Eighty years after Diego Rivera created "Detroit Industry," his world-famous mural that depicts a global view of automobile production and 20th century technology at the Ford Rouge plant, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit has invited artists from around the world to share their visions of recent Detroit history.

According to MOCAD:

"From the riots of 1943, and the decline of the manufacturing industry, to the advent of Motown, and the present urban gardening movement, "The Past is Present" will feature 15 newly-commissioned murals. Made by artists from around the world whose works are rooted in explorations of history, political conflict, and social change, these works allow an opportunity to begin where Rivera left off, examining the history of the city from contemporary points of view."

Rivera completed his frescoes on twenty-seven panels at the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, and his leftist politics and atheism -- he once said, "I consider religions to be a form of collective neurosis" -- played important roles in his interpretation of Detroit and its satanic mills. 

The works in the MOCAD exhibition, which opens Sept. 6, will attempt to channel the politicized spirit of Rivera to "capture history, energize resistance, and celebrate change" as the artists look to Detroit's past, present and future.

One artist whose work is scheduled to be in the exhibit, Cuban-born Tania Bruguera, has eaten dirt, hung a dead lamb from her neck and served trays of cocaine to a gallery audience, all in the name of art, the New York Times reported in 2011.

 "Her work has long had a political bent," wrote reporter Sam Dolnick. "One piece in Cuba had visitors walk over rotting sugar cane husks while naked men stood before a video screen showing Fidel Castro; in another, a security guard in a Miami gallery quizzed visitors about plots to assassinate President Obama."

Another artist, Andrea Bowers, collaborated with painter Tylonn Sawyer to memorialize the D 15 movement of Detroit area fast-food workers who have been staging walkouts this summer to demand higher pay.

Bowers told the Daily Serving, an online art publication, that art and activism have always been connected.

"It’s just the market of commodification that encourages us to believe they are at odds," she said. "I’m always looking for the commonalities between art and activism, as well as thinking through how each might serve the other.  My work is always very opinionated in its political stance."

Harrell Fletcher, who teaches art at Portland State University in Oregon, urges his students to work outside the studio to create socially engaged art. He came to Detroit earlier this summer with another artist, Kartherine Ball, to research a variety of local historical events and trends. 

They chose the night the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech titled "The Other America"  at Grosse Pointe South High School. Invited by the Grosse Pointe Human Relations Council, King spoke to an overflow crowd while some 200 picketers, organized by Donald Lobsinger's right-wing Breakthrough group, walked outside. The date was March 14, 1968. King was assassinated three weeks later.

Ball, who grew up in Grosse Pointe, said their billboard will be accompanied by a letter from King's FBI file, left, and historical documents that describe the socio-political climate surrounding the speech, including the story of the Grosse Pointe police chief who sat on King's lap as he was driven to the scene. 

One missing link is a person who attended the speech. Ball and Harrell are searching for a witness to appear at MOCAD and discuss the experience. 

Ball believes more people need to know about King's appearance, including Grosse Pointers.

"I went to Grosse Pointe South High School and never heard about MLK's historic speech there," she said, so either I was asleep in class that day or there isn't very much emphasis put on educating students about the speech."

"The Past is Present" is curated by Jens Hoffmann, MOCAD's guest curator, and coordinated by MOCAD exhibitions department members Zeb Smith, Jonathan Rajewski, and Liz Glass. The participating artists include: Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, Julieta Aranda, Andrea Bowers, Tania Bruguera, Carolina Caycedo, Nicolás Consuegra, Harrell Fletcher, Claire Fontaine, Maryam Jafri, William E. Jones, Daniel Martinez, Pedro Reyes, Martha Rosler, Slanguage, and Hank Willis Thomas. The exhibit runs from Sept. 6 to Jan. 5, 2014.

CREDITS: "D15" MOCAD, concept by Andrea Bowers, painting by Tylonn Sawyer. "The Supremes:" MOCAD, concept Slanguage, painting by Nick Jaskey and Vaughn Taormina.