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    Jennifer Jolly, Siqueiros' Communist Proposition For Muralism

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    Karen Benezra

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    4 SIQUEIROS’ COMMUNIST PROPOSITION FoR MEXICAN MURALISM A Mural for the Mexican Electricians’ Spndicate Jennifer A, Jolly Although David Alfaro Siqueiros came late to José Vasconcelos’ mural project, from the sart he claimed a key role in defining Mexico's mural movement. That Mexican mural- ism should be categorized “a movement” rather than a loose affiliation of individual artists was not to be taken for granted, and Siqueiros dedicated his career to ensuring that muralism was sustained and promoted in collective terms. To this end, he traveled the world developing mural projects, recruiting and training new muralists, writing, lecturing, and inserting his vision of public mural art—and himself—into the center of the era's artistic and political debates. He defined his project—and muralism in gen- lin highly ideological, confrontational terms. His critiques were directed against “al muralists and non-muralists alike, as the title of one of his numerous tracts asserts: Ours Is the Only Way "his polemical approach to muralism paired his early immersion in artistic avant Sism with a communist political commitment. His artistic and activist identities “te often at odds, as he regularly abandoned successful artistic projects to engage oliticg ee [PNG¢l action: fighting in the Mexican Revolution (1t0-20) and the Spanish Civil 5" (1936-30), ent, and serving jail sen- organizing workers, operating as a Stalinist ag irabl irable. ten il isp M P-Word War art word, sucha pairing ws esile— cen eA Be ® “ctizen-artist” persona, rejecting avant-garde autonomy (th not just ote a fora public role; he sought to make murals “communist, casting mbi- ul aso production and reception, in ideological terms. Postwar, this co Metion, ; oe ed his uneven reception: celebrated as 2 revolutionary artist by ry in determin 1s his reputation at home and abroad.? as a public art, the muralists based their visual language in realism. The public's hos- tile reception to the National Preparatory School murals, however, meant that murals would be unacceptable as government art as long as the current elite controlled public discourse. Siqueiros abandoned his unfinished contribution, the Colegio Chico stairwell between art and its public. In rethinking this relationship, the muralists had to address > not just content and style, but also the structures of viewin, a art. This challenge paralleled ti avant-garde;$ for Siqueiros, however, communism, ig, commissioning, and on that faced by the nineteenth-century realist the solution was grounded in twentieth-century worldwide—recognizing art's potential for mass Politics—began recruiting artists, The PCM advised the muralists caught up in the Preparatory School controversy to union- 76 + MEXICAN MURALISM ge’ They took this advice, forming the Syndicate of Technical Workers, Painters and sculptors (1923-24). Many joined the PCM and quickly rose to prominence; Siqueitos, forexample, served on the PCM Central Committee in 1924-30 and 1948-71. The PCM and the artists alike courted the working classes, a rapidly growing constituency whose 1 consolidated in workers’ organizations with newfound resources, Both shared ambitions to lead and to cultivate a new Mexican public. SIQUEIROS’ CRITIQUE OF MURALISM Afier 1924, muralism as @ movement seemed to disintegrate, and was replaced by spo- adic individual commissions. Siqueiros soon abandoned artmaking and turned to fulltime political activity: unionizing miners, lecturing, and representing the PCM internationally—until government anti-communist crackdowns in 1929 and his arrest led him to resume easel painting. Siqueitos, using his 1932 Casino Espafol exhibition 2sa platform, launched a polemic against contemporary Mexican painting and initiated a decade-long effort to revitalize the stalled Mexican mural movement. His reentry into the art world coincided with intensifying international debate on socially committed art. Artists everywhere were vying for state funds; governments seeking public legitimacy gave aesthetic form to the worldwide political confrontation among capitalism, fascism, and communism. The stakes were high: the collapse of international art markets in 1929 forced artists to compete for limited cultural resources. Regimes in Germany and the Soviet Union tightly restricted artistic and cultural val- ues. Anti-fascist organizations, including Mexico's League of Revolutionary Artists and Writers (LEAR), began to appear soon after Hitler's election in 1933. They sponsored exhibitions, contests, and congresses, where major debates (such as the Siqueiros-Rivera debate in Mexico City in 1935, and the Querelle du Réalisme in Paris in 1937) were waged to determine the art best suited to the struggle. Siqueiros placed himself at the center of these debates and conflicts, visiting Uru- guay, Argentina, the United States, Cuba, France, and Spain to lecture, organize anti- fascist artists, found mural teams, and launch experimental projects—not to mention fight for the Spanish Republic. These experiences helped him define his artistic vision, articulated against international abstraction, socialist realism, and the mural art of his better-known colleague, Diego Rivera. In their place, he proposed a modern, dynamic muralism. Siqueiros’ critique addressed the major crisis of ‘muralism: its relationship with “the Public.” “People,” “popular,” and “public” are ideological (not descriptive) categories, and for the citizen-artist in the age of mass politics, political and artistic legitimacy depended on the ability to control their definition. In Mexico, debates raged about the nature x of “the people” and arte popular (popular art)” During much of his career, SiqueiroSy, defined the Mexican people as the proletariat, or the working masses, and revolutionary intellectuals. He eliminated the bourgeoisie and often conflated the peasantry with SiQUEIROS’ COMMUNIST PROPOSITION FOR MEXICAN MURALISM + 77 the proletariat in his writing (although not in his art).§ a cultural elite and the art market, condemning trends “tourist curio” art promoted as arte popular’ He cultivated He rejected a of folkloric ee a the industrial wong as his public—beginning in 1924 in his “Appeal to the Proletariat inp wa and sought to dislodge the bourgeoisie and elite as the dominant art Audience ig ‘muralism itself prevented art's commodification, the location of Ul ee its public and threatened muralism’s revolutionary credentials, the proletariat” and be of “great public use,” muralism first had overcome tein, Placed on public space in Mexico by finding new patrons and adapting to mass ci, tion by way of photography and film." A second facet of transforming the relationship between artist and Ublic was thy redefinition of artistic identity. The standard avant-garde idea of the alienated cety on the fringes of society appealed to artists who wished to distance themselves fom Powseois culture. This seléclaimed isolation, however limited the potential ofthc Y | art to transform the world, Although Siqueiros himself struggled for recognition” he | celebrated an artistic identity integrated into the collective fabric of society where arts tic production could be shaped, and therefore engaged, by “the people.” As the cttc Arquelas Vela repeatedly argued, if artistic production were determined by the site the age, art would be embraced by society at large.) ‘Siqueiros’ insistence on identifying muralism as a movement based in Collective activity, rather than as a loose affiliation of individual artists, can be ‘understood in this context, Beginning with the short-lived Syn. | dicate of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors, Siqueiros cast artists as unionized / workers, defined by ther group a nging the archaic “Giottoisms’ of Los Angeles Bloc of Painters (1932 lls to transfer their content. Photogra” the artist manifests individuality—pr- Dut also font Bt only for ideal spectators, as i ea further, designer ° » designat tag imagery onto phe ss Baking a series of vantage WEF assed through ne a ing that morphed al in and out Of perspective as the vie 2 harmonic machine” “activated” by fe SPeCiatOrS movemense 1 called the mural Plastic Exercise (1933), was to be filmed. Additionay on MM and “sion; the result, New York furthered his creative ag a Buns, airbrushes, synthetic paints, of industrial technologies ss 1s Angeles and and a range of new rece” HClud his strategy of propelling mural Fesins and oi Cement, paint | im forward by athens reat gn Honicaly, P °cial content and 78 + MEXICAN MuRALism >» jen technology drew from Leon Trotsky’s dialectical the, oie 24). While Trotsky—Josef Stalin’s rival and the fou, sion ( 9 was the nemesis of orthodox communists, his appl ‘Ory of Literature and Revolu- inder of the Fourth Interna. ication of Marxist Principles onary art. Hence it informed esult was a muralism defined jon . vibe realm ofart remained an unrivaled model of revolut to THE MURAL FOR THE MEXICAN ELECTRICIANS’ SYNDICATE In August 1939, seven months after returning to Mexico from fighting Franco's forces in Spain, Siqueitos assembled the International Team of Plastic Artists and accepted a mural commission for the headquarters of the Mexican Electriei The team included the Mexicans Antonio Pujol and Luis Arenal and the Bolivian Roberto Berdecio, with whom he had worked previously, as well as Spanish exiles Josep Renau, Antonio Rodriguez Luna, and Miguel Prieto, whom he would introduce to the Mexican mural movement's history and polemics. This manifesto-scaled project syn- thesized Siqueiros’ critique of muralism and his ambitions for its future development. The SME was part of the art public that Mexican leftist artists sought to cultivate, and in1g39 was hardly new to cultural patronage. First active during the Mexican Revolu- tion, the SME was marked by debate both about preserving its anarcho-syndicalist roots (rciecting political affiliation and focusing on workers’ rights) and about participating 'nlocal and international coalitions engaged in political struggles. Joining the united antifascist front brought the syndicate to the forefront of Mexican labor politics in the ‘930s. Under the engineers’ communist-influenced leadership, the SME developed its Vournal Lux into an illustrated tool for shaping class consciousness, educating workers, and disseminating propaganda. Additionally, the SME commissioned theatrical, liter. “ty. and artistic undertakings through participation in LEAR, Mexico’s Popular Front “"'s organization, which made important strides in promoting art for unions—includ- i'8 murals, posters, films, theatrical productions, photography, and illustrations by Professional artists and workers alike—during its brief existence (1933-38). The mural “35 commissioned to decorate the SME’s new headquarters building—a monument to the SME's expansion and achievements—and complement the building's role inaiding “orkers' spiritual, intellectual, and physical development by providing a collective set "efor their new-found leisure time. As such, the mural would be a pawn in the larger debate about the mission of the syndicate and its culture—a ea that brought the “Indicate's vision into conflict with that of Siqueiros, resulting in major revisions to the Mural’s ori 4.1). fe | From any Fine a asa collective to further their ambition otusing # mural's Production—grounded in the spirit of the age—to determine its recept on “Vela had recommended. The collective would govern itself according to commu ' avis S1QUEIROS* COMMUNIST PROPOSITION FOR MEXICAN MURALISM = 79 2veIRos: co ist FIGURE 4.1 David Alfaro Siqueiros, Josep Renau, and the International Team of Plastic Artists. Portrait ofthe Bourgeoisie (original version), detail: cen- tral wall, pyroxylin/cement, 100 meters square, Mexico City, Mexican Electricians’ Syndicate (1939 40). © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SOMAAP, Mexico City, ideals, including discussion, team members would particip be leader and agreed to use i according to specialty, tools (including spray. thetic paints), and a phe ; 8ive the mural aesthetic coherence. Once painting began, however, conflicts arose: Prieto, Rodrg, = ie: 7, Berdecio left the project in frustration at S Suez Luna, an i Stylistic Renau requested that tasks be reassigned so he would not be q Standards, and absent teammates." “Pendent on his often- democratic decision ate in Painting the industrial produc distributed througho Buns, cameras, proje otorealist (“objective making, and self-critique, and all mural. The team elected Siqueiros to tion techniques: they divided their labor ut the mural, and employed mechanical Ctors), industria] materials (cement, syn- ”) Painting style to To include the mural in SME culture, the artists engaged union memb, ‘mbers in the BO» MEXICAN MURALISM nt of the project, Noping that the Workers would 8 mural with political content at a moment when the g ae int ‘ isagreements threatened syndicate UNity—to be aed : the artists initially conceptualized the mural in P; i ternational themes of fascism, imperialism, a ed their promise to syndicate leaders to address the electrical} phe Mexico and abroad to signal the confluence of the Social, ee facets of modernization. However, Comintern di . communist International) visited Mexico in November jadadjusted its position to adhere to post-Hitler-Stalin p; h tists soon reworked their interpretation of the int jelopme' , i their Petition to ad voted}, i because apolitical, With the Workers’ opular Front t terms, — 'S, address. he muralists also industry, a theme technological, and clegates (representatives of the 1939 to ensure that the PCM act policies, and it appears that ternational conflict in explici anti 1939, for the SME's anniversary oe quet, the artists had condensed the Popular Front and electrical themes under a new circ title, "Monument to Capitalism” {without altogether abandoning their original plans) and prepared to expose capitalism in all its faults.21 Te artists sought to make these interconnected themes highly accessible to thei 7 public by employing both familiar content (some of which was adapted from the SME journal,” and a realist style, akin to documentar photography. Thus, the artists drew ‘rom the expanding genre of photojournalism magazines and Renau's archive of Span- \ ish Civil War negatives, bolstering their claims to documentary objectivity. They clipped images from mainstream US magazines and the international leftist press. Such docu- mentation was to serve as evidence in the case against fascism, imperialist war, and cap- ‘lism, Renau combined these much-reproduced and heavily circulated photographs, * along with iconography taken from various graphic sources, into photomontage studies ‘teating war and the electrical industry, while his colleagues made the fascism wall study, By assembling mass-circulated images, art, and photos of local electrical plants, # theartists challenged folkloric notions of popular art and created a modern arte popular, ‘signed to appeal specifically to electrical workers. oo Furthering this desire to engage their viewers, the muralists adopted Siqueiros’ the- “ryof the “harmonic machine” activated by the spectator’s movement, and selected the “tirwell as the best location for developing their dynamic mural. According to Renau, ‘hey studied stairwell traffic to determine the “average” spectator's path . i and then projected selected photographs onto the stairwell walls and cei sees te ‘ing and adjusting their photomontage studies to correspond to a oe '2age points provided by this ideal spectator (figure 4.2). Jn conceptual akin to Sn tie viewed as 2 sequence of fagmente ated de ‘atic montage. In fact, in Mexico in 1931, Siq! ei Eisenstein, inspiring “ssions with the leading Soviet proponent of montage, ae ralism. This agitproP him to apply Eisenstein’s aesthetic of conflict, or dialectics, to mu) ts of scale, light- “‘rtegy required that the muralists create a series of dram te oF "Ye content, and narrative to jar the spectator out of compla alti the ar capitalist terms. By December 14, atic contras cency and into a stal urauism > 8 ™ MEXICAN SIQUEIROS: COMMUNIST PROPOSITION FOR FIGURE 4.2 Josep Renau. Photomontage diagram of SME mural’s six ideal vantage points (1969). Valencia, Josep Renau Archive, IVAM. Courtesy of the Josep Renau Archive, IVAM, Valencia. 7 fi ii +t in these agitprop pathos. Renau, a photomontage specialist, shared Siqueiros a aa ee and narrative principles, and the team deployed them throughout # 4 ee. 4 combines technologically driven methods, photographic content and style, tage of viewpoints to create a giant painted photomontage. NARRATIVE IN THE ORIGINAL MURAL As originally conceived, the mural presented a monumental flmie Henna a talism generating fascism and imperialist war. The artists designed this narrative be seen from six ideal vantage points stairs. The artists used contrastin Juxtapositions shock and jar; other: experienced by spectators as they climbed the 'g modes of montage to engage the spectators: SOME ‘Ss empower by revealing connections among figures: ideologies, and events in the international conflict. lew of a capitalist’s safe, its walls cut away to reveal aml “rs gears in a subterranean factory as well as the oa ‘op of the safe (figure 4.3). Above, the second ideal viewpoint ‘Pporting and turning a parrot-headed demagogue, who was derived from a photograph of Mussolini (figure 4.4, left) A railing hides his crankshaft from the masses, who stream down to listen— revealin| tions are produced by the safe. The narrative begins with a y: induction generator, which pow shaft extending out the shows the crankshaft su ~but the viewers see his true nature and 8 him as a mere mechanical toy whose motion anemia * This duplicitous toy offers a flower with one left arm) false speech expose 82 - MEXICAN MURALISM FIGURE 4.3 David Alfaro Siqueiros, Josep Renau, and the International Team of Plastic Artists. Portrait ofthe Bourgeoisie (final version), detail: strong- box of capitalism, pyroxylin/cement, 100 meters square, Mexico City, Mexican Electricians’ Syndicate (1939-40). © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SOMAAP, Mexico City. while another left arm harangues with a torch; such futurist-inspired repetition is used throughout to suggest movement and violence. Faced with this false leader, the masses form two contrasting groups: chaotic, translucent workers and protesters above; ordered, opaque fascist troops below. The groups skirmish on the steps of a burning building: its classical style, along with the inscription “LIBERTE, EGALITE, FRATERNITE” and superimposed moneybag on its pediment, symbolize capitalist democracy, The torches implicate the fascists in this destruction of capitalist democracy and recall the German Reichstag fire. Given that the capitalist’s safe powers the fascist demagogue, however, this wall in fact represents the capitalist generating the fascism and mass seduction that will destroy it.25 The next three ideal viewpoints present fascism engage : employ a montage of contrasts to heighten drama. In the third ideal view, an explosion 1's upper right corner represents war (figure 4.5, ion to the ceiling, where the n sky. Smokestacks, electric 4 in imperialist war and Over an aircraft carrier in the stairwell "upper center), Its fiery cloud provides a baroque transiti fourth ideal view, painted in trompe l'oeil, suggests an ope! a pylons, and a radio tower rise above the factory and evoke a utopian, constructivist mor towering forms represent peace, justice, ich is represented as a series of projec sion is the antithesis of the war image chaos below. The mural’s juxtapos- ‘ompared with Eisenstein's '2ge: according to the mural’s inscription, these Solidarity, and work. They point to the sun, whi \lons standing for liberty. This ideal peaceful vi ‘hat precedes it and contrasts with the destructive ing of antithetical thematic material in a narrative can be ¢ ros c nist PROPOSITION FOR MEXICAN MURALISM 8: MUNIST IT10 L 3 ‘au s COMMU FIGURE 4.4 David Alfaro Siqueiros and the International Te eam of Plastic Artists. Portrait of the Bourgeoisie (final ver Sion), detail: left and central walls, pyroxylin/c ‘ement, 100 meters square, Mexico City, Mexican Co Clans’ Syndicate (1939-40). © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SOMAAP, Mexico City. approach to chapter structure heightens narrative drama by the first conflict on the battles! muralists provided the spect; At the fifth ideal viewpoint, ¢ flag dominates the right wal ning a classical building; ne Contrast heightens the scen above opposing war machi fighter’s face and gun heig! viewed from within the st: is the revolutionary force The final viewpoint, within his films—for example, his 1925 film Potemkin inserting a peaceful revolutionary celebration between hip and the slaughter on the Odessa steps. Similarly, the ‘ators with contrasting views to create narrative tension. fhe viewer leaps back into the fray. A fighter bearing a red ll with his rifle, opposing the progress of a tank oe arby an apartment building burns (figure 4.5, right half). ne’s conflicts: flesh against metal; the fighter viewed from nety viewed from below; vitality versus death. The elongated hten the drama and emotional power of the image when it is ‘airwell. From this vantage, the lone gunman with his red flag needed to confront the onslaught of imperialist war. from the third floor landing, reveals the central “infernal machine” and makes the mural's overall structure apparent (Bgures 4.1 and 4.5, left 84 + MEXICAN MURALISM 2 RE AS 4 Alfaro Siqueiros and the International Team of Plastic Artists. Portrait ofthe Bourgeoisie final ver- detail: central and right walls, pyroxylin/cement, 100 meters square, Mexico City, Mexican Electri- Syndicate (1939-40). © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SOMAAP, Mexico City. valf). The composition’s central vertical axis is a turbine generator, which extends from the subterranean factory into the central world stage. In the original mural (figure 4.1), ‘he machine's lowest zone (the gas compression chamber) enclosed six faces: two Afri- cans, a Southeast Asian, an Indigenous American, an Asian, and a gas-mask-wearing Caucasian, Such racial typing evoked imperialism during the 1930s. In the central hamber's spinning rotors, the team reproduced the widely circulated photographs hild victims of the Spanish Civil War. The machine is crowned by a two-headed

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