Mexican Art - 20th Century

20th Century

See also: Mexican muralism See also: Generación de la Ruptura

The Academy of San Carlos continued to advocate classic, European-style training until 1913. In this year, the academy was partially integrated with the national university, the University of Mexico (UNAM). Between 1929 and the 1950s, the academy’s architecture program was split off as a department of the university; the programs in painting, sculpture, and engraving were renamed the National School of Expressive Arts, now the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas (ENAP). Both moved to the south of the city in the mid-20th century, to Ciudad Universitaria and Xochimilco respectively, leaving only some graduate programs in fine arts in the original academy building in the historic center. ENAP remains one of the main centers for the training of Mexico’s artists.

While a shift to more indigenous and Mexican themes appeared in the 19th century, the Mexican Revolution from 1910 to 1920 had a dramatic effect on Mexican art. The conflict resulted in the rise of the Partido Revolucionario Nacional (renamed the Partido Revolucionario Institucional), which took the country in a socialist direction. The government became an ally to many of the intellectuals and artists in Mexico City and commissioned murals for public buildings to reinforce its political messages including those that emphasized Mexican rather than European themes. These were not created for popular or commercial tastes; however, they gained recognition not only in Mexico, but in the United States. This production of art in conjunction with government propaganda is known as the Mexican Modernist School or the Mexican Muralist Movement, and it redefined art in Mexico. Octavio Paz gives José Vasconcelos credit for initiating the Muralist movement in Mexico by commissioning the best-known painters in 1921 to decorate the walls of public buildings. The commissions were politically motivated—they aimed to glorify the Mexican Revolution and redefine the Mexican people vis-à-vis their indigenous and Spanish past. The first of these commissioned paintings were at San Ildefonso done by Fernando Leal, Fermín Revueltas, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Diego Rivera. The first true fresco in the building was the work of Jean Charlot. However, technical errors were made in the construction of these murals: a number of them began to blister and were covered in wax for preservation. Roberto Montenegro painted the former church and monastery of San Pedro y San Pablo, but the mural in the church was painted in tempera and began to flake. In the monastery area, Montenegro painted the Feast of the Holy Cross, which depicts Vasconcelos as the protector of Muralists. Vasconcelos was later blanked out and a figure of a woman was painted over him.

The first protagonist in the production of modern murals in Mexico was Dr. Atl. Dr Atl was born “Gerard Murillo” in Guadalajara in 1875. He changed his name in order to identify himself as Mexican. Atl worked to promote Mexico’s folk art and handcrafts. While he had some success as a painter in Guadalajara, his radical ideas against academia and the government prompted him to move to more liberal Mexico City. In 1910, months before the start of the Mexican Revolution, Atl painted the first modern mural in Mexico. He taught major artists to follow him, including those who came to dominate Mexican mural painting.

The muralist movement reached its height in the 1930s with four main protagonists: Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, and Fernando Leal. It is the most studied part of Mexico’s art history. All were artists trained in classical European techniques and many of their early works are imitations of then-fashionable European paintings styles, some of which were adapted to Mexican themes. The political situation in Mexico from the 1920s to 1950s and the influence of Dr. Atl prompted these artists to break with European traditions, using bold indigenous images, lots of color, and depictions of human activity, especially of the masses, in contrast to the solemn and detached art of Europe. Preferred mediums generally excluded traditional canvases and church porticos and instead were the large, then-undecorated walls of Mexico’s government buildings. The main goal in many of these paintings was the glorification of Mexico’s pre-Hispanic past as a definition of Mexican identity. They had success in both Mexico and the United States, which brought them fame and wealth as well as Mexican and American students.

These muralists revived the fresco technique for their mural work, although Siqueiros moved to industrial techniques and materials such as the application of pyroxilin, a commercial enamel used for airplanes and automobiles. One of Rivera’s earliest mural efforts emblazoned the courtyard of the Ministry of Education with a series of dancing tehuanas (natives of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico). This four-year project went on to incorporate other contemporary indigenous themes, and it eventually encompassed 124 frescoes that extended three stories high and two city blocks long. The Abelardo Rodriguez Market was painted in 1933 by students of Diego Rivera, one of whom was Isamu Noguchi. Another important figure of this time period was Frida Kahlo, the wife of Diego Rivera. While she painted canvases instead of murals, she is still considered part of the Mexican Modernist School as her work emphasized Mexican folk culture and colors.

The first to break with the nationalistic and political tone of the muralist movement was Rufino Tamayo. For this reason, he was first appreciated outside of Mexico. Tamayo was a contemporary to Rivera, Siqueiros, and Orozco, and trained at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes. Like them, he explored Mexican identity in his work after the Mexican Revolution; however, he rejected the political Social Realism popularized by the three other artists and was rejected by the new establishment. He left for New York in 1926 where success allowed him to exhibit in his native Mexico. However, his lack of support for the post-Revolutionary government was controversial. Because of this, he mostly remained in New York, continuing with his success there and later in Europe. His rivalry with the main three Mexican muralists continued both in Mexico and internationally through the 1950s. Even a belated honorific of “The Fourth Great One” was controversial.

The first major movement after the muralists was the Rupture Movement, which began in the 1950s and 1960s with painters such as José Luis Cuevas, Gilberto Navarro, Rafael Coronel, Alfredo Casaneda, and sculptor Juan Soriano. They rejected social realism and nationalism and incorporated surrealism, visual paradoxes, and elements of Old World painting styles. This break meant that later Mexican artists were generally not influenced by muralism or by Mexican folk art. José Luis Cuevas created self-portraits in which he reconstructed scenes from famous paintings by Spanish artists such as Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Goya, and Picasso. Like Kahlo before him, he drew himself but instead of being centered, his image is often to the side, as an observer. The goal was to emphasize the transformation of received visual culture. Another important figure during this time period was Swiss-Mexican Gunther Gerzso, but his work was a “hard-edged variant” of Abstract Expressionism, based on clearly defined geometric forms as well as colors, with an effect that makes them look like low relief. His work was a mix of European abstraction and Latin American influences, including Mesoamerican ones. In the watercolor field we can distinguish Edgardo Coghlan and Ignacio Barrios who were not aligned to an specific artistic movement but were not less important.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, Neo-expressionist art was represented in Mexico by Manuel Felguerez, Teresa Cito, Alejandro Pinatado, and Jan Hendriz. These are often abstract, non-figurative works, full of color and contrast. Felguerez is a painter and engraver born in Zacatecas in 1928 who studied in Mexico City, Paris, and Russia. He had his first exhibition in abstract art in 1957. Since then, he has been prolific, producing up to 25 paintings per year and has done about thirty murals. In addition to these Mexican artists, a Swiss-German artist, Mathias Goeritz, was also important. Goertz was a painter, sculptor, and teacher active in Mexico until his death in 1990. He arrived to Mexico in 1949 after spending time in Spain, Morocco, and Granada. He began as a professor in Guadalajra, then opened the Museo Experimental El Eco in Mexico City in the 1950s. In the same decade, he created public sculptures including the Torres Satélite in Ciudad Satélite. In the 1960s, he became central to the development of abstract and other modern art along with José Luis Cuevas and Pedro Friedeberg.

In the mid 1980s, the next major movement in Mexico was Neomexicanismo, a slightly surreal, somewhat kitsch and postmodern version of Social Realism that focused on popular culture rather than history. The name neomexicanismo was originally used by critics to belittle the movement. Works were not necessarily murals: they used other mediums such as collage and often parodied and allegorized cultural icons, mass media, religion, and other aspects of Mexican culture. This generation of artists were interested in traditional Mexican values and exploring their roots—often questioning or subverting them. Another common theme was Mexican culture vis-à-vis globalization.

Art from the 1990s to the present is roughly categorized as Postmodern, although this term has been used to describe works created before the 1990s. Major artists associated with this label include Betsabee Romero, Monica Castillo, Francisco Larios, and Diego Toledo. The work of Betsabee Romeros is based on cars and car parts, especially tires. Born in 1963, her work mixes folk, pop, and modernist elements. Her most influential works are sculptural. One example is a reconstructed vintage Volkswagen Beetle with parts of the body replaced with straw, plastic roofing, and wood paneling. Another is a Minimalist-Surrealist-influenced piece in the shape of a car roof pushing up from under a gallery floor of wood veneer. She also creates cars and prints made from carved rubber tires. Monica Castillo of Mexico City is known for her postmodern, deconstructivist self-portraits in a variety of media. Francisco Larios creates ex-votos on his computer.

Despite maintaining an active national art scene, Mexican artists after the muralist period had a difficult time breaking into the international art market. One reason for this is that in the Americas, Mexico City was replaced by New York as the center of the art community, especially for patronage. Within Mexico, government sponsorship of art in the 20th century (dominated until 2000 by the PRI party) meant religious themes and criticism of the government were effectively censored. This was mostly passive, with the government giving grants to artists who conformed to their requirements. However, in 1999, La Colección Jumex opened as a permanent museum inside a Jumex factory in Ecatepec, outside Mexico City. Their multi-million dollar budget attracts galleries and museums from around the world. Kurimanzutto—a private gallery founded in 1999 by José Kui and Monica Manzutto—has promoted artists such as Minerva Cuevas, Daniel Guzmán, and Jonathan Hernández. These private galleries and museums have promoted more controversial and political artists who state-run institutions tend not to show. International exposure and private sales have made a number of Mexican artists independent of the government.

Mexican art reached another peak in the international art scene in the 1990s. Much of this return was due to existence of biennials, art fairs, and international exhibitions outside of Mexico. In 2002, than six major museums around the world had large-scale exhibitions devoted to Mexico. In 2003, Mexico Illustrated was a large scale project by Albright College with 61 artists and a budget of $500,000. The success of Mexican artists is demonstrated by their inclusion in galleries in New York, London, and Zurich. Despite the increased interest in Mexican fine art, challenges remain for Mexican artists hoping to break into the international art market. There is only one prominent art critic in Mexico, Cuauhtémoc Medina. With little native writing about Mexican art, symbolism, and trends, much modern Mexican art shown abroad is mislabeled or poorly described, as foreign institutions do not sufficiently understand or appreciate the political and social circumstances behind the pieces. The influences of the muralist period persist. Much of the art produced since the 1990s has been overlooked because it is not obviously "Mexican" (by the standards of Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros) and lacks references to stereotypical cultural references such as pyramids and indigenous people. Most modern Mexican artists have an international perspective concerned with a globalized world. For example, if pyramids appear, they are often mixed with images from other cultures such as geishas, yogis, and Chinese characters, which come from a recent fascination with Asia. Artists who have produced mostly Asian-themed works include Fernanda Brunet, Yushai Jusidman, and Pablo Vargas Lugo. Japanese comics and cartoons are a significant part of this fascination, which can include Hello Kitty and My Melody.