Steward of the Diego Rivera Mural Says City College Should Be Doing More
CCSF’s prize mural won’t return to public view until at least 2028, leaving advocates worried about its care.
CCSF’s prize mural won’t return to public view until at least 2028, leaving advocates worried about its care.
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.
The college’s detractors, some of whom appear to be on its payroll, may view this enormous learning curve as a nearly insurmountable peak, that their role is merely to establish a base camp for the next attempt, seemingly oblivious to the avalanche of problems that arise when approaching an audacious task with incrementalism and self-protective caution.
Among a feeling of discontent and disappointment between artists and the arts community, SFMOMA decides to cut several programs, including film, which not only leaves local artists without support but also leaves seven members of its staff without a job.
The Diego Rivera Pan American Unity Mural is officially en route to its new home for the next few years: The SFMOMA.
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.
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…