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Detail Detroit Industry
South Wall, 1932-33
by Diego Rivera |
 urals offer the artist an opportunity to merge public art and political commitment. They can exist within a museum and in some cases are painted directly on a museum’s walls. Diego Rivera’s murals were commissioned by the Mexican government to cover its buildings with messages for the people. But he was also invited by such museums as The Detroit Institute of the Arts to fill the museum's central courtyard with murals depicting Detroit’s automobile industry. |
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 ther museums such as New York City’s El Museo del Barrio have gone a step farther to incorporate the walls of the neighborhood into their exhibit space. In the spirit of bringing together art, education, and neighborhood, El Museo del Barrio promotes Latin American art to reflect the rich culture of the Barrio. Located at Fifth Avenue and 104th Street, it bridges New York City's Fifth Avenue Museum Mile with the world of East Harlem.
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Spirit of East Harlem
Hank Prussing & Manny Vega |
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 n response to the talents of the neighborhood’s Latin American artists,
last summer El Museo del Barrio exhibited the work of James De la Vega
and others in a show titled, "The Selected Files." In addition to works
of art displayed in the museum’s interior, a neighborhood mural map
allows the viewer to experience art while listening to the roar of traffic,
shouts and laughter, and Latin music wafting through open windows.
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Detail No Habia Cena
James De la Vega |
 he mural tour visits De la Vega’s No Habìa Cena (There Was No Supper) which exposes poverty by depicting The Last Supper as a group of skeletons. The mural was created with the help of local children whose names are printed beside it. It is weathered by the elements but its message remains powerful. Equally powerful is his rendering of Picasso’s Guernica; he considers Picasso a major inspiration. De la Vega created a wall representing the past, present, and future of his |
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neighborhood. The joyful face of his father,
who died of AIDS in 1989, is near an image of his younger brother
staring intently under a hooded sweatshirt. A few images away is the
Mexican Madonna, Our Lady of Guadalupe, symbolizing the newer
Mexican presence in the neighborhood.
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