Mexico and Australia: Revolution and Land

I'm looking forward to two exhibitions at the Royal Academy in the Autumn. The first is Mexico: A Revolution in Art, 1910 – 1940, (The Sackler Wing of Galleries, 6 July – 29 September 2013) which "will examine the intense thirty year period of artistic creativity that took place in Mexico at the beginning of the twentieth century. The turmoil of the revolution between 1910 and 1920 ushered in a period of profound political change in which the arts were placed centre stage. Often referred to as a cultural renaissance, artists were employed by the Ministry of Public Education on ambitious public arts projects designed to promote the principles of the revolution.

The exhibition will explore this period both in terms of national and international artists. Work by
significant Mexican artists, such as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros,
will be placed alongside that of individuals who were affected by their experiences in Mexico. These
include Josef Albers, Edward Burra, Philip Guston, Marsden Hartley, Paul Strand, Henri Cartier-
Bresson, Henrietta Shore, Leon Underwood, Tina Modotti and Edward Weston. Mexico: A Revolution
in Art, 1910 – 1940 will reveal a dynamic and often turbulent cultural environment that included some
seminal figures of the twentieth century reflecting on their interaction with each other and their
differing responses to the same subject: Mexico."

The San Bernadino County Museum describes the Mexican Mural Movement as follows: "The Mexican Mural Movement began about 1913 when Mexican President Victoriano Huerta appointed Alfredo Martinez as director of the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plasticas. Gerardo Murillo (who called himself Dr. Alt) of Guadalajara painted the first modern mural in Mexico, and pioneered the idea that Mexican art should reflect Mexican life. After the revolution, the new government commissioned works of public art that supported and affirmed the values of the revolution and the Mexican identity: a broader knowledge of revolutionary history and the Mexican people’s pre-Columbian past.

Three muralists—“los tres grandes,” José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros—became the internationally-known leaders of the mural movement. All believed that art, the highest form of human expression, was a key force in social revolution. Together, they created the Labor Union of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors and devoted themselves to large-scale murals illustrating the history of Mexico, its people, its society, and the revolution. Their work was not always received positively. All spent some time in the United States creating works of art."

Rivera "did not represent religious images unless they were useful as social observations ... The most that he came close to portray religious messages was at the murals in Chapingo, where his images functioned as a catechism exhorting a new generation of Mexican farm workers and agricultural planners to uphold a modern nationally, constructive, self-respecting way of life, based on the credo "exploitation of the land, not of man."" Nevertheless, it has been noted that his Detroit Industry Murals "are rife with Christian themes and utopian symbolism."

Orozco "painted the theme, Cristo destruye su cruz, three times in his life, twice as murals — one of which still survives at Dartmouth College — and once on a 4’ x 3’ canvas." The image has been understood both as saying “It is finished!” to the violence that destroys and oppresses and as a denial of "the sacrificial destiny meant for him."

"Siqueiros painted some fifteen portraits of Christ ... on August 2, 1963, he inscribed the following quote from the most devout of Italian painters, Fra Angelico, in the back of his painting Cristo del Pueblo: "May only he who believes in Christ paint Christ." And in another occasion, during his imprisonment, he declared: "Was Jesus Christ not, like me, a victim of social dissolution, a persecuted man?" On August 9, 1963, from his cell at a crime prevention facility, Siqueiros inscribed the following words regarding the Via Crucis on the back of his painting, Mutilated Christ: "First, his enemies crucified him 2000 years ago. Then, they mutilated him from the Middle Ages on, and today, their new and true friends restore him under the political pressure of communism post-Ecumenical Council. This small work is dedicated to the latter."

The second exhibition is Australia (Main Galleries, 21 September – 8 December 2013), "the first survey of Australian art in the UK in over 50 years. The exhibition will reveal the development of Australian art through over 180 paintings, prints and drawings, watercolours, photographs and multimedia works, incorporating
settlers’ images of the land from the beginning of the nineteenth century to today, together with art by
Aboriginal Australians. The exhibition will consider the tensions both real and imagined between the
landscape as a source of production, enjoyment, relaxation and inspiration, and conversely as a
place loaded with mystery and danger.

The exhibition will include works by Aboriginal artists such as Albert Namatjira, Rover Thomas, Emily
Kame Kngwarreye and Fiona Foley. Nineteenth century European immigrants such as John Glover
and Eugene von Guerard will also feature, as well as the Australian Impressionists whose paintings
relied heavily on the mythology of the Australian bush: Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts (a student of
the Royal Academy Schools), Charles Conder and Frederick McCubbin. Early Modernists such as
Margaret Preston, Grace Cossington Smith and Roy de Maistre will hang alongside the leading
twentieth century painters: Arthur Boyd, Rosalie Gascoigne, Fred Williams, Brett Whiteley and
Sidney Nolan RA, with the exhibition ending in the twenty-first century with internationally recognised
artists such as Shaun Gladwell, Bill Henson and Tracey Moffatt."

Margaret M. Manion has written that "for a surprisingly large number of gifted Australian artists, the relationship between art and religion has continued to provide a creative challenge." Robert Hughes suggested in The Art of Australia that Justin O'Brien "was the first Australian painter to concentrate on religious imagery" but that religious painting in Australia was "quickened" by Eric Smith and Leonard French. Rosemary Crumlin writes in Images of Religion in Australian Art that with "the founding of the Blake Prize for Religious Art in 1950, many artists turned to the Scriptures for subject matter in their paintings, some of them for the first time":

"Roy de Maistre, reconverted to Catholicism in London, worked often from the Bible and became associated with the Sacred Art Renewal Movement in England. In Melbourne, Russian immigrant Danila Vassilieff used religious subjects, often ironically, sometimes humourously and with zest. In Melbourne also, the Boyd family, always deeply religious, provided its younger generation, including Arthur Boyd and his brother-in-law John Perceval, with an easy familiarity with the Scriptures as texts of faith and guidance for living."

In The Blake Book: Art, religion and spirituality in Australia, Crumlin continues the story providing "a fascinating visual social history of Australia and an astute, well-documented history of The Blake Prize from 1951 - 2011. The book traces many significant changes in art and art movements, both within and beyond Australia. Through their work and words, the artists have room to speak of what has influenced them and found expression in their Blake entries. The influences they name range widely. Choices often surprise.
Among the winning artists presented in the book are Donald Friend, John Coburn, Stanislaus Rapotec, Roger Kemp, Ken Whisson, Maryanne Coutts, George Gittoes and Euan Macleod. Space is given to indigenous art and the many exhibited artists other than the winners."

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Midnight Oil - My Country.