MOLAA
to project radical mural on outdoor screen
By
Brian Brannon
Summer On-line Forty-Niner
The
work of controversial Mexican muralist David
Alfaro Siqueiros was larger than life, incorporating
elements of photography, montage and multiple
angles to dramatize the revolutionary nature
of his paintings.
On
Saturday at 8:30 p.m., his mural "America
Tropical," which once adorned Olvera
Street in Los Angeles in the early 1930s
before it was destroyed due to its radical
nature, will be displayed in its full glory
on a 1,800 square wall using powerful projectors.
The event is part of the Murals Under the
Stars program series, put on by the Museum
of Latin American Art. Director Gregorio
Luke will discuss the life and times of
this controversial Mexican artist.
"I
think that Siqueiros is the most influential
artist in California by far," Luke
said. "He is the direct inspiration
of billboard culture, comic culture and
Chicano art. It's very paradoxical that
his being the most communist of the muralists
all of his graphical contributions, have
been used by Madison Avenue."
Along
with Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco,
Siquerios was a member of the Big Three
of Mexican muralists, known as Los Tres
Grandes of the Muralismo movement. Siqueiros'
favorite themes were revolution, the promise
of technology and the working man. He was
also an innovator of new techniques.
Jennifer
Grey, a.k.a. "Zen Grey," CSULB
professor of drawing and painting, said
that Siqueiros' profound influence on art
history is often overlooked.
"Siqueiros
invented the big gesture in a real interesting
way by thinning down his paint so it could
fall very freely off his brush," Grey
said. "His line work is phenomenal
and his sense of gesture is incredible."
As
a teacher, Siqueiros passed on his influence
to a new generation of artists, including
American art icon Jackson Pollock, who took
Siqueiros' work and applied it to abstract
expressionism.
"Jackson
Pollock was a disciple of him," Luke
said.
But
Siquerios was also intensely political,
and his Stalinist leanings saw his
legacy erased by proponents of the anti-communist
movement.
"It
is a pity that Siquerios is so controversial,"
Luke said. "He's become something of
a black legend. Nobody wants to touch him
with a sixteen-foot pole."
With
his intense communist leanings, it is ironic
that the techniques Siquerios developed
to make art reach out and touch the viewer
have been largely ignored by the art world
while simultaneously being embraced by purveyors
of commercial advertising.
"What
Siquerios would have wanted was to go down
Sunset Boulevard and see art instead of
Gap ads," Luke said.
MOLAA is located at 628 Alamitos Ave.,
in Long Beach. Tickets to Murals Under the
Stars are $15 for members and $20 for non-members.
For more information call (562) 437-1689
or visit www.molaa.com
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