People’s Murals: Some Events in American History featured seven murals commissioned by the museum highlighting historical and contemporary events in American history, including local issues and community-based activism intersecting with Third World struggles during this period. The murals were painted by prominent muralists that had been active since the emergence of the mural movement in the early 1970s, including figures like Miranda Bergman, Dewey Crumpler, and Horace Washington—as well as Graciela Carrillo (de Lopez) and Irene Pérez, who formed part of the collective Mujeres Muralistas (alongside Consuelo Méndez and Patricia Rodriguez) active in the Mission District. While the Mission had become a major hub for community murals and a vibrant community of muralists, the exhibition also showcased muralist practices across various San Francisco neighborhoods, reflecting a range of contemporary social and political struggles. For instance, Jim Dong and Nancy Hom’s mural, Struggle for Low-Income Housing (1976), highlighted the ongoing struggle of the Filipino community against gentrification and development in San Francisco’s Manilatown. The conflict came to a head when tenants of the International Hotel (predominantly immigrant elders) were given eviction notices by the landlord. The evictions set off years of protests and community actions, lasting from 1968 through 1977, catalyzing local solidarity and coalition-building among San Francisco’s minority communities. As part of this larger community-facing movement, as well as the proliferation of murals across city facades, the exhibition also included a commission with Bessie Carmicheal Elementary School made in collaboration with the students. The collaboration highlighted the centrality of murals in community education and art access. People’s Murals: Some Events in American History was the museum’s first major survey and commission-based project dedicated to community murals and the mural movement in the Bay Area.
Notably, the exhibition was organized during Castellón’s tenure as a curator at SFMOMA, following his role as the director of the Museum Intercommunity Exchange (M.I.X.) from 1972 to 1975. Founded by Sally Lilienthal, M.I.X. (1972–75) aimed to broaden the museum’s outreach and engagement with local communities to reflect the diversity of San Francisco by offering community events that included concerts, performances, exhibitions, and mural commissions, hosted both at the museum as well as public venues throughout various San Francisco neighborhoods. As part of its charge, M.I.X. sought to include artists of minorities within the museum’s exhibition circuit, launching the M.I.X. exhibition series. In its first year, Jenkins and Castellón served as the joint program director and coordinator of M.I.X. After 1972, Castellón directed the program until its discontinuation in 1975.
Rolando Castellón (b.1937) is a Nicaraguan artist and curator who moved to San Francisco in 1956 at the age of nineteen. During his time living in the Bay Area, he was a prominent advocate for community arts programming and minority artists, working actively as a practicing artist, curator, gallerist, and cultural worker. In the late 1960s, he became involved with Casa Hispana de Bellas Artes, serving as the director of artistic programs in 1969. Coming out of this work, Castellón became a cofounder of Galería de la Raza in 1970 and was elected as the Galería’s first director before it became more established and moved away from a cooperative model. After two years, he left Galería to work at SFMOMA, first as the program coordinator and art director of M.I.X. (1972–75), and later as a full-time curator (1975–81). After his appointments at SFMOMA, he served as the director of the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery at UC Santa Cruz (1982–92). During this time, he opened different iterations of Castellón Gallery, and curated exhibitions at various venues across San Francisco; among them, Drawings from the Fourth World at Meridian Gallery in 1989. In 1993, he moved back to Costa Rica, where he had briefly lived as a young boy, and was appointed the chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MADC) in 1994. He continues to live and work in San José, Costa Rica.
