Diego Rivera’s “America” is the first exhibit in 20 years focused solely on the Mexican artist who believed an artist’s role was to create a more equitable society. The exhibit is on display at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art through the end of July.
“One of the most significant artists of the twentieth century, the Mexican muralist and painter told the story of everyday life and labor in epic murals and individual paintings,” commentary at the exhibit states. “Rivera’s artistic vision changed dramatically in late 1922 when he formed a union with fellow muralists and joined the Mexican Communist Party. The new political and economic system of Communism fascinated many looking for comprehensive social change.”
Timing of the exhibit that focuses on Rivera’s work done in the United States is of note considering the current political climate where many states have outlawed a woman’s access to abortion. The Arkansas Legislature has passed laws to put librarians in jail who checkout “prurient” materials to minors, and banned treatments for gender dysphoria for minors.
The legislature passed a major overhaul of public education orchestrated by the man famous for the “Don’t Say Gay” law in Florida. The LEARNS Act allows funding to be siphoned off from public to private schools. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has received nationwide publicity for weakening child labor law protections.
Local artist Zeek Taylor was invited to a guided tour with the show curators prior to the opening.
“I was amazed at the social commentary that went along with the work,” Taylor said. “I was familiar with Diego Rivera’s work, but I wasn’t familiar with his politics. I found it interesting to see his views as a communist expressed through his paintings. One thing the curators commented on is he showed the class difference in his paintings. One is a painting of two girls together. One was obviously from a wealthy family, well dressed and sitting on a cushion, reading to a little girl wearing a peasant dress who was more than likely not given the opportunity to learn to read.”
Taylor sees parallels today. Although most children can read, some are going to be prevented from reading books of importance because someone else deems them unsuitable.
“And the class struggle still occurs here,” Taylor said. “Sanders has stricken the term Latinx from government documents. Her administration will pay for tuition at private schools. Every dollar that is given to those students is taken away from the public schools. The schools in the Delta, the poorest regions of the state, are going to be the ones who suffer the most. We also have book banning and transgender hate bills. It is a political move that is going to hurt people, especially trans children who are being treated like pariahs.”
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which established the constitutional right to an abortion 50 years ago, Justice Clarence Thomas indicated that the court should also consider outlawing birth control and overturning gay marriage. Taylor and his husband, Dick Titus, were the first gay couple to be married in the South.
“We are also worried about protecting our right to remain married,” Taylor said. “My Out of the Delta books are being published as an anthology. I have a feeling that because I’m a gay author, my books will probably join the list of banned books in a lot of libraries and schools. It is more authoritarianism.”
Taylor said it’s ironic that Republicans claim they are for less government control but are now wanting to control personal lives.
“I hope all of this is going to drive people to the polls,” he said. “I think there are more of us than them. When it affects their pocketbooks, their schools, their right to read what they want to read, and decide what they want their children to read, I think more people will vote. We cannot be silent.”
Eureka Springs resident Patty West found the exhibit fascinating and historic.
“We are definitely going backwards and this exhibit kind of puts it in our faces,” West said. “It almost brought tears to my eyes because we are watching our government turn back the pages on equal rights and freedom to learn all history by reading books. Our lawmakers are trying, and sadly succeeding, in destroying so much progress women have made such as voting rights, better pay and birth control. Republicans are gutting women’s rights to our own bodies, including procedures that can save a woman’s life.
West said the decision to have an abortion is never easy and never made lightly. It is a difficult decision that she has witnessed many times in her 30 years in nursing, 24 as a Navy Nurse.
“I have worked in this ‘man’s world’ the better part of my life and had to fight hard to get promotions over the good ole boys, simply because I’m a woman,” West said. “I, for one, don’t want to lose these rights.”
She said it is wrong for legislators to outlaw abortion yet not willing to step up to pay for children’s education, healthcare and nutrition. And West is very alarmed by book banning, which she said is trying to change history.
“We need to know history to know the mistakes that were made and make better decisions instead of making the same mistakes over and over again,” West said.
West said it was a sobering experience walking through that exhibit reading what prompted him to paint each painting. She appreciated how he projected the working class. Rivera painted what he witnessed in his travels.
“The mural Man at the Crossroads was commissioned in 1933 to be painted at Rockefeller Center in New York City but was removed or painted over because censoring was happening even then by John D. Rockefeller,” West said. “I wish us all to embrace the truth, learn from it, and move forward as civilized people.”
In addition to the paintings themselves, she said the lifelike projections of murals on the walls were fascinating, along with a tutorial of the process of mural making.
Taylor said the mural projections were a highlight of the show.
“I was watching what I thought was a slide, and then I watched someone walk across the mural and go through a door,” Taylor said. “It was nice to see the murals to scale. It was so much different from a photo in an art book because it showed the grandeur of the piece.”
Another thing Taylor liked about the show is that there is a large Latinx community in Northwest Arkansas able to see the work of an artist whose work celebrated Mexican culture.
“He was prolific,” Taylor said. “He produced a great deal of work, but he also had a lot of assistants who would help him with the murals. There were a few paintings in the exhibit by Frieda Kahlo, his wife and partner who is also famous, especially in the U.S. She shared the same political views.”