Journal Article

Double Consciousness in Mexico

Landau, Ellen G.

2007

Overview

Visitors to the Museo Michoacano in Morelia, Mexico, often react with puzzlement and awe when they come upon its most unusual feature, an epic 1930s mural that decorates the wall of an interior patio. The mural, known variously asThe Struggle Against Terrorism, The Struggle against War and Fascism,orThe Inquisition,takes viewers on an abbreviated journey from biblical times through the Middle Ages and beyond, to the eras of the Ku Klux Klan and Adolf Hitler. It is clear that its young American painters, Phillip Goldstein (later Philip Guston) and Reuben Kadish, worked hard to summarize a worldwide historical legacy of malefaction. What is not as immediately obvious, perhaps, is how a specific confluence of insecurity, persecution, and violence, a topos of Mexico equal in intensity to its natural beauty, is ingeniously signified. Deeply encoded in the mural's iconography of evil and pain are distinct clues, triggered by their understanding of Mexican alterity, to the artists' own sense of “otherness” and profound desire to redress racial inequities. Referenced in particular is their shared relation to a heritage of Jewish persecution and ethical commitment.

• Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
• Subject: African Americans / Art exhibitions / Art museums / Art photography / Feature Article / Fresco / Jewish art / Jewish peoples / Murals / Terrorism