Art in limbo: like watching paint dry

David Alfaro Siqueiros, who influenced a generation of Latin American artists, painted one remarkable mural here whose odyssey after his death in 1974 is as surreal as the artwork itself.

The mural he called “Ejercicio Plastico” upon its completion in 1933 is not on exhibit in any museum. Nor can it be found in a private collection. It lies just beyond this city’s reaches, disassembled and packed in corroding steel containers in an open-air storage yard.

Because of a 12-year custody battle, the artwork by Siqueiros -- one of Mexico’s legendary muralists alongside Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco -- is locked in legal limbo. Critics complain the masterpiece is being left to the elements in a crane depot on the outskirts of the capital.

The modernistic work -- whose title means “Plastic Exercise” -- is hailed as a critical link in the development of modern Latin American muralism: a vast seascape filled with wide-eyed nudes, its undulating female forms once graced the walls, floors and vaulted ceiling of the affluent country home of the late Argentine newspaper magnate, Natalio Botana.

“In other parts of the world, this mural would be valued, exhibited, enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people,” said Teresa de Anchorena, an official at Argentina’s Secretary of Culture, which is seeking to preserve the masterpiece.

It almost becomes “a laboratory for Siqueiros to enact revolutionary painting theories,” said Mari Carmen Ramirez, curator of Latin American art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

“It is a piece we are only beginning to understand. That is why it is so important that it be seen.”

Ramirez is trying to bring the mural to Houston for an exhibition in 2004, provided the legal wrangling that has left the work out of public view for decades can be resolved. Despite an eight-year legal dispute, Argentina’s courts continue to study who rightfully controls the masterpiece.

After Botana’s death in 1941, his country estate passed through a succession of owners while the mural languished, grew moldy and was partly defaced when the house was left unoccupied. In 1989, a company controlled by Argentine businessman Hector Mendizabal purchased the property and the mural, hoping to exhibit it.

Under Mendizabal’s supervision, the mural was painstakingly removed, its fragile surfaces carefully divided into seven sections -- some as thin as egg shells. But the company fell on hard times and sold the dismantled mural in 1994 to Dencanor, an Uruguayan holding company.

Since then, creditors of the previous company have staked claim to the mural, and the case has stalled in Argentina’s sluggish court system.

Reports released by restoration teams in February suggest erratic temperatures and leaky confines are corroding the mural’s metal supports.

The report reinforced the position of Argentina’s Secretary of Culture, the government agency that had petitioned for custodial authority over the mural last July until creditors sort out their financial grievances.

But Dencanor officials have objected to government involvement, triggering a fiery debate and a list of accusations by its legal team against the government.

“This case is totally between private parties where the state has no right to interfere,” said Mirta Barutti, a Dencanor lawyer. “It is as if you are getting divorced from your spouse and the state tells you it is taking over your house until the trial ends.”

Ruben Stella, who heads the Argentine Secretary of Culture, claims the government’s legal move is to rescue the work from its eventual destruction. He said if the state is granted caretaker status, the mural will be moved indoors, exhibited and cooperatively restored with the aid of the Mexican government under a bilateral cultural accord.