Man at the crossroads, looking with hope and high vision to a new and better future

Abstract

(cont.) In Latin American new leaders are proposing alternatives to America's capitalist system. In Mexico, Subcomandante Marcos, is calling for an end to globalism. His group, the Zapatista revolutionary army who's name comes from the Mexican revolution of 1912, that Rivera once supported, are active in Mexico's poorest state Chiapas. They demand that the indigenous peoples of Chiapas be respected and their culture and tradition be fairly treated in a land governed by the Mexican and foreign companies. This is reminiscent of the 1930s when Nelson Rockefeller began to foster economic development in Mexico, and the indigenous peoples lands were being exploited. Later, another Rockefeller suggested that Mexico join NAFTA (1994), a factor that eventually led many Indians to be forced off their traditional lands, face starvation, and migrate north to seek work in the United States. This country on the other hand is planning to build a wall on the border.

I am an artist. My work is doing the research, bringing together perspectives, ideas, people and expressing something that will be silent if I do not say. 73 years ago an artist, Diego Rivera, was trying to say something and he was abruptly interrupted, perhaps the story is not finished. Because of past work, my experiences in California and my exposure to Rivera I have become fascinated with so many issues behind his art, behind the murals. The thesis is a contemporary reawakening of a landmark moment in art history where Nelson Rockefeller covered and destroyed a Diego Rivera mural. This project is very serious as it opens up issues that started during Rivera's time and we may think are over today after the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the 1930's Rivera, descended upon the United States with a vision of using modern technology as an expression of man and machine as having a fundamental role in effecting the social, economic and political climate of the era. It seems to be very clear that the circumstances that led Rivera to produce the unfinished mural are still very much alive.