Mexico has opened the “Art City” museum that Diego Rivera dreamed of opening as early as 80 years ago. It is the place where academic art and the crafts of the indigenous peoples of Central America meet. The museum is a small town with gardens, exhibition halls, stages, workshops, a library and other spaces.
One of the halls houses a collection of artworks of incredible proportions from pre-Hispanic Mexico, which Diego Rivera himself collected from his teenage years. Rivera even wrote about his main dream to build a “City of Arts” in one manifesto of the 1950s. The painter wanted to “unite all forms of pure and high expression of the people of Mexico.” Alas, the museum was never built during Rivera’s lifetime.
The foundation of the “City of Arts,” the Anaucalli Museum, was built in 1963 by the artist’s daughter, Ruth Rivera Marin. Architects Juan O’Gorman and Eriberto Pagelson helped her with the design.
The original plan was to build all the buildings at once, but in the end the project was not completed until several years later. Architects Mauricio and Manuel Rocha completed the museum. The Rocha family worked for six years to create the City of Arts, and $960 million was allocated to complete the project.
In addition to the museum, Diego Rivera was eager to build a theatre where the best directors would play classical and modern plays. In the painter’s vision the “City of Arts” was to become a unifying part of artistic and social life in Mexico, a project that would remind the inhabitants of the country of the great history and rich culture of their country every day.
A little bit about Diego Rivera himself
The great artist, revolutionary, genius, and husband of the incomparable Frida Kahlo. But she was not the first and, of course, the only woman in the life of the creator. In the people Diego was nicknamed “ogre” for a very passionate relationship with a considerable number of women.
In the early thirties Diego Rivera became a recognized leader in the circle of Mexican muralists. He became one of the most controversial artists, had a political disposition toward communism, inimitable monumental frescoes, and his crazy creativity and attitude toward people made him a great genius. He can safely be called the father of a new, unconventional direction in twentieth-century art. Rivera quickly attracted international attention.
«Diego makes me anxious. He gave up glory, preferring to do what he does now», – Alfonso Reyes about his close friend.
