Occupy MoMA: Diego Rivera’s Populist Murals Reunited

During his lifetime, Diego Rivera stood as one of the most important and controversial artists in the world. Today, thanks to the international feminist phenomenon of Frida Kahlo (who stood in her husband’s considerable shadow while alive), Rivera finds himself, at best, “Mr. Frida Kahlo” and, at worst, the philandering lout who only added emotional pain to Frida’s physical suffering. Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York through May 14, 2012, reminds us of the artistic genius and political passion that attracted both Kahlo and patrons to Rivera’s art. As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to find venues to occupy around the world, it seems only fitting that Rivera’s murals first created for a MoMA retrospective in 1931—as the Mexican Revolution and Great Depression weighed heavily on the world—reunite to inspire a new generation of revolutionaries facing a new time of economic turmoil. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Occupy MoMA: Diego Rivera’s Populist Murals Reunited."

[Image: Diego Rivera. The Uprising. 1931. Fresco on reinforced cement in a galvanized-steel framework, 74 x 94 1/8” (188 x 239 cm). Private collection, Mexico. © 2011 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, México, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.]

[Many thanks to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, for providing me with the image above and other press materials for Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art, which runs through May 14, 2012.]