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Mujeres Muralistas: Patricia Rodriguez, Graciela Carrillo, Consuelo Méndez, Irene Pérez, Ruth Rodríguez, Miriam Olivas, Ester Hernández, and Xochitl Nevel-Guerrero, Latino America, 1974; © Mujeres Muralistas, courtesy Ester Hernández, Consuelo Méndez, Irene Pérez, and Patricia Rodriguez; photo: Tim Drescher
Symposium

The Art of Murals

October 8–9, 2022

10 a.m.–5 p.m.

Gina and Stuart Peterson White Box

Free with museum admission.
Event admission closes at 4:45 p.m.

The Art of Murals is a two-day symposium addressing the politics and aesthetics of San Francisco’s vibrant mural-making movement from the 1970s to today. The event celebrates and amplifies Proyecto Mission Murals, an expansive digital publication, feature documentary, and audio zine that examines the community mural movement in San Francisco’s Mission District from 1972-1988. Proyecto Mission Murals emerges alongside SFMOMA’s exhibition Diego Rivera’s America, which features Rivera’s work in San Francisco during the 1930s and 1940s, including his Pan American Unity mural on loan from the City College of San Francisco, and illustrates his impact on subsequent generations of mural making in the Bay Area.

The Art of Murals symposium will contextualize the impact of murals in the Bay Area and beyond by bringing together the diverse perspectives of artists, activists, and scholars to explore pressing issues of identities, borders, migration, gender, labor, and gentrification. Panel discussions, keynote presentations, and conversations will center on the evolution of mural technology and technique; the iconic locations and community arts organizations that have supported mural making in San Francisco; and the politics of resistance and civic and social justice that underscore artwork on the street in direct conversation with the public. This symposium also addresses the role of artists who have radically transformed the relationship between art and public life and, in turn, how they may transform the institution of the museum.

Schedule of Events

Day 1: Saturday, October 8

10–10:30 a.m. Introductions and Opening remarks

Cary Cordova, Associate Professor in the Department of American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin
Tomoko Kanamitsu, Barbara and Stephan Vermut Director of Public Engagement, SFMOMA

10:30–11:30 a.m. Keynote: Scholarship of the Streets

Keynote speaker: Amalia Mesa-Bains, artist

11:30-11:45 p.m. Break

11:45–1:15 p.m. Panel 1 | Mural Mobilizations: Reflecting on the Origins and Contestations that Spurred a Movement

Panelists
Erina Alejo, artist
Jim Dong, artist
Irene Pérez, artist
Michael Rios, artist

Moderator: Cary Cordova

1:15–2:15 p.m. Break

2:15–3:45 p.m. Panel 2 | Monumental Mural Art: The Politics of Images in a Time of Crisis

Panelists
Juana Alicia, artist
Daniel Galvez, artist
Eduardo Pineda, artist
Jessica Sabogal, artist

Moderator: John Jota Leaños, Professor of Film & Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz

3:45–5:15 p.m. Panel 3 | Space of Imagination and Resistance: Balmy Alley, 1972-Now

Panelists
Mia Galaviz, artist
Lucía González Ippolito, artist
Ray Patlán, artist

Moderator: Mauricio Ernesto Ramirez, UC President’s Postdoctoral and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow in the Department of Chicana/o Studies at UC Davis

5:15–5:30 p.m. Break

5:30– 6 p.m. Film Screening | Las Muralistas: Our Walls, Our Stories

Introductions by Javier Briones, director of the film, and Myisa Plancq-Graham, executive producer of the film and content producer, SFMOMA

Day 2: Sunday, October 9

10–10:30 a.m. Introductions and Opening remarks

Cary Cordova, Associate Professor in the Department of American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin
Tomoko Kanamitsu, Barbara and Stephan Vermut Director of Public Engagement, SFMOMA

10:30 a.m.–noon Panel 4 | Diego Rivera’s Past in our Present

Panelists
Gabriela Rodriguez-Gomez, Ph.D. candidate in Chicana/o/x Studies and Central American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
Luis Vargas Santiago, art historian and curator, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Khristaan Villela, Associate Director for Dissemination and External Affairs at the Getty Research Institute

Moderator: James Oles, curator of Diego Rivera’s America and Senior Lecturer in the Art Department at Wellesley College and Adjunct Curator of Latin American Art at The Davis Museum

Noon–1 p.m. Break

1–2:30 p.m. Panel 5 | From Forever Free to Black Lives Matter

Panelists
John P. Bowles, Associate Professor of African American Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Aliyah Dunn-Salahuddin, PhD candidate, History at Stanford University
Horace Washington, artist
Rachel Wolfe-Goldsmith, artist

Moderator: Jacqueline Francis, Professor and Chair of the Graduate Program in Visual & Critical Studies at California College of the Arts

2:30–2:45 p.m. Break

2:45–3:15 p.m. Listening Session | Mission Muralismo Audio Zine Live

Participants
Camilo Garzón, oral historian and audio zine director, Proyecto Mission Murals
Santino Gonzales, artist and associate content producer, SFMOMA
Josiah Luis Alderete, poet
Christo Oropeza, artist and senior associate, public engagement, SFMOMA
Olivia Peña, writer, University of San Francisco MFA recipient
Myisa Plancq-Graham, content producer, SFMOMA

3:15–5 p.m. Panel 6 | Transforming the City: The Colorful Impact of Precita Eyes

Panelists
Fred Alvarado, artist, youth arts educator, Precita Eyes
Susan Cervantes, artist and founding executive director, Precita Eyes
Elaine Chu, artist
Marina Perez-Wong, artist
Patricia Rose, artist, tour coordinator, Precita Eyes

Moderator: Guisela Latorre, Professor, Art History department, The Ohio State University