the hidden history of the arnautoff mural

THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE ARNAUTOFF MURAL By David Bacon The Stansbury Forum, 6/28/19 https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-hidden-history-of-arnautoff-mural.html https://stansburyforum.com/2019/06/28/the-hidden-history-of-the-arnautoff-mural I respect the feelings of the students who testified at the San Francisco Board of Education meeting about the mural at George Washington High School, and their desire to have their communities and histories treated in a respectful way.  They deserve, not just respect, but solidarity in fighting the pervasive racism and exploitation in our society.  The mural was painted in solidarity with that fight.  I think it is a mistake, therefore, to interpret it as a symbol of colonialism, white supremacy and oppression. The mural was created in 1936 by Victor Arnautoff, a Russian immigrant and a Communist, who painted it as a critique of the racist boosterism that was the way high school history was taught in that era (even when I was in high school in the early 60s).  The 1930s were the years when the left and the Communist movement were strong in San Francisco.  These were the years of the General Strike of 1934, which broke the color line on the docks - the reason the longshore union created in that strike, Local 10 of the ILWU, is a majority-African American union today.  These were the years of the organization of the Chinese Workers Mutual Aid Association in San Francisco, many of whose members belonged to the Communist Party. Arnautoff belonged to the Communist Party as well.  In that party African American and white longshore and Chinese laundry and garment workers and red painters like Arnautoff would have undoubtedly known each other and talked about the politics they shared.  Fighting racism and class exploitation, and supporting revolutionary movements against imperialism, was the common ground among those radicals - the basis of their politics.  For an artist like Arnautoff, painting was therefore a political act, a responsibility to oppose racism and class exploitation in the art he produced. The mural he painted in the high school was a critique of earlier murals produced for the Pan American Exposition, an imperialist celebration and world's fair on Treasure Island, paid for by San Francisco's wealthy elite.  That "official" artwork showed California history as the advance of "civilization" triumphing over "savagery."  The Admiral Dewey statue in Union Square, celebrating the colonization of the Philippines, was the same kind of art produced in that earlier era.  An even uglier example is the art shown in the Forbidden Book, a book and exhibition of racist and imperialist cartoons collected by Abraham Ignacio and published a few years ago.  This is what Arnautoff was reacting against.  When the WPA, that is, the New Deal, began paying unemployed artists, it meant that artwork could be created that didn't have to please the Crockers and other elite San Francisco families, and could therefore tell the truth about U.S. history.  Arnautoff's murals were a product of that short-lived political space. When the mural shows the grey hordes of settlers advancing past the body of a dead Native American, it was a powerful truth for that time, especially because these settlers are being urged onward by George Washington.  The school was named for Washington, so Arnautoff's message to students was to take a hard look at who he was.  Showing that the wealth is being produced by Black slaves, for the rich white colonial merchants who owned them, is telling the truth again.  It doesn't glorify slavery - it attacks it, and even more important, it shows who got rich from it.  Washington was a plantation slave-owner. Two sections of the Arnautoff mural at George Washington High School.

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Exhibition Schedule
Exhibitions of photographs are scheduled for the following venues and dates:

In the Fields of the North / En los campos del norte
Scheduled exhibitions:

June 16, 2019 - August 18, 2019
The Museum of Ventura County's Agricultural Museum, Santa Paula
September 1, 2019 - December 22, 2019
Hi-Desert Nature Museum, Yucca Valley
January 5, 2020 - March 1, 2020
Community Memorial Museum of Sutter County, Yuba City
March 15, 2020 - June 21, 2020
Los Altos History Museum, Los Altos
March 21, 2021 - May 23, 2021
Carnegie Arts Center, Turlock

In Washington’s Fields 
Scheduled exhibition:

February 5, 2020 - July 15, 2020
Washington State History Museum, Tacoma, WA

More Than a Wall - The Social Movements of the Border
Scheduled exhibition:

August 29,, 2020 - November 29,, 2020
San Francisco Public Library

 

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In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte
Photographs and text by David Bacon
University of California Press / Colegio de la Frontera Norte
302 photographs, 450pp, 9”x9”
paperback, $34.95 (in the U.S.)

order the book on the UC Press website:
ucpress.edu/9780520296077
use source code  16M4197  at checkout, receive a 30% discount

En Mexico se puede pedir el libro en el sitio de COLEF:
https://www.colef.mx

Los Angeles Times reviews In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte - clickhere
 

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En los campos del Norte documenta la vida de trabajadores agrícolas en Estados Unidos -
Entrevista con el Instituto Nacional de la Antropologia y Historia
http://www.inah.gob.mx/es/boletines/6863-en-los-campos-del-norte-documenta-la-vida-de-trabajadores-agricolas-en-estados-unidos

Entrevista en la television de UNAM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdSaBKZ_k0o

David Bacon comparte su mirada del trabajo agrícola de migrantes mexicanos en el Museo Archivo de la Fotografia
http://www.cultura.cdmx.gob.mx/comunicacion/nota/0038-18

Trabajo agrícola, migración y resistencia cultural: el mosaico de los “Campos del Norte”
Entrevista de David Bacon por Iván Gutiérrez / A los 4 Vientos
http://www.4vientos.net/2017/10/04/trabajo-agricola-migracion-y-resistencia-cultural-el-mosaico-de-los-campos-del-norte/

"Los fotógrafos tomamos partido"
Entrevista por Melina Balcázar Moreno - Milenio.com Laberinto
http://www.milenio.com/cultura/laberinto/david_baconm-fotografia-melina_balcazar-laberinto-milenio_0_959904035.html

Das Leben der Arbeiterschaft auf Ölplattformen des Irak
http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=25973

Die Kunst der Grenze
http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=24304Notruf für "eine andere Welt"
http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=24087

Die Apfel-Pflücker aus dem Yakima-Tal
http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=23990
 

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"Documenting the Farm Worker Rebellion"
"The Radical Resistance to Immigration Enforcement"
Havens Center lectures, University of Wisconsin, click here

San Francisco Commonweallth Club presentation by David Bacon and Jose Padilla, clickhere

EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE:  Farm worker photographs on the U.S./Mexico border wall
http://us7.campaign-archive2.com/?u=fc67a76dbb9c31aaee896aff7&id=0644c65ae5&e=dde0321ee7
Entrevista sobre la exhibicion con Alfonso Caraveo (Español)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJeE1NO4c_M&feature=youtu.beTHE REALITY CHECK - David Bacon blog
http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com

Cat Brooks interview on KPFA about In the Fields of the North
https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=263826  - Advance the time to 33:15

Book TV: A presentation of the ideas in The Right to Stay Home at the CUNY Graduate Center
http://booktv.org/Watch/14961/The+Right+to+Stay+Home+How+US+Policy+Drives+Mexican+Migration.aspx

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Other Books by David Bacon

The Right to Stay Home:  How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration  (Beacon Press, 2013)
http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2328

Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants  (Beacon Press, 2008)
Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008
http://www.beacon.org/Illegal-People-P780.aspx

Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100558350

The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004)
http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520244726

En Español:

EL DERECHO A QUEDARSE EN CASA  (Critica - Planeta de Libros)
http://www.planetadelibros.com.mx/el-derecho-a-quedarse-en-casa-libro-205607.html

HIJOS DE LIBRE COMERCIA (El Viejo Topo)
http://www.tienda.elviejotopo.com/prestashop/capitalismo/1080-hijos-del-libre-comercio-deslocalizaciones-y-precariedad-9788496356368.html?search_query=david+bacon&results=1

For more articles and images, see  http://dbacon.igc.org and http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com
and https://www.flickr.com/photos/56646659@N05/albums