Rumor has it that, somewhere in New York City, sometime during the mid-20th century, the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera had a chance meeting with the Filipino painter Victorio Edades. This storied encounter centered around a formative conversation about the political power of murals, wherein both artists chatted with great gusto about how they’d paint their respective revolutions. While there is no real evidence as to whether this meeting actually took place, the tropical alliance the story suggests galvanized artists for generations to come adaqq.
And so, a mural Edades painted with Galo B. Ocampo and Carlos “Botong” Francisco—Mother Nature’s Bounty (1935)—opens “Tropical: Stories from Southeast Asia and Latin America” at the National Gallery Singapore. The show surveys shared formal and political sensibilities in art from the two tropical regions, all made in the 20th century. This trio painted the Philippine revolution, borrowing motifs from the Mexican muralists with whom they share a colonizer: Spain. Both groups painted scenes packed with workers, whose bodies are rendered sturdy and statuesque, forming all-over compositions.
