About
Megan Flattley is a historian of art and visual culture, whose work examines artists and movements that challenge the distinction between art and politics and that envision liberatory futures. She is currently working on her first book project – a re-examination of the art and politics of Mexican Muralist Diego Rivera. The project analyzes Rivera’s appropriation of the spatiality and form of pre-Conquest visual culture (particularly the tradition of Mexica pictography) as well as that of the Mexican Baroque and European Avant-Gardes and asserts that the resultant picto-architectural space formalizes and visualizes the artist’s politics.
Megan holds a PhD in Art History and Latin American Studies from Tulane University, with certification in Community-Engaged Scholarship (2024). She attended the University of Michigan with the support of a Pell Grant and received her Bachelor’s degree in the History of Art (2014).
Fields of Study
Modern and Contemporary Art
Art and/as Politics
Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture
Murals and Street Art
Socialist Realism
Decolonial Theory
Community-Engaged Research, Pedagogy, and Curatorial Practices
Publications:
"From the Motor City to a Mural City: The Legacy of Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry," in "Painting the Town Red? 100 Years of Muralism and the Left," Art & the Public Sphere 13(1): 29-45.
“Still La Chingada: Socialist Utopia On and As the Female Nude in Diego Rivera’s Chapingo Cycle,” in ‘Modernist Bodies’, Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, 6(1): 105-110.
“Community-Driven Curating in Per(Sister): Incarcerated Women of Louisiana” in ‘Curating as Social Justice’ (special issue) The Journal of Curatorial Studies, 10:2, Fall 2021.
“Integrating Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion into Social Innovation Education: A Case Study of Critical Service-Learning” (co-author), Social Enterprise Journal, vol.18 No.1, pp.182-200.
“Michigan Mural History,” Michigan Post Office Murals Project, https://michiganmurals.hart.lsa.umich.edu/index.php
https://smarthistory.org/author/megan-flattley/
