SAN FRANCISCO -- When Mexico's master artist Diego Rivera created the mural Pan American Unity for the 1940 World's Fair, he fused images of art and technology to unite the peoples of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
World War II interrupted plans for a library to display the mural. It remained hidden until Rivera's death in 1957, when it was transported to the San Francisco City College theater, where it remains today -- widely unknown to the public.
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A new multimedia project hopes to revive Rivera's ideas in the digital and virtual realm. An interactive kiosk and Web site, launches 18 August at City College. They will attempt to restore the mural to public prominence, even as it returns to Rivera's theme of blending art and technology.
"The mural represents a powerful historical statement of what has gone on in this century," said Julia Bergman, City College archivist. The multimedia project will expose the public to one of Rivera's most significant and unrecognized masterpieces, she said, "a work of art that is so universal for so many people."
Blending images of Mexican art and North American technology and innovation, Rivera's mural examines the convergence of ancient techniques and contemporary art. Ancient Mayan figures are juxtaposed with inventors from the Industrial Revolution like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Revolutionary South American heroes join North American political leaders to fight Nazism and preserve peace by extending the arts. In the center of the mural, a Canadian sculpting with an ax symbolizes the metamorphosis between old art forms and new techniques.
"My mural ... is about the marriage of the artistic expression of the North and of the South on this continent," said Rivera in a 1940 interview. The artist envisioned "... this blending of the art of the Indian, the Mexican, the Eskimo, with the kind of urge which makes the machine."
The current project revives Rivera's ideas of combining old ways of thinking in a modern context, using new, interactive methods to present the fresco to the public.
The kiosk exhibit reflects the mural, with a wood and steel nautilus shell combining modern and ancient materials. Using a touch-screen, users can view the imagery of the 22-by-70 foot mural, its fresco technique, and its checkered history. Users can virtually enter the Aztec god figure of Quetzalcoatl and end up in a control room, where they can navigate within the mural.
Viewers can zoom in on images to examine intricate brushstrokes and words hidden within the upper panels of the fresco. Sketches and drawings of Aztec figures morph from stone statues to polished images. The kiosk will feature film clips, which Rivera believed represented the perfect blending of art and technology. Viewers can tour the mural, listening to Rivera's voice while watching clips of some of the people who shaped the artist's life.
"The motion picture is the ultimate development of mural painting," said Rivera in a 1940 interview, "and is the most original contribution to art made by North American culture."
The portable kiosk will travel to schools and museums in the United States and Mexico as an experiment in distance-learning.
With universal themes of diversity and multiculturalism that still resonate today, the mural offers an educational tool for teachers wanting to expose students to the art of mural-making and the history surrounding the mural.
The exhibit may offer up to 40 courses, with CDs for teachers to distribute in computer labs. Educators may use Rivera's ideas to teach courses promoting cultural identity.
Creative director Richard Rodrigues wants to create a distance-learning project in which a student in Mexico can interact with a student in California, or view restoration of the mural in real time through an onsite view cam. He hopes that learning about the mural's history will make kids think twice about defacing public buildings with graffiti.
The mural kiosk is unique, because similar projects tend to cover many works of art. This one offers viewers a way to "look at a piece of art like no one has before," said Rodrigues.
As the exhibit travels from place to place, students may add their own graphic panels to the mural by scanning images that will be added to the exhibit. Individual artists can generate ideas and images from the mural, becoming mural-makers themselves.
