Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art

One of the most significant chapters of "Delirious New York" by Rem Koolhaas, is dedicated to the intervention of Diego Rivera at Rockefeller Center. After 80 years, the second exhibition of this artist at MoMA, is an event that if you have the opportunity to be in New York should not miss. Diego Rivera was the subject of MoMA’s second monographic exhibition (the first was Henri Matisse), which set new attendance records in its five-week run from December 22, 1931, to January 27, 1932. "Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art" in MoMA will be the exhibition’s sole venue (until, May 14, 2012). Organized by Leah Dickerman, Curator, Painting and Sculpture.

Fresco on reinforced cement in a galvanized-steel framework, 58 1/16 x 94 1/8" (147.5 x 239 cm). Private collection, Mexico. © 2011 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, México, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Rafael Doniz.

In December 1931, The Museum of Modern Art mounted a major exhibition of work by the Mexican artist Diego Rivera. It was only the second retrospective at the Museum, and it was wildly popular, breaking attendance records in its five-week run.

Rivera was already an international celebrity. He was the most visible figure in Mexican muralism, a large-scale public-art initiative that emerged in the 1920s in the wake of the Mexican Revolution. But his murals—by definition fixed on a single site—were impossible to transport for exhibition. To solve this problem, the Museum brought Rivera to New York six weeks before the show opened and provided him with a makeshift studio in an empty gallery. There, Rivera produced five "portable murals"—freestanding frescoes commemorating events in Mexican history—which were prominently featured in the show. After the opening, to great publicity, Rivera made three more murals, taking on contemporary New York subjects through monumental images of the city during the Great Depression. The story of this extraordinary commission elucidates Rivera's pivotal role in shaping debates about the social and political value of public art during a period of economic crisis.

Catalog."Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art". by Leah Dickerman and Anna Indych-López.

Hardcover. 148 pages. 128 illustrations.

Leah Dickerman is a Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art. Anna Indych-López is an Associate Professor of Art History at The City College of New York and The Graduate Center, City University of New York.

EIGHT MURALS, BELOW.

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Fresco on reinforced cement in a galvanized-steel framework, 94 1/8 x 74 3/16" (239 x 188.5 cm). Museo Dolores Olmedo, Xochimilco, Mexico. © 2011 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, México, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph © Eumelia Hernández and Ricardo Alvarado; Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes.

Fresco on reinforced cement in a galvanized-steel framework, approx. 94 x 74" (239 x 188 cm). Location unknown since 1977. Reproduced from a 1932 photograph by Peter A. Juley & Son. Photograph courtesy Peter A. Juley & Son Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum (cat. no. J0005920).

Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art.

Fresco on reinforced cement in a galvanized-steel framework, 93 3/4 x 74" (238.1 x 188 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund. © 2011 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, México, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph courtesy The Museum of Modern Art, Department of Imaging Services (John Wronn).

Fresco on reinforced cement in a galvanized-steel framework, 57 1/8 x 94 1/8" (145.1 x 239.1 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Cameron Morris, 1943. © 2011 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, México, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Fresco sobre hormigón armado en estructura de acero galvanizado, 73 x 94 1/4" (185.4 x 239.4 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art. Donación del Sr. y la Sra. Herbert Cameron Morris, 1943. © 2011 Banco de México Fundación de Museos Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, México, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Fresco on reinforced cement in a galvanized-steel framework, 74 x 94 1/8" (188 x 239 cm). Private collection, Mexico. © 2011 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, México, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Rafael Doniz

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JOSÉ JUAN BARBA

José Juan Barba (1964) is an architect, graduated from ETSA Madrid (1991), and holds a Doctorate in Architecture from ETSA Madrid, awarded Cum laude for his thesis Inventions: New York vs. Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi, Piranesi (2004). He received a special mention in the National Awards for Completion of Studies (1991) and served as an advisor to various NGOs until 1997. He founded his studio in Madrid in 1992 (www.josejuanbarba.com).

Barba is an architecture critic and has been the director of METALOCUS magazine since 1999. Since 1998, he has directed the International Architecture Magazine METALOCUS (bilingual, Spanish/English), which has been recognized with multiple national and international awards.

He is a Full Professor at the University of Alcalá, leading the project line of the Habilitation Master's Architecture and City, responsible for several courses in Theory and Criticism, heading the Urban Planning area of the Department of Architecture, and participating in the research group Architecture, History, City, and Landscape at UAH. He has been invited to numerous architecture and urbanism forums, including the II Forum of Mexican Cities World Heritage: Urban Development, History, and Modernity, organized by the Pan-American Committee for Urban Development and Historical Heritage, and the World Urban Development Forum (FMDU) in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico. He has also participated in the International Architecture and Urbanism Conferences from the perspective of women architects, and has lectured at prestigious national and international universities, including the National Building Museum (Washington, DC), Roma TRE, Politecnico di Milano, UPMF Grenoble, ETSA Madrid, ETSA Barcelona, University of Thessaly (Volos), UNAM Mexico, the Faculty of Architecture Montevideo, schools of architecture in Medellín, Quito-Ecuador, Alicante, Málaga, Granada, Seville, A Coruña, Zaragoza, Valladolid, Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico, IE School, Universidad Europea Madrid, UCJC Madrid, ESARQ-UIC Barcelona, or Università Degli Studi di Genova.

Barba has extensive professional experience in architecture, urban planning, landscape design, and territorial recovery. He has received numerous awards, including the First Prize for Gran Vía Posible for Delirious Gran Vía (Madrid), the River Interpretation Center (Zamora), exhibited at the World Architecture Festival (Barcelona 2008), Santa Bárbara Park (Toledo), the Erich Degner Architecture Prize 1995 promoted by the BBVA Foundation, and his Day Care Center for the Elderly project, featured in Volume 3 of the COAM Madrid Architecture Guide (2007). His work has been published in numerous national and international books and magazines.

He was also Maître de Conférences at IUG-UPMF Grenoble (2013–14), in a position obtained through a European competition. His work has been published internationally. He regularly serves on academic juries, including the editorial competition of Quaderns magazine (2011), as a selector for the Mies van der Rohe Awards (2007–2026), as juror for EUROPAN13 Spain (2015–16), TRANSFER in Zurich (2019), and was invited to participate in the Venice Biennale 2016 as part of the exhibition Spaces of Exception / Spazi d’Eccezione.

He has published several books, including The Dark Line. michele&miquel, dA Vision Design (2024), CONGRESO ANYWAY. The City of Cities (2020), #Positions (2016), and Inventions: New York vs. Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi, Piranesi (2015). He has contributed to other publications such as Public Space Gran Vía. The Tourism City (2020), Spaces of Exception / Spazi d’Eccezione (2016), La mansana de la discordia (2015), and Contemporary Architecture of Japan: New Territories (2015), as well as chapters in numerous books including Architects: A Professional Challenge (2009), 21st Century Architectures (2007), Ruta de la Plata, New Conquerors of Space (2019), and The Tourism City (2020).

Selected awards include:

- “PIERRE VAGO” ICAC. International Committee of Art Critics Award, London, 2005
- “PANAYIOTI MIXELI AWARD,” SADAS-PEA, award for the promotion of architecture, Athens, 2005
- “SANTIAGO AMÓN” AWARD, award for the promotion of architecture, COAM Madrid, 2000
- FAD Award 07, Ephemeral Interventions, First Prize, M.C. Escher Exhibition, Arquin-FAD, Barcelona, 2007
- World Architecture Festival, Center for Research and Interpretation of the Rivers, Tera, Esla, and Órbigo, Finalist, Barcelona, 2008
- Gran Vía Posible, First Prize, Delirious Gran Vía, Madrid, 2010
- Reform of the Río Segura Surroundings, Award, Murcia, 2010

Published on: December 28, 2011

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metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA

"Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art" METALOCUS. Accessed

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