Smiling teenagers gather for a selfie in front of a Siqueiros mural: this is what a living cultural heritage is all about. Proof of the aesthetic and historical value of art is that these works by modernist master David Alfaro Siqueiros continue to delight the viewer.

VIDEO: La Tallera: Siqueiros exhibit

Inside the El Cubo Museum at CECUT on Thursday night, October 30, hundreds and hundreds of people packed the house at 7:00 pm, gathering in eager anticipation of the opening of the exhibition La Tallera: fábrica en movimiento de David Alfaro Siqueiros (The Workshop: Factory in Movement of David Alfaro Siqueiros). This engaging multimedia show brings together the famous murals of Siqueiros alongside his artist sketches and models, documents, photographs and videos, giving the viewer an inside look at the artistic process of one of Mexico's three most important 20th-century muralists.

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The entrance to Gallery 1 features a scale model of the famous Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros in Mexico City, a building designed and decorated by David Alfaro Siqueiros in the 1960s hosting the world's largest mural work called "La Marcha de la Humanidad." The exhibition features facsimile models of eleven panels of this famous mural, beautifully installed, allowing visitors plenty of space to get up close and examine the detail in this masterwork.

Science and technology folks will also find lots to explore in this show. In many works on view we can see the results of Siqueiros's fascination with physics and fluid dynamics. In the 1930s, Siqueiros began to experiment with the viscosity of paint: he invited scientists to his studio to discuss the physics behind his work, developing a technique called "accidental painting," pouring different paints onto a panel and allowing them to mix, react and coalesce into experimental works of art.

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On hand to inaugurate the show was María Cristina García Cepeda, director of the National Institute of the Arts (Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes) in Mexico City who remarked that the show was made possible only through the tenacity and determination of the director of CECUT, Pedro Ochoa Palacio. Joining them were Carlos Villareal, regional director of Aeroméxico, Manuel Bejarano, director of the Institute of Culture of Baja California, Marco Antonio Labastida, president of the Seminario of Culture, and Tonatiuh Guillen, president of COLEF, Colegio of the Frontera Norte. Special guest Architect Manuel Rosen Morrison, one of the principal architects who designed and built CECUT in 1982, joined the group in celebration of the 32nd Anniversary of CECUT.

The impressive mural Maternidad (Motherhood) -- 16 by 28 feet in size and weighing more than a ton-- painted by Siqueiros between 1971 and 1973 greets visitors in the vestibule entrance of El Cubo, and this work is on public view free of charge. The complete exhibition is on view through January 2015 in Gallery 1 of El Cubo in CECUT. Cost of admission is $4.00 for the general public, Sundays are free.

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jill.holslin@sandiegored.com