Checo Valdez, promoter of the community mural, died

Mexico City. The visual artist and cultural promoter Sergio Gabriel Valdez Ruvalcaba, famous for having coordinated the ephemeral mural Life and dreams of Cañada Perla, better known as The Taniperla mural, He died last Friday at the age of 84, his family reported.

The renowned fresco, created in 1998, was destroyed 44 hours later in a police-military operation. Almost three decades after its disappearance, the work has been reproduced more than 50 times in various cities around the world, such as Catalonia, Bilbao and Madrid, in Spain; San Francisco, in the United States; Venice, Italy; Bahía Blanca, Argentina, and Dublin, Ireland, as well as in Germany, Canada and Belgium.

A reproduction of the work will be displayed in the Museum of Living Muralism, which will soon be inaugurated in the former headquarters of the Secretariat of Public Education (SEP).

Ricardo Valdez, brother of the academic, estimated that the importance of the work The reason for this is that it gave outsiders the impression that the population was organized. The military saw this as a sign that in the communities where more and more murals were being reproduced, the inhabitants were more consciously organized; they were no longer able to enter so easily. As everyone participated, they communicated with each other and unified criteria for dealing with future situations..

In one of his last interviews with The Day, Checo Valdez explained: “I originally visited the municipality of Ricardo Flores Magón in February 1998 with the intention of designing some informational posters and meeting the Tseltal indigenous people. Three teachers were invited by Antonio Paoli, who was conducting cultural studies in the region.

“Later, the residents asked us to help with a sign for the municipal capital. When it was finished, a Zapatista authority asked me for advice on making a large painting. I was excited about the idea, because I am a promoter of group creativity. I had never worked with indigenous people before, nor had I done murals.

“The work integrates the ‘visual and creative’ community work of the Tseltal indigenous people: it captures their way of life, their worldview, their desire for progress, their purpose. I urge readers to decipher them. The indigenous people are wonderful. They are a different kind of people. I wish we would copy more of their things.”

At the time of his death, Valdez Ruvalcaba, born on March 23, 1940 in Mexico City, was working on a book between chronicle and methodology on the creative process of the participatory community mural, with emphasis on that of Taniperlareported her co-worker Fabiola Araiza.

According to Araiza, the text begins with the Army operation that sought to arrest the authorities of the first Zapatista rebel autonomous municipalityThe first three chapters are finished and the fourth only needs some stylistic correction.

The guardian of all colors has left me. He always believed in community creativity as a form of social organization.he added.

Checo Valdez also coordinated murals in Germany, where in 2015, after an invitation to Munich, the idea of ​​a festival celebrating community art and social struggle was born, which was held in Germany and Mexico. The artistic encounter not only honored the memory of Sergio Valdez and his work, but also fostered dialogue and collaboration between artists and activists from around the world. In 2016, in San Gregorio Atlapulco, Xochimilco municipality, he coordinated a mural with the same community concept.

Students remember his legacy

The teacher also trained at the National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving La Esmeralda; he was a cartoonist in the magazine Burst and together with personalities such as Rogelio Naranjo he founded La Garrapata. He also participated in the General Strike Council in 1968 and became a professor at the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM) in 1980.

Social media was filled with messages of condolences and tributes. Artists, activists and admirers of his work expressed their sorrow and recalled the influence and impact Valdez Ruvalcaba had on their lives and their communities. His contributions to art and his fighting spirit will forever remain in the collective memory.

For filmmaker Francisco Vargas, There are teachers who only teach classes and others who make a difference in lives. This is the case of Checo. In addition to making films, I teach at the Cinematographic Training Center, and I have transformed many of the pedagogical exercises of my former teacher to apply them to the seventh art..

UAM academic Teseo López Vargas said: Sergio was my teacher in the degree in social communication; he asked us to become sensitive and observant of reality, in addition to going to popular places in the Mexican capital, such as dance halls, town festivals, among other emblematic sites, such as La Villa and the Historic Center, so that we would become sensitive to the colors and flavors.

The remains of Sergio Gabriel Valdez Ruvalcaba were cremated and will be placed in the family crypt, located in the Dolores cemetery.