Propagandist art on display at AMAM

Mexican muralists commissioned by gov't to raise the spirits of masses during the 1930s

The Allen Memorial Art Museum currently features the exhibit "Representing the Revolution: Works on Paper by Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siquieros," which opened Feb. 16 and runs through May 31.

Not to be confused with the current Rivera exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art (it was designed to coincide with the CMA show, which closes May 2), the AMAM has on display about 20 pieces by "los tres grandes." The works mostly date from the 1920s and early 1930s when the Mexican post-Revolutionary government hired artists to raise the spirits of the masses by depicting farmers, peasants and workers in large-scale public murals.

The three artists used different art-historical influences and approaches in their commitment to representing the Mexican people, most commonly in murals but also in prints and drawings.

Rivera, who was influenced by Soviet Socialist Realism as well as Central American indigenous art forms, tends to portray strong, noble peasants and workers in his prints and murals. Orozco more heavily stresses the poverty and loss suffered by rural Mexicans; his drawings were influenced by Christian medieval art as well as political cartoons.

Siquieros is the least traditional of the three, as he integrates Italian Renaissance, Futurist and Surrealist styles in his highly political work. Holding the belief that art should be used as a tool to work for social justice, Siquieros stated in a 1922 Manifesto that "our supreme object in art...is to create beauty for all, beauty that enlightens and stirs to struggle."

This universal concept is what makes these works go beyond solely representing Mexican politics to become universal. One notable piece at AMAM is an Orozco print entitled Hanged Men (Negroes), which is part of a series done while he lived in New York City. It depicts the lynching of black men in the Southern United States and is representative of the racism that takes place in the North as well.

Curated by senior Matthew Brigham as part of a study project on Diego Rivera, "Representing the Revolution" features works that depict not just post-Revolutionary Mexico, but that call for human rights everywhere.

"Portrait" 1937: This work by David Alfaro Siquieros (1898-1974) is one of the works on display in this AMAM exhibit. (photo courtesy AMAM)