English

Abstract


Based on the deep-rooted history of Mexican art as a movement in its own right, we examine the quest for development in the proces of development until the 20 th century, the continuation of the arts with cultural and revolutions and their integration with their passion for independence, On the other hand, we are exploring the side of the mexican people whose struggle with the art allegory is reflected in the artist.





Keywords: Mexican Muralism, Mexican’s Art, 20th Century, Revolution, La ruptura

"Zapatista murals are spaces of redefinition where a variety of voices and discourses converge becoming a practice that mutates throughout time and builds community. These murals have been produced since 1995. The particular case of Oventic expresses the collective and dynamic personality of Zapatista thought. Mostly painted by guest Mexican and international artists, Oventik's walls effectively defy traditional notions of authorship and patrimony.  Once a wall is painted, it acquires a life of its own. Murals often change according to community beliefs and needs. These changes are made by locals or by the artists who originally painted the murals. Visual programs are likely to be preserved, updated, modified or destroyed. The decision on these changes is a result of community dialogue and reflects processes of growth, revision and redefinition of the Zapatista spirit.
By historicizing Zapatista mural production and describing some mutations and erasures occurring in specific murals, my aim here will be to discuss the innovative characterization and community dimension of murals. I believe Zapatista painted walls to be a notable example of dialogical art; a type of art that produces works in connection with people and mobilizes social thought. "

In postrevolutionary Mexico, a group of artists known as the Contemporáneos redefined the parameters of modernism through personal expressions of otherness and difference. This thesis examines works by artists including Abraham Ángel, Julio Castellanos, María Izquierdo, and Manuel Rodríguez Lozano in relation to shifting discourses surrounding gender and national identity.

The construction of the  Museo Nacional de Antropología (National Anthropology Museum) in 1964 symbolized the results of the nation's economic growth and served as the long-awaited answer to Mexico's desire to properly conserve and display its pre-Columbian past, in order to prove its growing national power and pride to a bourgeoning global audience. During its construction, the institution hired the largest group of women muralists for a federal project. While the commission of this project was meant to be strictly apolitical and purely narrative, the women muralists of the MNA were still successful in creating and promoting radical political and gender-related content. Continuing the legacy of the Mexican Mural Renaissance, these groups of murals highlight the historical, spiritual, and cultural importance of women in Mexican history, a story that was continually developing in the 1960s. This thesis focuses on three of these artists who most explicitly inserted the female narrative into their works, challenging the male-dominated areas of art, culture, and shaping of the national story. These examples include Fanny Rabel's La ronda en el tiempo (The round of time) (1964), Regina Raull's La educación del niño en la época mexica (The Education of the child in the pre-Hispanic era) (1966), and Valetta Swann's Las delicias (The Delights) (1964). The murals of the MNA do more than just create a state-mandated message; they push the boundaries of art as a tool for social consciousness and a testimony to the importance of women's art in Mexican art history.

In 1969 art historian Shifra Goldman initiated a campaign to restore América Tropical, a public mural painted by Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros in 1932 on a second-story, outside wall of Old Italian Hall in Los Angeles' historic Olvera Street. Jesus Treviño's 30-minute film is an artifact of that early initiative. Equal parts historical documentary, political activism, and promotional campaign, the video situates Siqueiros' most important U.S. mural within the cultural nationalism of the Chicano civil rights movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Resumen

En 1948 el mural de Diego Rivera Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central fue mutilado por un grupo de estudiantes católicos descontentos por la inclusión en la obra de la frase “Dios no existe” y la exaltación del escritor liberal ateo del siglo XIX, Ignacio Ramírez, El Nigromante. Este artículo examina brevemente  el contexto social y político que rodeó a ese incidente, así como las reacciones sobre él y las tomas de partido que se expresaron en la prensa local, sin olvidar el clima de intolerancia religiosa y política que se vivía entonces  en la Ciudad de México, impulsado en buena parte por el anticomunismo y la Guerra Fría, así como por el cambio en los valores de una sociedad en proceso de modernización, industrialización y urbanización.

The present paper focuses on the concepts of urban and linguistic space. It considers the city as a diamesic melting pot. Graffitism is seen as a communication channel that needs to be examined in order to better understand the urban language and its many forms.
Key words: graffiti, linguistics, diamesia

The study focuses on the republican murals painted on the walls of two cities, Belfast and Derry, in May 2009. The idea for the study was born during a trip to Northern Ireland during which I had the opportunity to observe the murals and to talk with some of the authors and with persons who had actually experienced
the events represented in the murals.
The nationalist murals have been studied by the author under different perspectives: language, iconography, political symbolism and social environment. Murals are, for sure, the community’s reaction to the British political and violent domination on Northern Ireland and they become instruments of rebellion representing
a collective request for freedom and independence. But they also represent a more complex phenomenon as they embody values and perspectives of the entire nationalist community in Northern Ireland. The study analyses the murals both as single artworks and as a collective phenomenon.A strong focus is given at all the political and social themes represented in the murals and at the different linguistic and iconographic styles of communication
as well as how different themes and styles combine. The nationalist murals are also examined under an artistic perspective with a special focus on the figure of the “artista armato”, the artist as a warrior that uses art as an instrument for communicating higher, collective (moral, social, religious, political) values. This
perspective brings the author to draw and analyse a parallel between the phenomenon of nationalist murals and Futurist art: a comparison based on the themes represented in the artworks, on the placing of the art pieces and on the social role of the artists.
If words, pictures and colours used in the nationalist murals become, as analysed in the study, the voice of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland, a voice not so often listened in the EU, it becomes crucial to understand what the artists
want to communicate, why and how. This study aims also to open up to a new research perspective based on a multidisciplinary approach through the integrated use of semiotics and semantics in ethnography in order to offer a more complete and holistic interpretation of the phenomenon of the Northern Irish republican
murals.