An indoor Detroit landmark has an anniversary this week that's worth noting, as Louis Aguilar does in The Detroit News:
Eighty years ago this week, the Detroit Institute of Arts debuted "Detroit Industry," the monumental murals by Diego Rivera that he intended to be a tribute to Michigan's innovative technology.
Though now widely admired and one of the DIA's prime attractions, the Mexican artist's work caused a stir after it was unveiled March 21, 1933.
Many initially despised it. . . . Religious and social organizations representing tens of thousands demanded the art be destroyed.
Their complaints: It promoted class warfare. It mocked baby Jesus. It embraced racial equality. The Detroit News ran a scorching front-page editorial that concluded "the best thing to do would be to whitewash the entire work completely." . . .
The controversy faded as more people saw the completed murals. The artist considered it his finest work.
Diego Rivera self-portrait, 1941
Aguilar researched Rivera and his wife, artist Frida Kahlo, as part of a 2010 Kresge literary arts fellowship. He notes that "Rivera's murals and Kahlo's Detroit paintings are now regarded as masterpieces."
Kahlo, who died in 1954, is a cultural icon and one of the most popular artists in the world. . . . In 2015, the DIA will host its own Frida and Diego exhibit.
His anniversary article looks at "some of the local places that shaped the two artists' experience" during their 11 months in Detroit.
For vividly realistic research, Rivera visited Ford's River Rouge Plant and "was entranced by the largest, most technically advanced factory in the world. He called it the Great Saga of Machine and Steel," according to Aguilar
The visiting couple enjoyed the Scarab Club, still open on Farnsworth behind the DIA. "Besides the cozy ambience, the Scarab also had another great appeal," Aguilar writes. Booze flowed at a time when Prohibition was the law of the land."
