The art of the deal

In Hollywood, he could be mistaken for one of the crowd, just another would-be filmmaker with a script under his arm and a hand out for the money to make it.

But David Siqueiros has assets nobody else can claim -- the same surname as world-renowned painter David Alfaro Siqueiros and a private collection of works by the artist who spearheaded Mexico’s 20th century mural movement.

Plus, the aspiring producer has a nonchalant willingness to convert his rare collection into cash.

Siqueiros, 42, whose bullfighter father was a first cousin of the revolutionary muralist, has started selling the paintings to help raise the $1.5 million he needs to turn the script he wrote into a motion picture. The novice moviemaker says he has no qualms about divesting himself of historic family treasures to realize his own artistic vision on the silver screen.

“I don’t have a problem with it,” says Siqueiros during lunch near the Sunset Strip office of his company, Via Hollywood. “It’s art for art, and I think my uncle would be happy with it.”

High-quality works by Alfaro Siqueiros (who used his maternal surname to sign his work and whom David calls an uncle, following Mexican tradition) are rarely available for sale in the U.S., experts say, due in part to patrimony laws that prevent his art from being taken out of Mexico without permission. The younger Siqueiros says his collection -- which once totaled about 15 pieces, some inherited, some acquired -- was brought here legally before the restrictions took effect.

Art lovers gasp at the thought of marketing precious paintings for a gamble as risky as a first-time movie. But Siqueiros, who came to California at 21 and made a career in Spanish-language television and advertising, says he’s confident because people have reacted positively to his script.

Titled “Mazedo,” it’s a trans-border story about the personal identity crisis of a yuppified Mexican American with an Anglicized surname. He’s an affluent Orange County investment banker forced to face his cultural roots when he reluctantly undertakes a 24-hour business trip to Mexico City.

Veteran actor Edward James Olmos has signed on to play the lead character’s long-lost Mexican father. Olmos, who is co-producing, says he was drawn to the script’s dark humor, which he believes makes it marketable.

But the star of “Zoot Suit” and “Selena” has no illusions. Olmos recalls it took him five years to raise the $1.3 million to make 1988’s “Stand and Deliver” -- and he didn’t have any Alfaro Siqueiros works to sell.

“All films are hard to make,” Olmos says, “and low-budget films are the hardest.”

Siqueiros is already three years -- and three sold paintings -- into his project. In 2000, he auctioned the works through Christie’s in New York. The sale totaled $251,000, almost half for a 1945 portrait titled “El Revolucionario.” He started using the money for pre-production, mostly travel and entertainment to schmooze potential investors and talent.

Siqueiros suffered a recent setback when a Mexican government film agency decided not to back his film. Without that money, he’s been forced to sell more paintings than he originally had planned.

His collection of framed works line the walls of his large, one-room office near the Roxy nightclub. Passersby have no idea that a mini-museum of Mexican art exists on the fifth floor of a nondescript office building on the rowdy Strip.

Through word of mouth, however, private collectors are already bidding on items. Music publisher and former record executive Maximo Aguirre has just paid $170,000 for a large framed figure of a graceful kneeling nude, a 1956 study for a mural at the Oncology Hospital in Mexico City. Two others, also from the 1950s, are “El Desafio” (Defiance), a bold portrait of the painter’s late wife Angelica, and “Hombre Remando” (Man Rowing), a less remarkable rendering of a muscled man with an oar.

Siqueiros hopes to raise $500,000, about a third of his movie budget, through the sale. He offers certificates, signed by the painter’s stepdaughter, Adriana Siqueiros, as authentication of the pieces he’s currently selling.

Another prospective buyer is Zack de la Rocha, former front man of Rage Against the Machine. The Chicano rocker and son of artist Beto de la Rocha has his eye on a smaller work called “El Arrivo” (The Arrival), depicting a couple walking toward a daunting horizon, evoking the uncertain journey of immigrants.

Siqueiros says he’s not eager to sell that piece, which he considers one of the best in his remaining collection of half a dozen works. Still, he offered De la Rocha a deal: a good price in exchange for writing some music for the movie.

Many people think of Alfaro Siqueiros primarily as a muralist. But he did hundreds of easel paintings, including commissioned portraits and many mural studies. The quality varies, experts say, but some are as dramatic as his wall art.

“It’s a stereotype that he only painted murals” says Diana C. du Pont, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, which in 1998 hosted “Portrait of a Decade: David Alfaro Siqueiros, 1930-40,” an exhibition of his paintings. “He was very prolific as an easel painter and this [exhibition] was able to show how his genius existed in these different forms. In a smaller area, you have this incredible intensity.”

Two years ago, the Santa Barbara museum unveiled the only existing Alfaro Siqueiros mural in the United States, which was moved from Los Angeles. That work, “Portrait of Mexico Today, 1932,” is one of three murals painted by Alfaro Siqueiros during his political exile here in 1932. The controversial work he did at Olvera Street, “America Tropical,” is badly faded after being whitewashed and abandoned. The artist died in 1974 before completing panels intended to re-create it.

“We consider him one of the major figures in modern art, whether from Mexico or wherever,” says Du Pont.

Prices for Alfaro Siqueiros pieces are rising and approaching the million-dollar mark, according to Mary-Anne Martin, a veteran New York art dealer.

“For quite a while, they were a good value,” says Martin, who helped pioneer the Latin American department at Sotheby’s in the late 1970s.

“His work did not shoot up, let’s say, as dramatically as the work of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and some other artists. Now, first-class examples [of Alfaro Siqueiros’ work] are getting harder and harder to find and more and more expensive.”

Siqueiros was 12 when his famous relative died. He recalls that the artist “really loved my father,” whose bullfighting nickname was Tabaquito.

“He was such a huge personality, but he was the kindest person,” Siqueiros recalls of the artist. “He was getting old, I remember. He had his white hair and the last few years he was very sick. But he always liked to pat you on the head. I don’t know why, he just liked kids. And he loved for people to speak French to him.”

After the artist’s death, Siqueiros started helping his widowed aunt sell paintings, the teenager escorting millionaire customers to the Siqueiros family home.

He remained close to the late Angelica, “my auntie,” and confesses a twinge of regret for having to give up her portrait.

“That’s the one I would least like to sell,” says Siqueiros, who has a vague family resemblance. “That’s my auntie’s face.”

But he has one condition: He won’t sell to resellers or galleries, only to private collectors who share a personal appreciation for the work.

“I want to be very careful who gets it,” he says. “It’s like selling a pet. I want to make sure it goes to a good home.”