Mural Response

First, based on this article, what would you say were the five essential elements of the Mexican mural movement? Second, compare and contrast the context of this movement with our present situation in Syracuse in 2010. If we are going to try to make a work of art for the public in Syracuse how are we going to have to approach this problem differently? What has remained the same between our context and the Mexican muralists' context?

1. I would say the the five essential elements of the Mexican mural movement are 1. raising awareness and a sense of rebellion in the people of Mexico, 2. creating a mood and raising a topic using only aesthetics, 3. representing truths and opinions openly for everyone to see, 4. creating debate and displaying political ideas for the public eye, 5. openly opposing the government in a way that is accessible to all, upper and lower class, educated and uneducated.

2. At the time the artists were making statements about leadership, capitalism versus communism, and equality of the classes. I think the issue the is the most valid between now and then in Syracuse is the issue of poverty. There are many poor people in Syracuse, and as someone who works in one of the schools here i know that there are serious issues with the education. One could even say that we at the university are the elevated upper class, going through higher education while less then half the children of Syracuse will not graduate high school.

3. I think addressing the poverty would be an interesting thing to do in a mural. The Mexican murals showed the issues by displaying violent and war related scenes, whereas here there would probably have to be a different spin on it.

4.Some of the issues, like that of poverty have remained the same. Also, the idea of a mural to communicate an idea using visuals remains the same.