Michelle Loubon

Forced to re­treat to paint­ing in a base­ment in Buenos Aires, Ar­genti­na, Mex­i­can painter Jos&ea­cute; de Jes&ua­cute;s Al­faro Siqueiros con­jured the mur­al Plas­tic Ex­er­cise. It de­pict­ed an imag­i­nary un­der­wa­ter world with a type of bub­ble where sen­su­al fem­i­nine fig­ures float in the wa­ter. To date, Siqueiros' Plas­tic Ex­er­cise in­spired El Mur­al film by Hec­tor Oliv­era. Fea­tur­ing Span­ish di­a­logue with Eng­lish sub­ti­tles, it was screened at the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, on Oc­to­ber 11.

Among those present were Ar­gen­tine Am­bas­sador Marce­lo Salvi­o­lo, di­rec­tor, In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les and Dr Lancelot Cowie, di­rec­tor, Cen­tre for Latin Amer­i­ca/Caribbean and his spouse/ re­searcher Ni­na Bruni. The plot re­volves around the volatile cir­cum­stances lead­ing Siqueiros to paint the fa­mous mur­al (1933) in Los Grana­dos, sprawl­ing coun­try es­tate of Na­talio Botano. Botano, a self-made man and pro­pri­etor of the news­pa­per Crit­i­ca, is the most in­trigu­ing fig­ure in the film.

Fe­male pro­tag­o­nist Sal­vado­ra Med­i­na's machi­na­tions take cen­trestage, too. El Mur­al opens against the back­drop of 1930s Ar­genti­na. Ar­gen­tine women were de­prived of the right to ex­er­cise their fran­chise. The pe­ri­od was char­ac­terised by Nazism, com­mu­nism, an­ti-Semi­tism and trade union­ism. The open­ing scenes sym­bol­ise Siqueiros' frus­trat­ed dream at not be­ing able to paint on the phan­tas­magoric si­los. His­to­ri­ans would learn he ab­sorbed the in­flu­ence of cu­bism, cou­pled with France's C&ea­cute;zanne's affin­i­ty for large blocks of in­tense colour.

The film does not ex­clude the strong Eu­ro­pean in­flu­ences man­i­fest­ed in pol­i­tics, fash­ion, en­ter­tain­ment, ed­u­ca­tion and build­ings. Cap­ti­vat­ing pho­tog­ra­phy of­fers a glimpse of vin­tage cars, car­riages, pala­tial man­sions, ban­quets and elite lifestyles. It con­trasts with com­mon peo­ple in the streets; even cel­e­brat­ing Sen­a­tor Thrush's as­sas­si­na­tion.?There are pow­er­ful lines like "So­cial rev­o­lu­tion can't be­come an op­tion." Great grief man­i­fests it­self when young Pa­pi­to dies. Sal­vado­ra's screams reach the high heav­ens. The de­noue­ment re­veals why and how. Botano philosophis­es: "Death is our loy­al mate for our lives."

Salvio's re­marks

In his ad­dress, Salvi­o­lo traced the link be­tween Siqueiros' art­work and Ar­genti­na's so­cio-po­lit­i­cal is­sues. He said, "Ar­genti­na was char­ac­terised by pe­ri­ods of in­sta­bil­i­ty and sev­er­al coup d'etats or­ches­trat­ed by the armed forces who were aligned to the com­mer­cial and land own­ing elite.

"It?was a new par­a­digm in the dis­ci­pline of mu­ral­ism, not on­ly be­cause of its plas­tic make­up and in­no­v­a­tive tech­nique that gives the im­pres­sion of move­ment, but al­so be­cause it bears wit­ness to the ideals of Latin Amer­i­can in­te­gra­tion." Free­dom and equal­i­ty in­spired rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies. Siqueiros was con­vinced "art is rev­o­lu­tion."

His rad­i­cal­ism even forced him to flee Ar­genti­na in late 1930s. Salvi­o­lo said Pres­i­dent Cristi­na Fer­nan­dez de Kirch­n­er and Mex­i­can pres­i­dent Dr Fe­lipe Calderon un­veiled a re­stored Plas­tic Ex­er­cise mur­al on De­cem­ber 3, 2010. Art con­nois­seurs can now view it hang­ing at a place of ho­n­our Tay­lor's Cus­tom House-a few me­tres from La Casa Rosa­da–de Kirch­n­er's of­fice.

The im­por­tance of Si­que­rios' mur­al and its sur­vival "is the time­less mes­sage of art as a po­lit­i­cal and uni­fy­ing force."?Bruni said both mu­rals and film com­pel the view­er to ap­pre­ci­ate and un­der­stand shared cul­ture and his­to­ry. "In­ter­est­ing­ly, the '30s marked a pe­ri­od of trade union ag­i­ta­tion (But­ler Ri­ots) in T&T," said Bruni.

While a line as­serts that "women were cre­at­ed on­ly to give birth," Bruni not­ed it ad­dressed women's strug­gles to com­bat preva­lent ra­bid machis­mo. Fe­male pro­tag­o­nists con­front­ed is­sues like sin­gle moth­er­hood, les­bian­ism, re­li­gion, po­lit­i­cal ac­tivism and in­tel­lec­tu­al life. In con­tem­po­rary so­ci­ety, women can vote, seek po­lit­i­cal of­fice and gov­ern democ­ra­cies.