
Don’t Forget Our History: Funding the Future of City College Archives
Without proper funding and staffing, the City College Archive has become lost in the sprawling Ocean Campus.
Without proper funding and staffing, the City College Archive has become lost in the sprawling Ocean Campus.
After traveling 2,500 miles up from Veracruz, Mexico, El Rey still had one last journey to make. Only this time, the move was across the street.
The giant Olmec head, “El Rey,” was carved by renowned Mexican sculptor Maestro Ignacio Perez Solano. It is a reproduction of the original piece unearthed in San Lorenzo, Mexico, also known as San Lorenzo #1.
The Tour catalogs 45 works of art spread across five campuses, with 27 of these works residing on the Ocean campus. The Tour also indicates which works are in storage; a considerable amount due to construction underway. The mural, completed in 1940 but in storage after a stint at the SFMOMA, is planned to be displayed in the new Performing Arts Center.
City College filed a cross-complaint to the San Francisco Superior Court on Thursday in response to a lawsuit initiated by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in early October.
Painting students at the time, Barbara Bolls-Guillory, Itzli Ceja and Xiaoyu Luo painted the Frida Kahlo panel together. The three benefitted from the workshop in a multitude of ways, from the community aspect to the technical skills learned.
They say history repeats itself. Diego Rivera completed a mural intended for a City College building that was never built, In 1941. Eighty years later, the mural was planned to be installed into the Performance Arts and Education Center which has still not been constructed.
Displaying more than 150 of Rivera’s works, the exhibit maps the artist’s influence on creating Mexican and American identities.
Lots of unanswered questions exist around both the date of return of the mural back to City College and storage logistics while waiting for the much anticipated Diego Rivera Theater to be built.
Throughout the years, San Franciscans voted to fund a new Diego Rivera Theater through an $845 million state bond measure and the school received its complete funds in 2020. Many students, faculty, and staff have long awaited its completion.
Diego Rivera’s “Pan American Unity” mural will finally be accessible to the public due to a National Endowment for the Humanities grant. The move to SFMOMA is currently still delayed, but the plan is for the mural to stay there until Fall of 2022, then return to City College’s PAEC building.
Former City College President Dr. Carlos Brazil Ramirez, passed away earlier this month at the age of 75. This article discusses both his challenges and successes, and former friends and colleagues recall the man himself.
The “Pan American Unity” mural by Diego Rivera will be moved to SFMOMA for their new exhibition dedication to Rivera called “Diego Rivera’s America”. Rivera’s mural is remembered as a very historical piece of City College history.
By Lisa Martin lisamartin.562@gmail.com A plywood partition divides the lobby of the Diego Rivera Theatre as art experts and…