Rivera frescos at the DIA

Since we're on the topic of Latin American artists, I thought it would be neat to bring up that a very famous fresco sequence was painted in the Detroit Institute of Arts by Diego Rivera. The work was commissioned by Edsel Ford (son of auto tycoon Henry Ford) in 1932. The themes of the mural are the four races that comprise Detroit's working population, and Detroit's main industries; the automotive plants as well as medical, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries. Rivera's work does anything but glorify North American industry; the images reveal broken down, hunched-backed, sooty workers exiting the soulless metal plant, as well as ominous visions of workers cloaked in gas masks manufacturing deadly chlorine gas. This stands in contrast to the angry raised fists on the desert hills above the plant scenes and the fertile Latin American fruit and vegetable growth. Rivera portrayed the white race as surrounded by broken ruins, symbolizing the decline of Western society. Various subversive details can be found- such as the presence of a sickle and a red star on the gloves of one worker. (Rivera's cunning becomes evident when one learns that there was actually a glove-making factory in Michigan at the time whose logo was a red star.) Upon viewing the mural, Henry Ford wanted to have it painted over; but Edsel (who was a great lover of art) had the final word and emerged victorious in his fight to preserve it. Rivera also considered it the most successful work of his career. Pretty cool. Check it out at the DIA website: http://www.dia.org/collections/AmericanArt/33.10.html