Research Catalog

At the crossroads : Diego Rivera and his patrons at MoMA, Rockefeller Center, and the Palace of Fine Arts

Title
At the crossroads : Diego Rivera and his patrons at MoMA, Rockefeller Center, and the Palace of Fine Arts / Catha Paquette.
Author
Paquette, Catha
Publication
  • Austin : University of Texas Press, 2017.
  • ©2017

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
TextUse in library ND259.R5 P37 2017Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors
  • Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957
  • Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)
  • Rockefeller Center.
  • Palacio de Bellas Artes (Mexico City, Mexico)
Description
xix, 324 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color); 27 cm.
Summary
Collaborations during the Great Depression between the Mexican artist and Communist activist Diego Rivera and institutions in the United States and Mexico were fraught with risk, as the artist occasionally deviated from course, serving and then subverting his patrons. Catha Paquette investigates controversies surrounding Rivera's retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, his Rockefeller Center mural Man at the Crossroads, and the Mexican government's commissioning of its reconstruction at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. She proposes that both the artist and his patrons were using art for extraordinary purposes, leveraging clarity and ambiguity to weigh in on debates concerning labor policies and speech rights; relations between the United States, Mexico, and the Soviet Union; and the viability of capitalism, communism, and socialism. Rivera and his patrons' shared interest in images of labor-a targeted audience-made cooperative ventures possible. In recounting Rivera's shifts in strategy from collaboration/exploitation to antagonism/conflict, Paquette highlights the extent to which the artist was responding to politico-economic developments and facilitating alignment / realignment among leftist groups for and against Stalin. Although the artwork that resulted from these instances of patronage had the potential to serve conflicting purposes, Rivera's images and the protests that followed the destruction of the Rockefeller Center mural were integral to a surge in oppositional expression that effected significant policy changes in the United States and Mexico.
Series Statement
Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long series in Latin American and Latino art and culture
Uniform Title
Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long series in Latin American and Latino art and culture.
Subjects
Genre/Form
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages 290-308) and index.
Contents
New York's Museum of Modern Art -- Rockefeller Center -- Mexico City's Palace of Fine Arts.
ISBN
  • 9781477310885
  • 1477310886
  • 9781477311004
  • 1477311009
LCCN
  • 2015050082
  • 40026810307
OCLC
  • ocn934278222
  • 934278222
  • SCSB-5880034
Owning Institutions
Columbia University Libraries