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On Tuesday, the San Francisco Supervisory Board voted 11-0 to start the process of designating a beloved Diego Rivera mural as a landmark after the San Francisco Art Institute, which owns the 50 million painting. dollars, said his sale would help pay $ 19.7. millions of debts.
Designating the mural as a landmark would significantly limit how the 150-year-old institution could capitalize on it, and public officials behind the measure say its sale is unlikely to be an option at this time. Removing the mural with landmark status would require the approval of the city’s Historic Preservation Commission, which has broad authority.
“There is a lot of money in this city,” said Aaron Peskin, board member for the district where the institute resides and sponsor of the proposal. “There are better ways to get out of their mess than a wacky plan to sell the mural.”
At a public hearing on the resolution on Monday, Art Institute officials opposed the idea. Pam Rorke Levy, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Art Institute, said: “Highlight the mural now, when there is no imminent threat of sale, without sufficient consideration of the position of SFAI, would deprive SFAI of its main and most valuable asset.
The 1931 work, titled “The Making of a Fresco Showing the Construction of a City”, is a fresco within a fresco. The painting depicts the creation of both a city and a mural – with architects, engineers, artisans, sculptors and painters at work. Rivera himself is seen from behind, holding a palette and brush, with his assistants. It is one of three San Francisco frescoes by the Mexican muralist, which had a huge influence on other artists in the city.
Years of costly expansion and declining enrollment have put SFAI in dire financial straits, made worse by the pandemic and default. Last July, a private bank announced it would sell the school’s collateral – including its Chestnut Street campus, the Rivera mural, and 18 other works of art – before the University’s Board of Regents California won’t step in to buy the debt in October. Thanks to a new agreement, the institute has six years to buy back the property; if not, the University of California would take possession of the campus.
Faced with the threat of foreclosure, school administrators searched for a suitable buyer, although Ms. Levy said that “the school’s first choice would be to equip the mural in place, attracting clients or an institution. partner who would create a substantial fund that would allow us to preserve, protect and present the mural to the public.
Last month, Ms. Levy presented two possibilities with board members and staff. One involved filmmaker George Lucas buying the mural for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles. (The museum said it would not comment on speculation about the acquisitions.) Another reportedly saw the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art appropriating the mural but leaving it on campus as an adjoining space.
But a museum spokeswoman said nothing came from the early talks. “We have no plans to acquire or equip the SFAI mural,” Jill Lynch, communications officer at SFMOMA, told The New York Times.
The Chestnut Street School campus has been a designated landmark since 1977, but it was possible that, as part of the interior, the mural was sold or removed.
In recent days, former students and teachers have organized to oppose any sale of the mural. Among them, the famous artist Catherine Opie, who published an open letter condemning the actions of the school board and announcing the withdrawal of a photograph that she had planned to sell during a fundraiser for the institute.
“I can no longer be part of a legacy that will sell a unique and essential piece of history,” she wrote.
After hearing that the mural was likely to be given historical status, Mrs. Opie sighed in relief.
“I am thrilled and relieved,” she told The Times. “I am tired of seeing art used as an asset in the first line of defense of institutions.”
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