The Getty Research Institute exhibit currently at the Central Library, a Nation Emerges – The Mexican Revolution Revealed, tells the story of an uprising that spread like wildfire across Mexico - marking the beginning of the Mexican Revolution in November 1910. The exhibit features photographs from the first decade of the revolution revealing the complexities of the times as recorded by Mexican, European, and American photographers, artists, and journalists – professional and amateur. The key figures of the revolution: Zapata, Poncho Villa, Diaz, Madero, and others are all on view – along with less familiar images of railroads transporting soldiers, or children bearing arms.
But what of the Mexican artists who recorded their country’s protests during the period from 1910-1920 through prints and broadsheets, paintings, photographs, and films? What graphics persisted in the decades that followed? What pictures voiced new waves of social unrest and injustices endured by the populace into the twenty-first century?
Images obtained from the splendid books available at Central Library include reproductions of broadsheets of Posada and prints of Mendez, paintings by Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros, photographs of Lopez and Bravo, and film stills from the collaborations of Fernandez and Figueroa. These graphic interpretations express continuing protest through one hundred years of art.
You are invited to join us on Saturday, January 19, 2013 from 12 – 2 P.M. in the Central Library's second floor Getty Gallery for a program on the artwork of the Mexican Revolution and the artists who tell their stories of protest. Enter a Diego Rivera mural on an interactive website, play a game of Lotería based on photographs from the exhibit, and enjoy a gallery talk with curator, Beth Ann Guynn from the Getty Research Institute. Free and open to all.