VIDA AMERICANA

The 2020s are off to a roaring start with one of the best exhibitions that I have seen in a long time.  Not just because of its variety of artists:
Ben Shawn
David Alfaro Siqueiros
Eitaro Ishigaki
Marion Greewood
Diego Rivera
Sergei Eisenstein
Jacob Lawrence
Everett Gee Jackson
Jackson Pollack
Jose Clemente Orozco
Charles White
Alfredo Ramos Martinez
Frida Kahlo

But also its presentation of Culture, Radical Politics, the influence they have on the artist and artists influence on each other.
Such as the relationship between David Alfaro Siqueiros and Jackson Pollack.

David Alfaro Siquerios was born in Camargo, Chihuahua on 12/29/1896. Died in Cuernavaca, Mexico on 1/6/1974
Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming on 1/28/1912. Died in Springs, NY on 8/11/56.

At 15 Siqueiros was involved in a student strike. At 18 he was fighting with the Constitutional Army against Victoriano Huerta [military officer & president by coup].  After the fall of Huerta his Constitutional Army fought against both Zapata and Pancho Villa.  After his Army gained control he moved to Paris and met Cezanne where he absorbed the influence of Cubism.  In 1921 he wrote 'Vida Americana' having been exposed to Marxism and the life of the rural poor.  The new government after Huerta planned to educate the masses through public art.  Siqueiros, Diego Rivera and Jose Orozco were hired to work together to create murals in prominent Mexico City buildings.
Siqueiros later went to Los Angeles to work with others on public murals.  Because of the politics they were painted over.  He was deported in 1932 for political activities but came back in 1936 to New York to work on the General Strike for Peace and the May Day Parade.  Then he went to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War against the fascists.  He was also involved in an attempted assassination of Trotsky. 
In 1936 Jackson Pollock was in NYC and attended a workshop of Siqueiros to help create floats for the May Day Parade, his only 'political' work.  That workshop, Siqueiros' Experimental Workshop, used modern devices such as airbrushes, spray guns and projectors.  It was here that Pollock was introduced to liquid paint and it was in the early 1940s that he started using it in his paint pouring works.
To be continued