Faculty News - Professor Michele Greet

Over spring break, Professor Michele Greet traveled with 11 students from her Mexican Muralism seminar to Mexico City. The trip was part of Mason's new initiative to embed study abroad into regular semester courses, and the class received a competitive Global Discovery Grant to cover half of the student's travel costs. The seminar focuses on the study of the murals (wall paintings) executed in Mexico City during the years following the Mexican Revolution – 1910 to 1920 – until the 1950s, with an emphasis on works by the so-called Big Three: Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco.

Murals, by their very nature, are site specific, meaning that to fully understand and appreciate them, they must be observed in person. Because murals were painted on the walls of public buildings throughout Mexico City, they could not be bought or sold; hidden away in bourgeois homes, museums, or galleries; or limited for viewing only by elite patrons. In direct contrast to bourgeois art, the murals depicted workers and their struggles, educational initiatives, and indigenous customs and festivals as a means to valorize Mexican culture. Seeing and experiencing these murals in person in their original context was an amazing experience for the students. Entering the buildings and the city where the murals were painted facilitated a new level of understanding of the relationship between architecture and wall painting, the flow of viewers through the space, and the experience of interacting with large-scale narrative images.

In addition to visiting many of the most famous mural sites throughout the city, the class took a day trip to Teotihuacan to climb the ancient pyramids of the sun and moon and walk along the Avenue of the Dead. They also visited numerous museums, including the National Anthropology Museum, the Aztec Templo Mayor, the National Cathedral, the Dolores Olmedo Museum, and Frida Kahlo's house.