In a gesture of civic optimism, Diego Rivera’s great mural of 1940 was gifted to the City College of San Francisco shortly after its completion. Seeking to increase the mural’s exposure, the college commissioned a traveling exhibit structure that could be integrated into the academic curricula.
Together with artist Ben Trautman, we conceived of the exhibit as a vortex of translucent panels on a wood and steel scaffold with an interactive computer table at its center.
The panels display a reduced reproduction of the mural, the story of its creation and full-sized “out-takes” from the mural to express its huge scale. The design reinterprets Rivera’s esthetic concept with a blending of organic and machine forms; natural and industrial materials. Among other venues, the exhibit was installed at the DeYoung Museum and the State of California Building in San Francisco.
http://www.riveramural.org