Showing papers on "Mural published in 1994"

A Codex-Style Mural From Tehuacan Viejo, Puebla, Mexico

Abstract: Abstract Excavation at the Late Postclassic (a.d. 1300–1520) site of Tehuacan Viejo, Puebla, Mexico revealed a room with a codex-style mural. The mural is divided into two zones. The lower zone is composed of white stucco and decorated with red circles. The upper zone is composed of mud plaster and decorated with seven and one-half shields behind which occur crossed lances and banners. Holes in the wall above the painted shields once held wooden pegs for hanging actual shields. The door jambs and circular columns of the eastern doorway are painted with horizontal bands representing the layers of heaven. Streamers hang from these bands. Included in the decoration on these streamers are stylized stars and blue butterflies. These may represent the souls of dead warriors. Symbolically, the room is the heavenly abode of these warriors. The most likely function of the room was as an armory.

Utopia Will Not Be Televised: Rivera at Rockefeller Center

Abstract: that it signifies more than anything else that the battle is already lost, that the invocation of Lenin is in the face of the failure of the Leninist party to fulfill its promise. It is this utopian theme of hope that in fact allows Rivera's painting to function today as the prototype for an entire genre of contemporary mural painting. In black and Latin neighbourhoods, often the neglected quarters of North American cities, there is a, if not flourishing, certainly persistent school of painting known as the community murals movement. The artists who make these pictures often consciously link themselves to the Mexican tradition. If, in 1933, a spectre was haunting Rockefeller Center, now the ghost of Rivera's mural haunts the abandoned or undeveloped sections of the city. Needless to say the affirmative utopianism of these works is in direct proportion to the desperation of the communities they speak to and for. Yet they have to be acknowledged as images of hope belonging to the dispossessed of capitalism. Not only the crudeness of these community murals, but above all the heavy handed and tendentious nature of their affirmations, a strong link to the tradition of Rivera, mark them as a genuinely popular art, quite apart from the slick productions of the culture industry. Though many of these murals, in Chicano districts especially, have agrarian motifs that hark back to peasant communities of origin, they also often contain naive memories of an earlier faith in the transformative power of technology (Fig. 14). The patrons of Rockefeller Center could not have known what appears clear to us now with hindsight, that the best way to neutralize the socialist and utopian features of the mural was to leave it where it was. The destruction of the mural allows its image of technical progress bonded to social change to appear as a suppressed utopian alternative rather than a rather quaintly naive and earnest phase in a new streamlined history of corporate science. Further, the Garden of Eden motif in the lower register of Rivera's mural shows us that universalist technological utopian fantasies at their origin are interTHE OXFORD ART JOURNAL 17:2 1994 60 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.177 on Fri, 18 Nov 2016 04:15:34 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Fig. 14. Cityarts Workshop mural, 'Seeds for Progressive Change' 1975, New York City. Courtesy of Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New rork. woven throughout with motifs from premoder agricultural world views. There is perhaps even justification for asserting that such fantasies are generated by over-rapid modernization of agricultural societies. Michael Taussig's observations on this matter are so interesting they deserve quotation: Societies on the threshold of capitalist development necessarily interpet that development in terms of precapitalist beliefs and practices.... In short, the meaning of capitalism will be subject to precapitalist meanings, and the conflict expressed in such a confrontation will be one in which man is seen as the aim of production, and not production as the aim of man. Although the insights that are intrinsic to such a reaction seem inevitably to pass away with time and the progressive institutionalization of capitalist structures and common sense eventually accepts the new conditions as natural ones, certain bodies of thought, as well as enormous social movements, have kept them alive and functioning as a critical world force. Marxism and Marxist revolutionary movements in the moder era represent the 'rationalization' of the early precapitalist outrage at the expansion of the capitalist system.62 In this view, Marxism itself could be seen as an ultramoder critique of modernity from the position of the losers, the victims of the modernization process. Here the concept of history as a dialectic, when expressed in images, takes on strong aspects of a fantasized return to an idealized premodern past. In the writings of Wells and many others, the future can only be imagined as a return to innocence, to the garden, and traces of the same vision can be found in Rivera's cosmic dialectics; the peace and justice which has been forever lost can only exist now in the very farthest future of the imagination, the more so as there is no immediate prospect of their return. But this history should also discourage us from romantically and one-sidedly equating difference within modernity with resistance to a so-called dominant culture. The utopian energies of the developing world have played an active role in the production of modernity, a modernity that yet carries the memory, as it carries the scars, of the social struggles out of which it was born.

Technologycal challenges to artists' rights in the age of multimedia: The future role of moral rights

Abstract: A great artist creates a mural which, bearing his name, eventually reaches the hands of a purchaser who objects to the nude figures that the creator had seen fit to incorporate into his tableau. The purchaser, therefore, employs another artist to drape the figures. In a now famous decree the German Supreme Court, in 1912, held that the transferee of the mural in a case involving these facts, could not have changed it to suit his individual preferences.

Lighting mural painting

Abstract: The utility model designs a lighting mural painting, which uses a light source, light conducting materials and the flux control for the light by a refraction layer to enable the mural painting to have three-dimensional effect to incarnate the natural beauty of the mural painting. The lighting mural painting which is provided with the light source is characterized in that the light source 1 is arranged on the side surface of a light conducting plate 3, the refraction layer 2 is arranged below the light conducting plate 3, and the pattern of the lighting mural painting 4 is positioned above the light conducting plate 3.

Kansas Wetlands: A Wildlife Treasury

Abstract: Travelers in Kansas in search of fine art needn't restrict themselves to the state's many excellent museums. They need look no further than the walls of their own communities to discover a remarkable array of murals artistic creations that are striking, democratic, and easily accessible. Depicting Civil War history, the fruits of agriculture, Kansas' diverse cultural roots, and much more, these long-neglected works are now the subject of Lora Jost and Dave Loewenstein's fine new book. Jost and Loewenstein, artists themselves, have crisscrossed Kansas researching and documenting over 600 murals to promote, preserve, and celebrate this vibrant public art. Theirs is the first and only book devoted exclusively to Kansas murals a striking visual travelogue that offers a new perspective on the state's culture and history. From unique small-town creations like Dennis Burghart's The Saga of the Santa Fe outside the Offerle Cafe to the world-famous John Steuart Curry painting of John Brown in the state capitol, murals constitute an enormous public art gallery. Some are socially compelling or were once the focus of intense controversy. Many are group projects in which artists have served as coordinators; these murals represent true expressions of their communities. All show the state as it has been seen through the eyes of Kansas artists over the past hundred years. The authors focus on ninety exemplary murals-including mosaics and friezes-organized by region and featuring full-color photographs, brief descriptions, and notes on the artists. From Sacred Heart Cathedral to the Early Childhood Center on the Potawatomi Prairie Band Reservation, the artworks selected represent some of the most enduring and powerful images to be found throughout the state. The book also provides regional locator maps for travelers and a list of all 600-plus murals with their locations. A unique resource that attests to the rich diversity of the mural tradition, this book is an open invitation to visit the open-air museum of Kansas murals and appreciate the stories they tell and their place in public life. They may be tucked into urban landscapes or require travel to out-of-the way locales; some may even be stained by years of exposure to the elements; but these expressions of public art are there for the viewing-and now, thanks to this book, there for the finding."

Art for the Human Condition

Abstract: This paper focuses on the issues and ethics in promoting art exhibitions for a particular clinical goal or goals. These applications include: permanent ceramic mural relief for the development of community in a psychiatric hospital, native-art private showing to enhance the acculturation process for both the artist and viewers, and an art acquisition collection from student art therapists that emphasize an empathie attitude toward the arts. Professionally exhibiting art supports the idea that when individuals are involved in the act of creating, they often transform their disability ability, and find unity in the triumph of the human spirit.