Diego Rivera: Murals for the Museum of Modern Art
MoMA, New York, November 13th to May 14th.
Diego Rivera (1886-1957) was several people in one. A political partisan and rebellious spirit, he was also a painter, illustrator, architect, draughtsman, costume designer and sculptor. His private life was a whirlwind: Frida Kahlo was wife No 3, and 4 (they married, divorced and remarried). But Rivera’s real love affair was with the wall. Bursting with colour, packed with detail and full of fantasy, his murals are mind-boggling. Like meaty scenes from an epic novel, they are magical storyboards that find their way deep into the imagination.
Strongly influenced by the Mexican revolution, Rivera believed in art for all. He wanted his work to be accessible, on public walls, not just gallery ones. In 1931, the Museum of Modern Art in New York offered him a big solo show. Arriving six weeks early, he was given an empty gallery to create eight portable murals. Eighty years later, five of them are back where they began.
They appear alongside a selection of drawings, watercolours and prints plus Rivera’s controversial designs for the Rockefeller Centre, begun while in residence at MoMA. “Frozen Assets” is the most surprising mural on show. It’s American, not Mexican, and shows New York’s jagged skyline, an unemployment shelter and a bank vault. It’s a gutsy statement to make mid-Depression. When Rivera arrived in New York, almost a quarter of all Americans were unemployed. His work asked big questions. During a global crisis, how could art tackle social and economic problems? If only we had the answer.
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