The government of Argentina has pledged to rescue a mural painted by famed Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. Soon, it will be moved out of storage, mounted in downtown Buenos Aires, and restored to its original splendor.

A Sunday LA Times article described the strange history of "Plastic Exercise", initially painted in a basement:

    The mural, covering more than 2,000 square feet, was sliced into half a dozen sections, encased in metal and wood frames and yanked out by cranes in 1991. It was placed in metal shipping containers, loaded onto trucks and exiled unceremoniously to an outdoor industrial lot. There it has sat for 16 years, and still sits today, amid labyrinthine lawsuits and disputes about ownership.

Unlike most of his works, which include socialist imagery, "Plastic Exercise" is a tribute to Blanca Luz Brum, the poet Siqueiros fell madly in love with and married in 1932.

Although the marriage crumbled after four tumultous years, there is no doubt that the pair loved each other deeply. Brum described their relationship as follows: "I don’t believe that other human beings, man and woman, have loved each other with so much force, so much pureness and magnitude".

According to the article, the piece speaks volumes:

    "He was saying: ’I am painting you, I am glorifying you, I am possessing you. You are mine forever,’ " said Hugo Achugar, author of "False Memories," a novelized biography of Brum. "It’s as though he were putting her in a cube, putting her in a box, confining her, even as he knew he was losing her."

Here it is: