By ASHLEY ULRICH
Entering the Orozco Room of Baker-Berry library might make you feel like you are on sensory overload: Jose Clemente Orozco's panoramic mural confronts the viewer with scenes of war and torture, organized labor and ancient Aztecs. Last Friday, art history professor Mary Coffey discussed her original theories of Orozco's mural, "The Epic of American History," although she admits she is still far from finishing her analysis and still finds the mural "endlessly interesting."
Coffey's lecture, "Cortes and the Angel of History': Reflections on Orozco's Epic of American Civilization and Messianic Time'," was the first in the Manton Foundation's Orozco Lecture series, and was hosted in the Loew Auditorium of the Hood Museum.
Coffey began her lecture with a prelude about the philosophy of Walter Benjamin, a German-Jewish intellectual most prolific during the interwar years. Benjamin's "Theses on the Philosophy of History" served as a major inspiration in Coffey's interpretation of Orozco's mural, she said.
In "Theses," Benjamin rejects glorified representations of the past and the belief in a Messianic Age in which the coming of the Messiah transforms the world into a perfect society of peace. Benjamin believes that each generation has a "weak Messianic power" to enact changes within its society. The present must learn from the past, "for every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably," Benjamin wrote in his "Theses."
Orozco's "Epic," Coffey argued, similarly tries to avoid glorifying the past or promoting a utopian future. In his mural, Orozco provokes questions about the nature of progress throughout history, Coffey said.
Orozco's mural examines this question of progress by depicting the relationship between the indigenous people of Mexico and the white settlers who reshape the natives' society with the arrival of Cortez in 1519, Coffey said. Orozco's concerns with modern Mexican's issues of race and identity are common themes in his art.
In his mural, Orozco traces the transformation of an ancient Mexican state into a modern one. He avoids portraying the past as a simplified "Golden Age" and instead includes images of rigorous physical labor and barbaric human sacrifice, Coffey said.
Orozco, a famed Mexican muralist, painted his "Epic" in the basement of Baker Library from 1932 to 1934, according to Coffey. While at Dartmouth, Orozco also taught classes as a visiting professor, she said.
The mural is separated into two parts pre-Columbian and post-Columbian evolution of Mexico, Coffey said. This thematic division is also physically manifested by the architecture of the Orozco Room, in which the Reserves desk provides a physical break between the two parts. The mural is sectioned into 24 scenes, and in its entirety covers 3,000 feet of wall space, according to the Dartmouth Library website.
Orozco's painting is rife with symbolism and iconography that draws on Aztec images as well as modern and Christian symbols, Coffey said. This technique highlights parallels between the pre-Columbian and post-Columbian scenes of Orozco's mural, and demonstrates the way in which certain ironies and weaknesses of government and religion continue to persist today, she said.
Orozco also refrains from giving viewers an optimistic conclusion to the race struggles in his mural, Coffey said. Only the final scene holds some hope a young, reclining soldier reads a book, with the iron skeleton of a building's framework rising behind him. Although the soldier's race is unclear, although he could be Mestizo, or of mixed European and Native American heritage, Coffey said.
Coffey reads in Orozco's soldier a sense of measured optimism, the idea that through understanding and tolerance, race relationships may improve. The soldier transcends race and class, instead reflecting quietly and reading a book, she said.
Coffey noted that the soldier's pose is based on an earlier sketch Orozco made titled "The Dartmouth Man." The sketch is a sort of stock image of what a typical Dartmouth student may have looked like in the early 1930s tall, athletic and white.
Coffey said in an interview with The Dartmouth that the main reason she is so interested in Orozco and the "Epic" in particular is that the artist refrains from directly stating any messages in his works.
"I feel like this mural endlessly fascinates me," Coffey said. "My ideas keep evolving."
Coffey categorized the themes in Orozco's work as "very political, very open."
"They don't hit you over the head," Coffey said. "He hasn't told us what to think."
Coffey's interest in politics drew her to studying murals, she said.
"I was looking for a way towards that and public art was the best way for me," Coffey said.
Coffey completed her dissertation on Mexican muralism and although she originally focused on muralist Diego Rivera, she eventually found her way to Orozco, she said.
"For a long time, Orozco was sort of dwarfed by Rivera," Coffey said. "Since the Dartmouth catalog and exhibition, Orozco has gotten a lot more attention."
Coffey also noted how Orozco's work has been very relevant to modern viewers, more so than some of his contemporaries' work.
"In many ways, his work now seems more relevant," Coffey said. "Orozco meditates so much on war and violence, and because his work doesn't have the same period markers of socialism and Marxism, he seems more vital, more contemporary."
Coffey first came to the College to speak as a guest lecturer in 2002 and saw a job opening advertised in the art history department a year later.
"Orozco sort of brought me here in the first place," Coffey said.
In her career, Coffey has unknowingly managed to work at institutions with large exhibitions of Orozco's work in the same progression in which the artist painted those works.
"Throughout my career, I've unintentionally followed Orozco's works at Pomona [College], [New York University] and now Dartmouth," Coffey said. "I guess to continue the trend I'd have to return to Guadalajara next."
Friday's lecture was the first in a series of Orozco lectures, funded by a Manton Foundation donation to the College, according to Hood Museum curator Michael Taylor. In 2008, the foundation donated $1 million for preservation and education programs relating to the Orozco mural, according to a College press release. The Manton Foundation donated an additional $3 million to the College to create an endowment to support the Digital Library Program at Baker-Berry, according to the press release.
