Tuesday, July 24, 2018


California State University, Los Angeles
Music Hall
April 12-13, 2019



Sponsored by Cal State LA’s Office of the President, Office of the Provost, the Gigi Gaucher-Morales Memorial Conferences, the College of Arts and Letters, the College of Natural and Social Sciences, the Department of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies, and the Emeriti Association.









April 13, 2019




This Conference is Free and Open to the Public


Cal State L.A. Map Website:

José Clemente Orozco, “Hidalgo” (Guadalajara, Palacio de Gobierno, 1937)


Remembered as the iconic los tres grandes in Mexico’s pictorial movement that surged after the 1910 Revolution, José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949), Diego Rivera (1886-1957), and David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974) were in fact artists with an international vision who periodically visited, or lived for long periods of time, in France, Italy, Spain, the former U.S.S.R, and the United States. It was in major U.S. cities--Detroit, Los Angeles, New York and, among others, San Francisco--where all three undertook mural projects whose artistic importance continues to receive scholarly attention to this day, with recent comprehensive studies superbly illustrated in Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950, ed. Renato González Mello, et al. (2016). The “three great ones” are conventionally remembered, however, as the expression of Mexico’s post-revolutionary nationalism, and as artists whose murals achieved their own moments of public acclaim, monumental scale, and--after 1940--an alleged artistic and ideological obsolescence in Mexico as well as abroad due to the association of muralist art with socialist realism. The historical necessity of such views can be explained in light of the Cold War, the growing fears of communist “meddling” in the internal politics of Mexico and the United States, and the ensuing politicization of the arts (“socialist realism” versus modernism). It was in this belligerent historical context that Mexican muralists lived, dreamed, and painted the western democratic and socialist utopias according to very personal and contrasting views, flawed at times by the selfsame contradictions that defined the tensions and political aspirations of the twentieth century. The murals of Orozco, Rivera and Siqueiros acquire a different and more compelling significance when viewed and analyzed in relation to their distinct individual aesthetics, their lives, and their times, thus erasing from our critical discourse an alleged “outmoded” or “socialist” realism that was prone to propaganda and to a Party-line representation of reality in the work of these Mexican masters. A lesson for our era: the political and pictorial choices of los tres grandes were an integral part of the twentieth century and, in terms of the irony, satire, and dissent in their murals—above all in Orozco and Rivera—a lasting inspiration for our own unsettling times.

The 2019 Conference on Mexican muralists includes six keynote and featured speakers, one Frida Kahlo performance by actress Alejandra Flores, two sessions on conference related topics, and one new book presentation. To view the speakers' biographies and lecture abstracts, or to go over the session abstracts, scroll down the online conference program. For questions on the conference, contact Dr. Roberto Cantú at rcantu@calstatela.edu 



CONFERENCE PROGRAM

José Clemente Orozco, “Dive Bomber and Tank” (New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1940)


Friday, April 12
Registration (free admission)
8:30-9:00 A.M.
Music Hall
California State University, Los Angeles

INTRODUCTION AND WELCOME
9:00-9:30 A.M.
Music Hall




The Conference Organizing Team





Left to Right: Martina ("Marty") Aleman, Richard Perez, Sara Gonzalez


Richard Perez (CLS Alumnus)

Marty aleman (CLS Alumna) and Sara Gonzalez (MLL Alumna)


Sara Gonzalez and Steven Trujillo (LAS Alumnus)


(With Marty)

(With Dr. Valerie Talavera-Bustillos, my office mate)




With CLS colleagues and students, L to R: Dr. Valerie Talavera-Bustillos, Dr. Michael Soldatenko, Marty Aleman, Velia Murillo (CLS Administrative Support Coordinator), Dr. Dolores Delgado Bernal (Chair), Dr. Alejandro Covarrubias (CLS), Linda Rodriguez (CLS Alumna), and Richard Perez (CLS Alumnus). 



THE CONFERENCE BEGINS

Friday, April 12
9:30-10:45 A.M.
Music Hall

Keynote Speaker


Dr. Renato González-Mello
Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Title of Lecture:

Mural Painting:
Art and Propaganda


Moderator:

Roberto Cantú
California State University, Los Angeles














 
Friday, April 12 
11:00 A.M.-12:30 P.M.
Music Hall

Featured Speaker


Dr. Mary K. Coffey
Department of Art History
Dartmouth College


Title of Lecture:

José Clemente Orozco
And the Epic of “Greater America”


Moderator:

Steven Trujillo
California State University, Los Angeles


















  


Luncheon Break: 12:30-2:00 P.M.



Friday, April 12
2:00-3:15 P.M.
Music Hall

Featured Speaker


Dr. Héctor Jaimes
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
North Carolina State University

Title of Lecture:

Mexican Muralism:
Art and Philosophy


Moderator:



Juan Carlos Parrilla
California State University, Los Angeles












 



Plenary Session #1
Friday, April 12 
3:30-5:00 P.M.
Music Hall



Cristobal Palma
 Moderator: Cristóbal Palma, California State University, Los Angeles

Panelists: 


Dr Dafne Cruz Porchini


1. “Diego Rivera y las fuentes visuales del segundo ciclo mural de la Secretaría de Educación Pública (1926-1928)”
Dr. Dafne Cruz Porchini, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 



 
Dr. Georgina Garcia Gutierrez




2. “Carlos Fuentes, la novela y el muralismo: puntualización.”
Dr. Georgina García Gutiérrez Vélez, Centro de Estudios Literarios del Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México


Dr. Fernando Curiel Defosse'



3. “El Ateneo muralista
Dr. Fernando Curiel Defossé, Departamento de Humanidades (Chair), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 












  


Friday, April 12 
5:10-6:00 P.M.
Music Hall

New Book Presentation

A Scholiast’s Quill:
New Critical Essays on Alfonso Reyes (2019)



Moderator: Dr. Georgina García Gutiérrez Vélez
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Editor and Contributors:



1. A Friend in Foreign Lands’: The Friendship of Alfonso Reyes and Werner Jaeger”
Dr. Stanley Burstein, California State University, Los Angeles

2DrRoberto Cantú (editor), California State University, Los Angeles






3. Junta de sombras”
Dr. Fernando Curiel Defossé, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México   




4. “Ultima Tule: Cosmopolitan Networks and the Idea of America in Alfonso Reyes 
Dr. Gorica Majstorovic, Stockton University, New Jersey





SATURDAY, APRIL 13




Saturday, April 13 
9:30-10:45 A.M.
Music Hall

Keynote Speaker



Dr. Alicia Azuela de la Cueva
Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México


Title of Lecture:

El Muralismo y el Estado:
Acciones e interacciones,
México 1921-1956



Moderator:


Roberto Cantú
California State University, Los Angeles















 

Saturday, April 13
11:00 A.M.-12:30 P.M.
Music Hall

Featured Speaker



Dr. Jennifer Jolly
Department of Art History
Ithaca College


Title of Lecture:


David Alfaro Siqueiros
And the Aesthetics of Conflict in the 1930s


Moderator:



Steven Trujillo
California State University, Los Angeles





















Luncheon Break: 12:30-1:30 P.M.
  




Saturday, April 13 
1:45-3:00 P.M.
Music Hall

Featured Speaker


Dr. Leonard Folgarait
Distinguished Professor of History of Art
Vanderbilt University

Title of Lecture:

Tina Modotti
And Manuel Álvarez Bravo:
Defining Mexico Through Photography



Moderator:


Cristóbal Palma
California State University, Los Angeles

































Plenary Session #2
Saturday, April 13 
3:15-4:45 P.M.
Music Hall






Moderator:  Dr. Deborah Conway de Prieto, California State University, Los Angeles


Panelists:




1.  “Las que no pintan murales: El otro movimiento artístico o el otro modo de ver”
Dr. Iliana AlcántarReed College







2. Orozco’s Apocalypse: The Christ of Dartmouth and the Man of Fire
Dr. Manuel Aguilar-Moreno, California State University, Los Angeles











3. “Avant-garde Cuts: New Interpretations of Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry Murals
Dr. Goriça MajstorovicStockton University, New Jersey









4. “A Re-Vision of Diego Rivera's Final Mural in Mexico City, titled The History of Medicine in Mexico: The People's Demand for Better Health” (1953). 
Gabriela Rodríguez-Gómez, Graduate Student/Chicano Studies, University of California, Los Angeles











Saturday, April 13 
5:00-6:00 P.M.
Music Hall





Alejandra Flores
Founder and Artistic Director
Of The Los Angeles Theatre Academy


Title of Performance:


I am Frida Kahlo

Seven monologues, dramatized by renowned Mexican actress 
Alejandra Flores, in which Frida narrates
her "true story" based on five of her
self-portraits and photographs. 





Alejandra Flores and Beatriz Eugenia Vasquez














Beatriz Eugenia Vasquez and Reynaldo Santiago









ALL CONFERENCE PHOTOS BY
MICHAEL CERVANTES (CAL STATE LA ALUMNUS)






A "Selfie" with my colleague Dr. Deborah Conway de Prieto,
saying farewell to all conference participants.

--END OF CONFERENCE--
  







Keynote and Featured Speakers
(In Alphabetical Order)


Keynote Speakers



 
Dra. Alicia Azuela de la Cueva
Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
  
Title of Lecture:

El Muralismo y el Estado:
Acciones e interacciones,
México 1921-1956


Muralism, as an essential component of the “Mexican Renaissance,” has been explained since its initial manifestation in relation to the 1910 armed conflict. The concept itself of a cultural and social rebirth after the Mexican Revolution originated within the founding process and consolidation of the new political order. During the Mexican Revolution and even in the midst of the armed insurgence—from 1910 to approximately 1921—artists, university faculty, and intellectuals established alliances with rising government groups that in the post-revolutionary phase opened productive spaces for them to participate institutionally, from within their own fields of specialization, in the reconstruction of the nation. Such alliances created, on the one hand, the legal mechanisms that would insure the inclusion not only of art but also of culture in government programs; on the other hand, such coalitions also affirmed the conception of a visual arts discourse that would explain the importance and main aspects of the role played by a generation of artists in the preservation and the teaching of cultural and artistic creation.  In my lecture I shall make reference to the most representative moments that marked the interaction between groups of  political power and those with artistic renown, and the manner in which art murals themselves represented the dynamics of such interactions in which more often than not it was possible to retain the power hold of one group in their artistic production, as well as in the interaction of artists with the State. My lecture will cover from 1921, the date of the first mural, to 1956, a year that marks the natíon’s economic blossoming under the model of the Benefactor State, and its initiatives in a series of public works that posed new directions for Mexican muralism. This lecture will be delivered in Spanish.

Dra. Alicia Azuela de la Cueva is a tenured researcher in the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, and is affiliated with the graduate program in History of Art at UNAM. She holds a doctorate in Social Sciences from the Colegio de Michoacán. Her main research interest is on the  performance of symbolic power by means of the image and imaginaries meant for the creation, the practice, and the conservation of the spaces of dominion by the nation’s governing centers. Other research interests include the role played by the coresponding plastic arts, including the visual and lexical discourses that construct the imaginary that contributes to the creation of a political order in the Nation State. Dr. Azuela has published on  Mexican public art, on Mural painting; on aesthetic education; plastic and spatial arts in civic commemorations; and on the transcultural and diplomatic relations between Mexico and the United States in the post-Revolutionary phase.  She is an active member in the Red Columnaria, and directs projects relative to exiles, Hispanophilia, history, and memory. Among her most recent publications: Dos miradas un objeto: ensayos sobre trasculturalidad en la etapa posrevolucionaria, México 1920-1930; Arte y poder, renacimiento artístico y revolución social, México 1910-1945; and has edited (with Carmen González Martínez) México y España: Huellas Contemporáneas. Resimbolización, Imaginarios, Iconoclasia; México: 200 años de imágenes e imaginarios cívicos; and La mirada, transculturalidad e imaginarios del México revolucionario 1910-1945,” with Guillermo Palacios as co-editor. Dr. Azuela is a member of the Academia Mexicana de Ciencias; of the Asociación de Historiadores Latinoamericanistas Europeos (AHILA); and of the Editorial Committee in the Universidad de Murcia (Spain).



Dr. Renato González Mello
Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)

Title of Lecture:


Mural Painting:
Art and Propaganda

It is often assumed that political propaganda reproduces the contents of a political discourse. This does not always happen in mural paintings. My lecture will analyze four cases involving different murals that implemented dissimilar functions among themselves. I will examine the notion of “propaganda” generally associated with Mexican mural painting. This point of view, oftentimes brandished as a criticism, presumes the existence of a discursive field that is continuous or free of contradictions. My lecture will attempt to clarify differences and nuances, and will include the examination of different cycles of mural painting, their inner contradictions, and the contradictions of the ideology with which mural artists engaged dialogically. I will focus my lecture on Diego Rivera’s murals in the Palacio Nacional de México; the murals in Mexico City’s schools done by a younger generation; those created by David Alfaro Siqueiros in different buildings; by Rufino Tamayo in the Museo de las Culturas; and, to clarify through contrast, the art decorations by Manuel Felguérez in the Museo Nacional de Antropología. My intent is to demonstrate that the relation between murals and the State’s ideology was as problematic as the selfsame official rhetoric.  Mexico’s post-revolutionary State aimed to organize the dissimilar ideological tendencies, and not necessarily to only monopolize the political field. Understood as such, mural art turned into a system of negotiations. This does not mean that painting did not have an aesthetic dimension.  On the contrary: the effectiveness of mural art went hand in hand with the construction of an aesthetic scheme that responded to the fissures and unfilled spaces of the political discourse. I will propose a notion of “propaganda” that emerges from the empty spaces in a political discourse, and not only from its contents.  This lecture will be in English.

Dr. Renato González Mello. Mexican Citizen. BA in History and Ph.D. with honors in Art History at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (UNAM, Mexico's National University). Full-time definitive Researcher at the  Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas (UNAM) since 1992. Level II in the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores. Areas of interest: Modern Mexican painting, focusing on mural painting and the works of José Clemente Orozco. Has published works on the Mexican political iconography during the twentieth century, on the relation between Mexican Architecture, Education and Arts, and on the material analysis of artwork. Currently interested in images of violence as well as on the criteria to catalog the cultural patrimony. Has published La máquina de pintar: Rivera, Orozco y la invención de un lenguaje emblemas, trofeos y cadáveres. México, IIE-UNAM (2008); Orozco, ¿pintor revolucionario?. México: IIE-UNAM (1995); la coordinación de los libros y catálogos José Clemento Orozco in the United States. New York: Hood Museum of Art (2002); Encauzar la mirada: arquitectura, pedagogía e imágenes en México, 1920-1950. México: UNAM-IIE, (2010); together with Anthony Michael Stanton, Vanguardia en México 1915-1940, México, MUNAL (2013); and Paint the Revolution! (2016), with Matthew Affron, Mark Castro and Dafne Cruz, for the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Has published 12 articles, 34 book chapters, 29 reviews and 21 papers in specialized colloquiums. Teaches at UNAM since 1991, both graduate and undergraduate courses in History and Art History. Has been advisor to 22 undergraduate dissertations, 13 Master’s dissertations and four Ph.D. thesis. Has been visiting professor at various Mexican universities and higher education institutions, El Colegio de México among them. Visiting professor at Columbia University, with an Edward Laroque Tinker fellowship in 2007. Chair of the Graduate Program in Art History, UNAM, 2008-2010; appointed Director of the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas by UNAM’s Junta de Gobierno, 2010-2014; confirmed 2014-2018. Member of Mexico’s Academia de Artes since 2014.



Featured Speakers
(in alphabetical order)

Dr. Mary K. Coffey
Department of Art History
Dartmouth College

Title of Lecture:

José Clemente Orozco 
and the Epic of “Greater America"

In this talk Professor Coffey will situate José Clemente Orozco’s The Epic of American Civilization (1932-34) within debates over the American epic in the 1930s. In particular, she will demonstrate how Orozco deliberately counters the popularization of Manifest Destiny ideology through the structure and subject matter of his mural. By reading Orozco’s continental vision of the Americas as complementary to period attempts to reorient the frontier thesis of American history toward the Spanish borderlands, she argues that Orozco’s mural should be understood as a transnational artifact that exploits a Mexican standpoint to reflect critically upon the US American “anti-empire.” By attending closely to Orozco’s rendering of the so-called “two Americas," she explores the way that Orozco troubles the immunitary discourse of “Anglo-American" community and its role in the violent bordering that has constituted “Hispano-America” as both foreign and dangerous. Her talk will not only resituate Mexican muralism within U.S. American debates over history and identity, but also suggest the many ways Orozco’s Epic speaks to our contemporary political moment and the radical politics of Latinidad.

Dr. Mary K. Coffey is Associate Professor of Art History at Dartmouth College where she is also affiliated faculty with the Programs in Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She has published widely on Mexican muralism and the transnational politics of exhibitions of Mexican artes populares. Her first book, How a Revolutionary Art Became Official Culture: Murals, Museums, and the Mexican State (Duke 2012) explored the reciprocal relationship between mural art and post-revolutionary museology in Mexico. It won the College Art Association’s Charles Rufus Morey Prize for a Distinguished Book in Art History in 2012. Her forthcoming book, Orozco’s American Epic: Myth, History, and the Melancholy of Race (Duke, 2019/20) is the first monographic study of José Clemente Orozco’s mural cycle, The Epic of American Civilization, at Dartmouth College. In addition to these two monographs, Professor Coffey has also co-edited an anthology on global modernism and contributed to numerous exhibitions on Mexican art, including the recent Paint the Revolution (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2016), and Prometheus 2017 (Pomona College, 2017, part of the Getty Research Center’s LA/LA initiative). She will also be a contributor to the forthcoming exhibition on Diego Rivera at the SFMOMA.


Dr. Leonard Folgarait
Distinguished Professor of History of Art
Vanderbilt University

Title of Lecture:

Tina Modotti 
and Manuel Álvarez Bravo:
Defining Mexico Through Photography


In the 1920s and 1930s, Mexico was deeply involved in asking questions of its Nationhood after the violent ten-year civil war following the Revolution of 1910.  During this critical period of national self-analysis, two important artists, Tina Modotti and Manuel Álvarez Bravo, were also conducting a serious study of Mexican character, personal and political, through the unique properties of their medium: photography.  It is important to study Mexico at this time through the eyes of photographers, as the dominant art medium of the time was, of course, the mural paintings that were covering vast surfaces of public buildings with super-charged imagery that reacted to these convulsive times.  Photography, by contrast, much smaller, portable, black and white, was distributed in much different ways, sometimes by the mass media.  Photography, different than painting, also allows for a balance between its mechanical objectivity, its documentary “truth,” against its abilities to manipulate the imagery as much as any other medium for poetic expression. How Modotti and Álvarez Bravo navigate these properties and turn them into tools for a deep visual study of Mexico at this time will make for interesting comparisons to how the muralists achieve their images.

Dr. Leonard Folgarait is Distinguished Professor of History of Art at Vanderbilt University, where he has served as Chair of the Department of History of Art. His areas of teaching and research are the modern art of Latin America, with a specialization in the twentieth-century art of Mexico, and modern European and American art and architecture. Special interests are: the relationship of art to politics, early cubism, surrealism, performance art, film, photography, and historiography. He has published three books on modern Mexican art:  So Far From Heaven: David Alfaro Siqueiros' "The March of Humanity" and Mexican Revolutionary Politics (Cambridge University Press, 1987); Mural Painting and Social Revolution in Mexico, 1920-1940, Art of the New Order (Cambridge University Press, 1998); and Seeing Mexico Photographed: the Work of Horne, Casasola, Modotti and Álvarez Bravo, 2008 (Yale University Press); and one on Pablo Picasso, plus edited or co-edited three anthologies.  His articles have appeared in journals such as Oxford Art Journal, Arts Magazine, Art History, Works and Days, and Quintana.




Dr. Héctor Jaimes
North Carolina State University

Title of Lecture:

Mexican Muralism: 
Art and Philosophy 


Mexican muralism is one of the most transcendental art movements in Latin America. Its transcendence lies not only in the great legacy of works, but also in the creation of a public, monumental and political art of unprecedented proportions in the history of art. At the same time, the Mexican muralist movement addressed important cultural issues of Mexican society. It is not surprising then that the legacy would spark the interest of a broad audience, and remains to date a subject of intense study and debate. However, studies on Mexican muralism have typically approached the topic from the angle of the art critic or art historian, seldom from a pure theoretical and philosophical perspective. My lecture will address the philosophical tenets of Mexican muralism and how it impacted this movement as a whole. The lecture will be further enriched by comments and analyses of murals by Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros.

Dr. Héctor Jaimes is Professor of Latin American literature and culture at North Carolina State University. He specializes in Mexican Studies and the Latin American essay. He is the author of La filosofía del muralismo mexicano (2012), and La reescritura de la historia en el ensayo hispanoamericano (2001). He has also edited several books: You Are Always with Me: Letters to Mama by Frida Kahlo (2018); The Mexican Crack Writers: History and Criticism (2017); Fundación del muralismo mexicano by David A. Siqueiros (2012); and Octavio Paz: La dimensión esttica del ensayo (2004).



Dr. Jennifer Jolly
Department of Art History
Ithaca College

Title of Lecture:

David Alfaro Siqueiros
and the Aesthetics of Conflict in the 1930s

In the 1930s Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros sought to explore new forms that could represent the political conflicts that dominated the period internationally. This talk will explore the ways in which Siqueiros’ mural for the Mexican Electricians’ Syndicate gave form to the decade of the 1930s, from its use of montage and perspective as a symbolic form, to its engagement with the international leftist artistic culture of the period.

Dr. Jennifer Jolly is Professor of Art History at Ithaca College, where she teaches courses on Latin American Art, ancient through contemporary. She researches the art and politics of 1930s Mexico, and has published on David Alfaro Siqueiros and Josep Renau in the Oxford Art Journal and various edited volumes. In 2015, she curated an exhibit on collecting and exhibiting Pre-Columbian Art in the mid-20th century, "As They Saw It: The Easby Collection of Pre-Columbian Art."  The recipient of multiple Fulbright-García Robles Fellowships, she completed her book, Creating Pátzcuaro, Creating Mexico: Art, Tourism, and Nation Building under Lázaro Cárdenas (Texas, 2018), with the support of a National Endowment for the Humanities research grant. Her current research is on race and representation in Mexico, with particular attention to representations of Afro-Mexicans.





Featured Actor and Theater Director


Alejandra Flores
Founder and Artistic Director
Of The Los Angeles Theatre Academy


Title of Performance:

I Am Frida Kahlo


Written by Froylán Cabuto
Original music written by Otto Cifuentes

Performers:
Frida Kahlo by Alejandra Flores
Death Frida (alter ego) by dancer Beatriz Eugenia Vásquez
Diego Rivera by Reynaldo Santiago 



Synopsis of Performance

The art performing piece is based on seven original monologues on Frida Kahlo titled, “I am Frida Kahlo.” These monologues bring Frida to life, where she narrates her “true story,” and describes five of her most well-known self-portraits including two photographs charged with social and political commentaries. The manuscript is originally written in Spanish.

The monologues are written in poetic prose style. The main objective is to recreate Frida’s life in a nonlinear structure. Therefore, readers can read the manuscript in any order, and each story would stand by itself.

“I am Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo and Calderón and this is the true story of my life. This is my journal, the one you are reading and the one nobody knows. The one that I wrote in my deathbed and that I have etched in my mind. The one I remember word by word even after death, although I was really dead since I was six years old.”

The monologues are charged with social and political subtexts. The following extract is from the monologue “A Few Snips.” Frida Kahlo painted this canvas when she was dealing with Diego Rivera’s infidelity with her sister Cristina. The motive that inspired Frida Kahlo to do this painting was the murder of a woman that she read about in the newspaper, in which a man killed her wife because the wife was supposedly unfaithful.

“Most of you know the story of why I painted this picture. You know that a motherfucker stabbed his helpless wife because he simply had the brutal strength to do it. A brute force was all he had because he was brainless like many bastards that still populate the planet. All of them are animals with misogynistic ideas. They exist everywhere, and many are in political offices and even in presidencies. How awful!”

The monologues also explore Frida’s inability to have children in the monologue “Henry Ford Hospital.” Frida describes in detail her frustration, and also the desire of the possibility that one day she would be able to conceive. Frida Kahlo painted “Henry Ford Hospital” in 1932 to capture the pain that she suffered when she had her first documented miscarriage.

“I was able to survive the accident in which my body collided with its destiny, and I was willing to go through it again if it would have allowed me to have a child; it would have been the price to pay. It feels that life is leaving like a breath of air when your legs cannot hold the stream of blood that slides like silk. I wanted to grasp my son with my hands and it felt as if a thousand knives were tearing my heart and my son was escaping between my fingers. The silence of the night becomes deaf and the darkness suddenly is blind. You are stunned staring into the void like a soulless puppet. You feel the cold of the summer heat that dries every drop of sweat that appears on your cheeks until you stay suspended in time caressing the possibility of someday being a mother.”

Similarly, Frida talks about her bisexuality in a very subtle way in one of the monologues, “The Broken Column.”

“I cry. I cry with joy because I know that I will soon be in your arms. Savoring your clitoris and your erect penis satisfying my desire. I cry of pain for my wounds, of impotence for not winning my wars, of bitterness for not penetrating your heart and I cry more because I know that your kisses will not know me, nor your saliva will calm this fire that consumes me and puts me on the edge of the abyss.”

In addition, Frida indirectly criticizes art critics that write unconstructive theories of her art and life, which sometimes lack fundamentals. At times critics extract passages from Frida’s diary and make conjectures out of context. One clear example is about her death. Frida Kahlo’s last diary entry reads as follow: "I hope the exit is joyful and I hope never to return." Frida Kahlo wrote this entry when she left the hospital the last time she was hospitalized. The translation in English seems to indicate that Frida committed suicide. However, the Spanish version is ambiguous, or it is not that clear in that regard.

“I did not not kill myself, idiot!" I was not that stupid to have killed myself. It was death that wanted it. I know that some of the sons of bitches have said, as they suspect, that I had guzzled from the bottle of tequila, or overdose on drugs, or pills or some other stupid conjectures. The thing is that they don’t know what bullshit to make up about me to make themselves famous, because they can’t do it for themselves, they lack imagination, imbeciles! They want to be celebrated through my pain, of my most intimate moment of my life and I did not want to share with anyone, not even with my Diego. So, I went alone without the help of anyone so that later they would not be giving details of my agony. But at the end, it was of no use at all.”

And so on, in every monologue, Frida becomes her own an art critic of her paintings. She also explores her personal life she experienced at the time she painted her work of art. The writer totally recreates a fictional story taking Frida’s place at the moment she executed the painting.


Biographies

Alejandra Flores has appeared in more than 40 theatrical productions. She received a Drama –Logue Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theater. Her most important film credits include: Friends with Money (2006) & A Walk in the Clouds (1995). Television credits include Switched at Birth, Sons of Anarchy, ER and Nip/Tuck. Has directed major theatrical productions like Too Many Tamales, Blood Wedding for Cal State LA and Aguila Real at Occidental College. Hosted and produced the Community Affairs show Foro 22 on KWHY-TV. Has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the Conservatory of Theatre (CUT) at UNAM. She was the Artist-in-Residence (AIR) and the prestigious individual COLA award from the DCA 2008-09. She is the Founder /Artistic Director of The Los Angeles Theatre Academy.

Froylán Cabuto is the winner of Premio Gabriela Mistral, Premio Ignacio R. M. Galbis, John & Suanne Roueche Excellence Award, among others. He is an intuitive writer, director, song writer, and actor originally from Nayarit, Mexico. I Am Frida Kahlo marks Froylán's second art performance. In addition, Froylán is a published poet committed to social and political issues that affect today’s society. Froylán’s credits as a screenplay writer include: 116 SecondsHe in Her Skin, Ruby (a film for Current TV, 2008), Soy Soldado (Iraq), and Muted Voices. Froylán has garnered the following awards as a filmmaker: Swiss Cultural Programme’s Best Film Award at the Cannes Film Festival (2008); Special Selection for Un Choix en Moins de 6 Minutes at the Cannes Film Festival (2008); Cinema of Conscience Award, Sonoma Film Festival 2008; Silver Palm Award, Mexico International Film Festival 2009. Froylán earned a Bachelor's, and a Master’s Degree at California State University, Los Angeles in Spanish Literature & Linguistics. He currently heads the Modern Language Department at Cerritos College in Norwalk, California.

Beaatriz Eugenia Vásquez is a multifaceted dancer, choreographer, coach, and dance instructor, born in Bogotá, Colombia. She studied at The Joffrey Ballet School in New York, and with world-known teachers and coaches. Subsequently, Beatriz was the recipient of The International GVII Award as well as of The Excellence Award by Festival De La Calle 8 in Los Angeles. She is an Alumna of the prestigious Director’s Lab West 2016. In addition, Beatriz has danced and choreographed for Vocal Recording and Visual Artists. She has toured and performed with world-famous Tap Choreographer and Dancer Chester Whitmore at the Musical International Museum in Arizona, The Ford Theatre, and Los Angeles Metro.

Reynaldo Santiago was born in Hollywood, California. He is a versatile dancer with numerous styles that include Popping, Locking, Tap, Salsa, and Modern Dance, to name a few. Santiago started his journey in movement through martial arts training in Northern Shaolin Kung Fu for more than ten years. In addition, he has danced in numerous music videos for artists such as It's Hot As Sun, Capital Cities, and Pharrell Williams. Reynaldo has performed at the Ford Theatre, LA LIVE Dark Nights, The Musical Instrument Museum in Arizona, The Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Festival De La Calle 8, The Pico Rivera Sports Arena, Cabaret Tango, Highways Performance Art Space, Los Angeles Theatre Center, LA Times Festival of Books, Lotus Festival, and many more. Reynaldo Santiago currently dances with 3-19 Dance Art company.







Names of Panelists, Titles of Presentations,
and Abstracts


1. “Orozco’s Apocalypse: The Christ of Dartmouth and the Man of Fire
Manuel Aguilar-Moreno, California State University, Los Angeles

In 1934, Orozco painted a mural cycle about the evolution of the American Civilization in which it is dominated by the power of a new technological order. This new political establishment causes the destruction of the world and the human beings kill each other. At the end, the resurrected Christ appears in anger because there are no humans to save; so his whole mission becomes meaningless and he destroys his own cross. Thus, the divine plan is doomed and God’s creation of humanity was a failure. In Orozco’s pessimistic vision of History, humanity commits suicide and there is no redemption for the human beings.

However, in 1939, he painted another great cycle called “The Spanish Conquest of Mexico” in the Hospicio Cabañas in Guadalajara. There he depicted an amplified view of the actions of the Conquest that he already had presented briefly in the Dartmouth murals. The destruction and oppression of the imperialistic and technological world, represented in the image of Hernán Cortés, have converted the world in a concentration camp of slavery.

When we think that there is no solution for the human degradation and misery, surprisingly emerges the Man of Fire as a Messiah that saves humanity. That figure that symbolizes the ideal of the human spirit, shows in the view of Orozco, that if man was capable to create such a horrendous history of self–destruction, only he has the responsibility to redeem it. There is no Christ or God that comes to save the human beings; they need to be redeemed by an enlightened man.

My presentation centers on these two cycles of murals, and in the manner in which the prophetic vision of Orozco portrays his era, and our world today, still fighting for its very survival.

2. “Las que no pintan murales: El otro movimiento artístico o el otro modo de ver”
Iliana Alcántar, Reed College

Aunque el movimiento muralista representa un campo prolífico para la creación de obras fundacionales y fundamentales no solamente en el arte mexicano sino también para el proyecto de nación durante el siglo veinte, no podemos pasar por alto el hecho que dicho movimiento equivale también a la consagración de un espacio público y por ende masculino que deja por fuera a las mujeres artistas y creadoras de su época. Sin embargo, esta exclusión representa para ellas, la oportunidad de forjarse una identidad artística propia. Nombres reconocidos en el presente como Frida Kahlo, Tina Modotti, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, María Izquierdo (incluso la misma Lupe Marín—aunque en su calidad de novelista), son testamento al talento femenino que forja su propio nicho estético aún a pesar que varias de ellas actúan asimismo como musas de sus contrapartes y/o parejas masculinas.

Basándonos en el contenido de sus obras, se puede concluir que estas mujeres no siguen los estatutos que señalan y estipulan en qué consiste el arte revolucionario, ni mucho menos atienden a dichas ordenanzas. Sostengo que su actitud radica en un interés por el arte de vanguardias, que, si bien de origen burgués e individualista, éste plantea y facilita la liberación de las ataduras de una sociedad que les dicta cómo comportarse, aún dentro del espacio personal y doméstico. A ellas, ese espacio privado les brinda la oportunidad de explorar artísticamente pero también de ahondar en sus propios mundos interiores, los cuales hasta entonces han sido representados por hombres. Y estos mundos/universos resultan fecundas vetas que, si bien son carentes de una ideología aparente, les brindan la materia prima que les permite expresar un contenido original y de verdades personales también, aunque no de grandes momentos históricos.

Además de acudir a las obras de las artistas en cuestión, así como de algunas biografías noveladas de Elena Poniatowska sobre éstas, amén de analizar varios escritos como declaraciones y manifiestos de los muralistas, y por supuesto, utilizando el lente crítico de los estudios de género, me propongo demostrar lo arriba expuesto.

3. “Diego Rivera y las fuentes visuales del segundo ciclo mural de la Secretaría de Educación Pública (1926-1928)”
Dafne Cruz Porchini, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas (UNAM)

Esta propuesta busca hacer un cruce de las fuentes visuales, escritas e iconográficas utilizadas por Diego Rivera en los murales correspondientes al Corrido de la Revolución Proletaria y Agraria, ubicados en el segundo piso del Patio de las Fiestas de la Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP) y realizados entre 1926 y 1928. En este conjunto mural, el pintor condensó tanto su experiencia de su primer viaje a la Unión Soviética (1927-1928) -donde fue invitado como delegado del Partido Comunista Mexicano- como su interpretación sobre los corridos revolucionarios del estado de Morelos, mismos que utilizó para dar una coherencia narrativa a esta serie de paneles murales. Por otro lado y de forma totalmente experimental, el artista incorporó otros elementos que dieron cuenta de su interés por la cinematografía y los dibujos animados elaborados por Walt Disney, que además plasmó en algunos de sus textos escritos de finales de la década de los años treinta. Al terminar sus murales en la SEP, Rivera llevó a cabo las comisiones murales en el Palacio de Cortés (1929-1930) y el Palacio Nacional (1929-1935) y después emigró a Estados Unidos. De esta manera, la ponencia se centrará en la visión de Rivera sobre los complejos recursos formales e iconográficos empleados en estos murales, lo que también preparó el terreno para su incursión mural en el país vecino.

4. “El Ateneo muralista
Fernando Curiel Defossé, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Punto de partida: La relación del Ateneo de la Juventud, impulsor de una nueva pintura mexicana, conel Muralismo, “invento” de uno de su tropa, José Vasconcelos. No pocos planos de la cultura mexicana se propuso el Ateneo de la Juventud transformer. El de los generous literarios, a través del eclecticismo. El de la filosofía dominante, el positivism, a través de su crítica. El de las artes plásticas, a través de una nueva plastic mexicana. Expresión de esto ultimo sera, justamente, el muralismo impulsado por José Vasconcelos, tanto en la Rectoría de Educación Pública. Movimiento que tundra al ateneísta Diego Rivera como uno de sus artifices. Y no hay que olvidar que al Ateneo debemos el invento de la Extensión. 

Capitulado: “La oleada modernizadora”, “La Academia de San Carlos, patas arriba”, “El Ateneo histórico”, “Rivera, portadista”, “Una exposición seminal”, “El Muralismo, argucia vasconcélica”, “O’Gorman: CU, Taxco”, “Un epitafio: el Polyforum”.


5. “Carlos Fuentes, la novela y el muralismo: puntualización.”
Georgina García Gutiérrez Vélez,  IIFL Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

La “nueva novela” de Carlos Fuentes, propuesta renovadora del género novelístico, surge vinculada al Muralismo del que toma algunas enseñanzas. La novela mural de Fuentes que nace como foyer artístico de las artes, aprende de ellas y las alberga. Una poética  con una visión de mundo y una forma novelesca que cuestionan las de la novela burguesa. Este ensayo que continúa mi estudio sobre la novela mural, se centra en  La región más transparente que funda la poética y la estética de Fuentes.

6. A Re-Vision of Diego Rivera's Final Mural in Mexico City, titled The History of Medicine in Mexico: The People's Demand for Better Health(1953).
Gabriela Rodríguez-Gómez, University of California, Los Angeles

The political and social influences made by “Los Tres Grandes” (The Big Three) is largely based on the murals and artworks produced throughout the 1920s to the late 1930s. Imagery that displayed a Marxist or Communist approach in response to the Capitalist and Democratic perspective of the modern era included a sense of modernity that one muralist, Diego Rivera, popularized during the height of his artistic career, even until his death. That sense of modernity was influenced by an optimism for technology, industry, and the inclusion of the working class in the development of a democracy. The participative public or citizenry that attempted to modernize during the post-WWII era invested in social medicine and social security. The paper will discuss Diego Rivera’s final mural in Mexico City inside the Hospital de La Raza finished in 1953 titled, The History of Medicine in Mexico: The People’s Demand for Better Health. Alongside a Powerpoint presentation of my research observations and photographs, I examine each section which included a tree with breasts and a phallus, the depiction of child birth through cesarean section and natural birth. The mural represents the newly implemented social security institution in Mexico known as the Insituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS), and indicates Rivera’s lasting impression on the notion of social security, medicine, and welfare.

7. Avant-Garde Cuts: New Interpretations of Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry Murals.”
Gorica Majstorovic, Stockton University, New Jersey

The essay highlights the continued relevance of Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry Murals. While focusing on new interpretations of muralist art, I first analyze the boost that the Rivera and Kahlo 2015 exhibit gave to the Detroit Institute of Arts, an institution that had originally commissioned Rivera’s mural in 1932.  Second, I examine Julio Ramos’ film titled “Detroit’s Rivera” that was produced in 2017. Ramos’ film is made as an avant-garde visual essay and it received awards on the international circuit, most notably at the Festival Internacional de Documentales Santiago Álvarez in Cuba. This visual essay is based on the archival material that includes documentary footage of Diego Rivera painting in Detroit in 1932-33. Furthermore, Ramos’ visual essay uses avant-garde montage and juxtaposes the Fordist visual archive from the Detroit assembly line with the footage of the company’s involvement in the Amazon from the same period, in order to address not only the past but also our present time.








Dr. Jeanine “Gigi” Gaucher-Morales

The Gigi Gaucher-Morales Memorial Conference Series has been established by the Morales Family Lecture Series Endowment in memory of the late Dr. Jeanine (Gigi) Gaucher-Morales, who passed away on May 20, 2007. Born in Paris, France, Dr. Gaucher-Morales was a professor emerita of French and Spanish at Cal State LA. She taught from 1965 to 2005, thus devoting four decades of her academic life to Cal State LA, where her friends, students, and colleagues knew her as Gigi.
During her long and productive tenure at this campus, Gigi taught generations of students the literature and culture of France, of the Anglophone world, and of Latin America, including the Caribbean. With her husband, Dr. Alfredo O. Morales, also professor emeritus of Spanish, she co-founded, directed, and served as advisor of Teatro Universitario en Español for almost 25 years, bringing to Cal State L.A. annual theater productions based on plays stemming from different civilizations, traditions and languages, such as the Maya (“Los enemigos”), Colonial Mexico (“Aguila Real”), Spanish (“Bodas de sangre”), French (“The Little Prince”), and English (“Under the Bridge”). In addition, Gigi was the founder at Cal State L.A. of Pi Delta Phi, the national French honor society. She was recognized and honored by the French government for her contributions to the knowledge of French civilization in Latin America and the United States. Gigi was also honored by her peers at Cal State L.A. with the 1991-1992 Outstanding Professor Award.
On March 7, 1997, Gigi was recognized by the Council of the City of Los Angeles, State of California, with a resolution that in part reads as follows: “Be it resolved that by the adoption of this resolution, the Los Angeles City Council does hereby commend Dr. Jeanine ‘Gigi’ Gaucher-Morales valued Professor of Spanish and French at California State University, Los Angeles for her vision and her gift to the people of Los Angeles and for contributing to the richness of multi-cultural arts in Los Angeles.”
Every spring semester, the Gigi Gaucher-Morales Memorial Conferences will honor Gigi’s academic ideals as a teacher, colleague, and mentor. The lectures will respond to Gigi’s diverse yet interconnected interests in civilizations of the world, including Asia, Mesoamerica, Latin America, and Francophone America, from Canada to Haiti. Gigi embodied the highest academic standards in a range of academic fields that were truly global and interdisciplinary. The Memorial Conferences shall serve as a forum for distinguished guest speakers who engage vital topics of our age in a world setting, thus offering students, staff, and faculty at Cal State LA an opportunity to be introduced to different areas of study and artistic traditions that constitute the highest cultural aspirations of humanity. On April 12-13, 2019, the Gigi Gaucher-Morales Memorial Conference Series will sponsor a conference titled “Mexican Muralists: Their Art, Their Lives, and Their Times.” For more information, contact Dr. Roberto Cantú at rcantu@exchange.calstatela.edu




Film Documentaries
On Mexican Muralists


José Clemente Orozco’s 
Mural Art


Diego Rivera: Biography


Debate Polyforum Siqueiros