Javier Aranda Luna: The missing mural

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and the murals of the Secretariat of Public Education were painted today, what themes do you imagine they would address? And, if we could propose a new mural, what idea or concept do you think we should suggest?

No, mining, because Diego Rivera already painted it, and the subhuman conditions in which miners work are the same; no, protests, either, because they've already been painted and the protests continue. Would you paint a massive concert in the Zócalo, like the one in Motomami? The still-unsolved murder of the Ayotzinapa students? The government's fuel theft ?

Diego Rivera had a keen eye for what was happening in the air, and he never missed an opportunity to capture it in his murals. In the more than 3,000 square meters painted in the Ministry of Public Education (SEP), he depicted a young woman who had recently joined the Communist Party. He met her in the chapel of San Ildefonso while painting The Creation. While painting her, he told her she had a dog's nose, and Frida Kahlo, the young woman in question, told him he had a toad's face. He painted her distributing weapons for the Revolution.

His magnificent murals at the SEP also feature Antonieta Rivas Mercado, broom in hand, and one of the beneficiaries of his patronage: Salvador Novo, lying prostrate and sporting enormous donkey ears. The title of the work: "Whoever Wants to Eat, Let Them Work ." He also didn't hesitate to paint José Vasconcelos sitting on a dwarf elephant.

A few months ago, the Living Museum of Muralism opened in the SEP building. A splendid space designed by Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Luis Nishizawa, Roberto Montenegro, and Manuel Felguérez.

This museum seeks to promote the value of the muralist movement by highlighting its aesthetic and historical-social importance , offering a space to strengthen the knowledge, skills, and experiences conveyed by murals . And to learn, for example, about the existence of other magnificent and little-known murals.

These include the Abelardo Rodríguez market and the José Clemente Orozco Teachers' Normal School, such as the 380-square-meter mural entitled "National Allegory," painted on a vast, open-air concave surface. In the school's lobby are two more murals by the same painter: "The People Approach the School Doors" and "Defeat and End of Ignorance ."

It has been said that the greatest historiographical revolution in recent decades has been the inclusion of ordinary people and their activities in the history of history. Those who decisively achieved this in our country were not historians, but writers and artists: Martín Luis Guzmán, Nellie Campobello, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, to name just a few.

It's clear that the Mexican Revolution was also a cultural revolution, thanks to which Mexicans were able to see themselves as a great melting pot where traits and customs mingled. Thanks to artistic expression, the various Mexicos that constitute Mexico were first revealed.

Due to his great ability to synthesize complex historical processes and his artistic genius, Diego Rivera established Emiliano Zapata in the collective imagination as one of the country's great forgers, not the bandit many saw him as. Furthermore, Rivera coined the defining phrase of Zapatismo, " Land and Liberty ," to summarize Zapatista thought.

One of the great lessons of muralism is that people with different abilities and different ideologies participated in its construction.

In 1921, an anti-religious general like Álvaro Obregón, an intellectual with strong religious beliefs who had participated with Madero in his democratic movement like José Vasconcelos, and a communist painter who at 35 was already a legend for his virtuosity and avant-garde audacity like Diego Rivera, initiated one of the artistic movements that became Mexico's most important contribution to universal art: the muralist movement.

It's no coincidence that writers like Carlos Monsiváis were clear that no transformation is possible without culture. That's why the creation of the Living Museum of Muralism is so pleasing, because it will allow us to see that only through culture can great changes, great transformations, be forged. Without memory, there is no imagination; without the convergence of diverse people, there are no lasting projects. Without culture, there is no democracy. Are we truly participating in a great transformation like the one the muralists participated in?