„Let’s go back to New York’s
Rockefeller-Centre ... It is not only an
impressive attraction for tourists, but
right at its beginning it was the scene
of a rather interesting but forgotten
controversy whose protagonist, by the
way, will lead us to a lady who in your
life — Mr. Trotsky — was to
play a significant role ….”
 Don’t put us to the rack,
Dag!
„Well, then let’s start with
this link first. The lady was Frida Kahlo
... the one who, as a schoolgirl in
Mexico City, fell victim to a traffic
accident with repercussions for the rest
of her life.
After the accident she started to paint;
and in 1928 she approached the famous
Mexican painter Diego Rivera to receive
from him a judgement of her talent. He
was thrilled; both married a year later.
The Kahlo became one of the most
significant artists Mexico’s; Rivera
became the leading head of the initiative
to restore traditional Mexican art of
wall-painting, a renaissance of Muralismo
which was subsidised by the state. At the
same time, Diego Rivera was a prominent
member of Mexico’s communist party.
In this context, the Muralismo with its
social themes and its public presence was
also a consequence of his understanding
of art which was driven by democratic and
pedagogic efforts.
From 1927 to 1928 he taught in Moscow.
Afterwards, he worked for a while in San
Francisco. In 1932 he received a big
commission by the car-producer Edsel Ford
which led him to Detroit. There, he
developed a monumental painting which
portrayed the workers of the
Ford-company. Art had brought together
what — according to common
understanding — would not fit
naturally: Diego Rivera, a convinced
communist, worked for one of the biggest
and most powerful industrial tycoons, and
it was still possible for him to
integrate into this painting his own
ideology.
 However, he did
run into trouble with his next
client when he was commissioned to work
on the Rockefeller-Centre in 1933. He
gave his wall-painting there a seemingly
endless title: ‚The human being at
crossroads, gazing forward with hope and
with a grand vision of a new and better
future‘.
Before the painting had been finished, a
news-reporter discovered on it the face
of Lenin. The result was an éclat
between Diego Rivera and the young Nelson
Rockefeller. The latter asked whether
Lenin’s face could be covered with
the face of an unknown person. Diego
replied, he would then paint over the
faces of Abraham Lincoln and other
significant personalities of American
history as well.
Since Diego did not accept any
compromise, Rockefeller paid him the
agreed fee — and had the whole
painting destroyed.”
And Frida Kahlo? Where did she
come to know our comrade Trotsky? In New
York? In Moscow?
„Oh no ... but, you see, it is a bit
sensitive to explain this in detail.“
Well, Dag, we may be in a
position to assist — with an excerpt
from a movie ...
ATTENTION AT THE CONTROLS! — START
MOVIE!
 FRIDA
Director: Julie Taymor, Script: Clancy
Sigal, Diane Lake,
Anna Thomas and Gregory Nava
Based on the Frida-Kahlo-Biography by
Hayden Herrera
2002; 125 minutes
… Frida’s sister Cristina (Mia
Maestro) has separated from her husband.
During a visit, Frida (Salma Hayek)
surprises her and Diego (Alfred Molina)
on his atelier’s floor. She had
accepted his affairs but that he is
sleeping with her sister is going too
far. She is devastated, cuts her long
hair and locks herself up in her part of
the house which is connected through a
bridge to the other part of the
double-building in San Angel. She does
not want to deal with Diego anymore.
However, she accepts his plea to offer
refuge to the revolutionary Leo Trotsky
(Geoffrey Rush), who is hunted by Stalin’s
agents, and to his wife Natalia Sedova.
In 1937 both move into her parent‘s
house, where his father lives on his own.
When Trotsky’s wife notices her
husband’s affair with Frida, the
couple moves on and, in 1939, finds
another hiding place …
There, only one year later
— we know it already — a deadly
ice-axe will come into action. Would
Stalin’s agent have found you in
Frida Kahlo’s bed, comrade Trotsky?
Should Diego Rivera have cared a bit more
about the revolution than about his
mistresses in order to have history’s
path bent in another direction?
We don’t know it, but before you
protest, comrade Trotsky, here is
something to keep you calm, some goodies
or — as the Austrians say — a
„Schmankerl”
The painter
has the good fortune to practise
a silent art — an art without
ostentation. There is quite enough
ostentation already.
„This quote must be a fake! Neither
Diego nor his art have ever been taciturn
or without spectacle!”
Well, there spoke another
painter, he was an Austrian — and,
again, one of your contemporaries,
comrade Trotsky: Herbert Boeckl, he lived
from 1894 to 1966.
The interesting question here is: was the
New York spectacle around the
wall-painting at the Rockefeller Centre
perhaps nothing else than plagiarism?
…
And this is our Austrian „Schmankerl”
for you. Diego Rivera may have simply
copied the fresco-painter Herbert Boeckl
who was commissioned in 1925 to realize
this painting in the cathedral of Maria
Saal …
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