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MEXICO CITY — If there was a piece to summarize Mexico’s 2022 exhibition Venice Biennalewould be Naomi Rincón Gallardo dark allegory “Vermin Sonnet.” In the 20-minute video, a bat, a snake, a scorpion and a chorus of frogs desperately find their way through a futuristic world ravaged by environmental destruction and social disorder.
Rejected and isolated, these outcasts manage to communicate via radio signals and form their own alternative community – until a crocodile eats them all.
In an interview, Rincón Gallardo described his project as “a manifesto for unwanted genres” and said he hopes audiences in Italy capture the project’s “queer, infringing, destructive messages”.
With works like the “Vermin Sonnet” setting the tone, the Mexican pavilion is likely to be colorful this year, if not exactly jolly. The four artists will present objects that will, in one way or another, explore how the Spanish conquest of Latin America has disrupted the region and established the oppressive social systems that continue to affect the country. Widespread violence, racial discrimination, and the exploitation of land and people in the name of progress – these are not themes that Mexico’s tourism bureau might include in an exhibition meant to represent the nation.
But Mexico’s cultural agencies are different. Like many countries in the Americas, Mexico is in the midst of a long reckoning over how colonial-era civic and religious structures contribute to today’s inequality – and often pose a danger to women, minorities, Indigenous and indigenous communities. those who oppose the political order.
The country’s leading cultural authority, National Institute of Fine Arts and Letters, It aims to play a primary role – formally and formally – in fostering these tough discussions and letting the world know Mexico is looking down on its inner demons.
“In Mexico, during this time of government, we face these challenges as public policy,” said Lucina Jiménez, executive director of the institute, which oversees 18 museums and coordinates the Venice exhibition.
This government-sanctioned agitation led to its own cuts and even violence, especially in December 2019, when an angry crowd descended on the Palacio de Bellas Artes museum to protest the display of a painting. womanized an iconic image On the horseback of Emiliano Zapata, he presents the revolutionary hero of the early 20th century, naked except for a pink fedora and pistol-shaped high heels. The crowd eventually calmed down, but some were injured in the melee.
Ms. Jiménez, whose office is one floor above the museum’s exhibition space, immediately took to Twitter to announce the government’s support for the controversial work of artist Fabián Cháirez and the show that featured it: “In defense of freedom of creation and the exercise of the right to expression and diversity, our democracy dissolves.” Spanish.
This background is crucial to understanding how the institute came to embrace the biennial proposal of curators Catalina Lozano and Mauricio Marcin. As Ms. Lozano noted in an interview, they sought to bring together artists whose work explored ways of “doing, being, thinking about other things” that conflicted with common perceptions of how the country sees itself, what language it speaks, and how its government and state see it. businesses operate.
There are two Mexicos, he said: “Mexico embracing modernity, and Mexico resisting the colonial impulse of modernity.”
Exhibition, “Until the Spring of Songs” Marcin aims to “promote a rich diversity and heterogeneity in a single way of seeing Mexico.” In other words, not only is it a Spanish-speaking country with a 400-year post-conquest history, it also offers a collection of geography more than 20 centuries old, with 68 languages spoken, each conveying a different way of seeing. World.
In this way, “Songs Until Spring”, borrowed from a poem written by the Native ruler Temilotzin, who died in 1525, bridges the different periods.
Mariana Castillo Deball For example, “Calendar Fall Away” covers the entire floor of the 2,700-square-metre exhibition space with symbols that evoke official documents produced by both early Spanish colonists and pre-Columbian civilizations. Mexican. The confusion confirms contradictory forms of management and timekeeping, despite the emergence of Europe as dominant. Miss Castillo Deball also prints parts of the work that doubles as a template for display in Venice.
Santiago Borja“Talel” is a response to today’s textile trade, which uses the ancient weaving craft but ignores the human presence in the production process. Consisting of 23 large wool panels woven on traditional tread looms by female workers in Chiapas, this panel was designed to interpret the way science represents the human genome. Weavers were encouraged to create their own sewing and patterning methods and incorporate small, personal objects into their final work.
“The idea was to make each piece completely different because it was done by a different woman, but it’s a very subtle thing,” the artist said.
The fourth artist Fernando Palma RodriguezThe engineer trained and known for making low-tech robotic objects contributes.”Tetzahuitl”, a movement-activated work involving 43 children’s dresses hanging from a wooden structure. The word “tetzahuitl”, which comes from the native Náhuatl language, refers to deities whose appearances serve as harbingers of events.
Although its meaning is broader than that, the work aims to raise awareness about violence against women and minorities. The number 43 resonates deeply in Mexico and brings back memories. 43 “desaparecidosMale students who were kidnapped and “disappeared” in 2014 at a teachers’ college in Guerrero state have sparked years of protests against official corruption and organized crime.
The paradox of “Until the Spring of Songs” is that it contains anti-establishment messages despite being organized and funded by the federal government, the largest of all Mexican institutions. This was not lost on the curators or the team led by Ms. Jiménez, who said that while she may still seem a little war-weary with the Palacio de Bellas Artes event, they are committed to supporting challenging art. Several people involved in the making of the exhibition expressed their concerns about how the exhibition would be received in their home country. They’ll find out when the show will end in Venice and then embark on a national tour that starts in liberal-minded Mexico City and then travels to more conservative places like Monterrey and Guadalajara.
Participating artists feel a separate discomfort. All four have earned a reputation as subversives and critics of the government, and yet they are here, under Mexico’s green, white and red flag, representing a reality that Mr. Borja has described as “troublesome”. However, it can also be an extraordinary opportunity to rewrite the country’s story on the artists’ own terms.
“I always think it’s important to create a crack in every system,” said Ms. Rincón Gallardo, “and I’m trying to provide a crack in this narrative in the national pavilion.”
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