Arts and events management in cultural institutions

¶ … Revolutionary history of Mexico [...] interrelationships of art and events in Mexico for the revolutionary period. It seems that revolution in a country also breeds artistic development and reform. As freedom beckons, so does the creative process and the need to document the events of the revolution. This is certainly the case in the history of the Mexican Revolution and the resulting onslaught of artwork and creativity that resulted. Some of Mexico's most famous artists, such as Diego Rivera, came out of the revolutionary period, and their influence on world art cannot be denied.

In the case of the Mexican muralists, the art directly reflected the events of the period; in fact, many muralists like Rivera used real revolutionary figures and events as part of their subject matter. Rivera painted a modern, cubistic Zapatista Guerrilla in one of his most famous paintings, and he did several murals depicting the history of Mexico including a mural in Cuernavaca in 1930 depicting important revolutionary figures Jose Maria Morelos and Emiliano Zapata.

Of course, the muralists were not the only artists working in Mexico at the time. There were dozens, even hundreds of painters, musicians, writers, and dancers who all worked during the Revolution and created new works and new ways of portraying Mexico and Mexican history through their art. Writer Amanda Hopkinson states, "In the 1920s, Mexico City became a magnet for a new generation of artists and writers hoping to capture the revolutionary spirit in their work" (Hopkinson, 2004). Thus, the revolution spawned creativity and a keen sense of Mexican history and nationalism during the Revolution and after.

The events indeed influenced the art of the period, perhaps no more so than through the art of Mexican artist and revolutionary Diego Rivera. He is one of the most famous Mexican artists who painted during that time and showed the world what was occurring in Mexico. Rivera was born in Guanajuato in 1886, and he grew up in Mexico City. By the age of ten, he was taking drawing lessons at night in a school in Mexico City. In 1898 he started attending the school full-time, and by 1906 he had his first showing of his works. In 1907 he traveled to Spain and other parts of Europe, and he settled in Paris for a time, where he had several more exhibitions. World War I broke out, and Rivera heard of Emiliano Zapata, a Mexican Revolutionary who wanted to return Mexico to the "people." After a while, Rivera too became a revolutionary, and it is his revolutionary paintings that are probably the most remembered and revered in Mexico.

He returned to Mexico in 1921, and began painting a series of murals depicting the native Mexicans, the revolutionaries, and historic subjects. He formed a labor union of painters and other artists, and joined the Communist Party. His murals and paintings became even more revolutionary, showing the hammer and sickle representative of the Communist Party, and radical revolutionaries fighting with machine guns and propaganda. He remained a loyal Communist for the rest of his life, and painted several popular murals in Mexico, and even some in the United States. One of the most controversial was "Man at the Crossroads," which depicted a series of people, including Russian leader Lenin, and Americans demanded the mural be removed. It was eventually chipped off the wall of Radio City Music Hall before it was completed, and Rivera painted a different version on a building in Mexico. Rivera died in 1957 in Mexico City, and he is still remembered as one of Mexico's greatest artists. Influenced by the Revolution, his art reflected the changing values in Mexico and across the globe.

Governmental events also helped the arts flourish during this time. The minister of education between 1921 and 1924 was Jose Vasconcelos, and he modernized schools, libraries, literature, and even took "cultural missions" to the rural population. He was also a strong patron of the arts, and during his time in office, he commissioned ballets and symphonies that used native music and rhythms that reflected the spirit and ideals of the revolution (Miller, 1986, p. 310). Vasconcelos was a writer, too, and he wrote "The Cosmic Race" in 1925 that discussed the blending of races in Mexico and Latin America and their hopes for the future. The arts flowered in Mexico during this time as the people hoped for freedom and prosperity.

Yes, art changed during this time, too. The mural developed as a way to share Mexican history with all the people of the country, rich and poor. In addition, Diego Rivera had learned most of his art in Europe, and had embraced the European styles of modernism and cubism. However, when he returned to Mexico, he simplified his art and returned to the roots of realism -- portraying the people with bright colors and bold lines. Historian Maurice Berger writes, "Rivera [ ... ] undertook the task of producing an art that was completely different from the 'pure' art practiced in contemporary Europe. Rivera conceived of art as an organic, useful human function, as necessary to man as 'bread, meat, fruit, water, and air'" (Berger, 1994, p. 211). Thus, new forms of art did develop, and they created more vivid depictions of Mexican history and events that helped change the country forever.

At the time, photography was really developing into an art form, too. It was not new technology, it had been around since the American Civil War, but it was much more common in the 20th century, and it became much more of an art statement and platform. Photography showed the realities of the revolution and the real people who were behind it. Artists like Rivera showed their own ideas about the Revolution, but photographs did not lie. They showed the reality, from those killed to those who fought diligently. It was a new way for the people to view history and to view other parts of their country they might never see otherwise.

Rivera and several of his contemporaries developed the mural as an important art form in Mexico for a number of reasons. Art historian Berger notes, "Mexican artists turned their attention to the problem of how to convey to a largely illiterate population the history of its own political struggles, as well as how to introduce people to new revolutionary truths" (Berger, 1994, p. 201). They did this by painting large, colorful murals that portrayed events and figures important to Mexican history. Rivera was not the only muralist; Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros were also instrumental in bringing this kind of history to all the people of Mexico.