Friday 9 March 2012

'RESISTING THE PRESENT. MEXICO 2000-2012' AT MUSEE D'ART MODERNE DE LA VILLE DE PARIS A PRE-PREVIEW

The exhibition 'Resisting the Present. Mexico 2000-2012', finally opened a year later after when it was supposed to open, this due to the 2011 cultural scandal prompted by President Sarkozy after he said that he would dedicate every opening act of the Year of Mexico in France to call for the liberation of French citizen Florence Cassez, who is serving a 60-year prison sentence in Mexico for being accomplice of her kidnapper boyfriend. Immediately after Sarkozy's declarations, Mexico canceled the 350 mexican cultural events which were planned to happen during 2011 in France.


Tercer un Quinto's USD 50,000 sign machine-gunned into the wall, a reference to the corruption of the system by the drug business, but also a parallel with the corruption of the artists by the art world

up the stairs, wallpaper by Erik Beltran and Jorge Satorre, a series of caricature drawings based on the idea of the Modelling Standard the historiographic turn introduced by Carlo Ginzburg in the 1970s which focused on localised, popular and disregarded micro-histories rather than universal, over-arching versions


exhibition text by the curators Angeline Scherf and Angeles Alonso Espinosa

Pablo Sigg's and Jonathan Hernandez' Femur of a Mexican  elephant, based on Broodthaers femur of a Belgian man and femur of a French women from 1964-65 and also painted in their respective national colours

film maker Carlos Reygadas' film of a female football match


Carlos Amorales's gothic meets Gabriel Orozco's povera in the work of Arturo Hernandez Alcazar, Black Kites




New Mexican Muralism meets Oaxacan School of Painting in the work of Bayrol Jimenez



act of social psycomagia by Alejandro Jodorowsky for those that have died in Mexico's drug war


Hector Zamora's 'Credibility Crisis', fans and wind cones


Jodorowsky's original drawings for the FAbulas PAnicas and new coloured word drawings





Jorge Mendez Blake's 'Castle', brick wall with Franz Kafka's edition of The Castle underneath it (the scaffolding tower was part of the installation and was removed later)




Gonzalo Lebrija's man against the wall




Ilan Liberman's 100 drawings of disappeared children in Mexico


projection of Jodorowsky's tweets






Minerva Cuevas investigation into the Rio Grande, the frontier of Mexico to the north with the USA, and which became its frontier after the USA ambition for land supported Texas' independence from Mexico in the 1830s and its forced annexation to the USA



Juan Pablo Macias, Anarchy Library, books covered with sandpaper



Mariana Castillo Deball's fragments of a fiber glass sculpture from a cast of the Coatlicue Scultpure, Aztec earth goddess, symbol of the earth as both creator and destroyer, mother of the gods and mortals.


Marcela Armas, upside down Mexico, its profile made by a moving chain splattered with oil


Jonathan Hernandez' collage on the recent political and cultural conflict between France and Mexcio




one of the best works of the exhibition, Diego Berruecos' 'La Solucion somos Todos' research and rephotograph of the photos found at the Archivo General de la Nacion of the 1976 PRI campaign of Jose Lopez Portillo, where he won the elections with 96% of the votes and without there being another candidate. Lopez Portillo later became known as El Perro (the dog) after he said he would defend the mexican peso like a dog, a few days before a huge devaluation of the currency



Lopez Portillo beign Messianic


Lopez Portillo doing some arm wrestling

Lopez Portillo's wife Carmen Romano, Lopez Portillo left her for Sasha Montenegro a soft porn actress


Lopez Portillo wearing a jorongo with his initials


Lopez Portillo on a Mexican elephant


Adriana Lara's masterpiece from 2006 'Art Film I. Ever Present Yet Ignored', where a group of existential teenagers think about the meaning of art in italian, while walking through an exhibition produced for the film by Lara



Adriana Lara's Alien canvas


and back to the Mexican elephant femur

and a bit of french realism to counter balance the Mexican realite: homeless sleeping outside the Palais de Tokyo in the patio of the Musee de Art Moderne. (Yes Francis Alys, people also sleep in the streets in Paris).


press release:
Resisting the Present, Mexico 2000/2012
Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris
9 March-8 June 2012


The Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris presents an exhibition at ARC entitled “Resisting the Present, Mexico 2000/2012”, consisting of some fifty works (installations, videos, drawings, photos and films). It brings together a generation heavily committed to the social and political development of its country. These twenty-four artists, most of whom were born after 1975, have been active in Mexico since the 2000s. The arts scene in Mexico has been dynamic at an international level for over twenty years, affected by the extraordinary political and economic developments in the country over this period and by the development of its cultural institutions (MUAC – Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Museo Tamayo, Fundación Jumex, galleries, collectors, alternative venues, etc.).

This dynamism was boosted by the influence of the 90s generation, which revolutionised people’s image of Mexican art and made it one of the key alternative trends of the decade 1990-2000.The artists presented in this exhibition are the heirs of this generation. They draw inspiration from it, whilst at the same time keeping their distance. Most of them have been active since the 2000s and have to deal with a different historical context, which is more sombre than that of their elders. The revolution caused by economic (North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994) and technological globalisation, hopes for the advent of civil democracy followed by profound disillusion and the mounting social tensions brought about by corruption and violence have created an intense climate.

The artists brought together in this exhibition come from different backgrounds (visual arts, cinema, documentary, etc.). They use differing strategies, which may take the form of poetic activism, the diversion of national problems (drugs war, criminality, corruption, identity, immigration and borders). Each one expresses more or less explicitly the awareness of an economic model in crisis and the climate of concern currently experienced by societies undergoing the challenges of globalization.

List of artists exhibited
NATALIA ALMADA. Born in Mexico in1974 / Lives and works between New York and Mexico
EDGARDO ARAGÓN. Born in Oaxaca in 1985 / Lives and works between Oaxaca and Mexico
MARCELA ARMAS. Born in Durango in 1976 / Lives and works in Mexico
DIEGO BERRUECOS. Born in Mexico in 1979 / Lives and works in Mexico
IÑAKI BONILLAS. Born in Mexico in1981 / Lives and works in Mexico
MARIANA CASTILLO DEBALL. Born in Mexico in1975 / Lives and works in Mexico
MINERVA CUEVAS. Born in Mexico in1975 / Lives and works in Mexico
JONATHAN HERNÁNDEZ. Born in Mexico in1972 / Lives and works in Mexico
ARTURO HERNÁNDEZ ALCÁZAR. Born in Mexico in1978 / Lives and works in Mexico
BAYROL JIMÉNEZ. Born in Oaxaca in1984 / Lives and works in Oaxaca
ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY. Born in Tocopilla, Chile in1929 / Lives and works in Paris
ADRIANA LARA. Born in Mexico in1978 / Lives and works in Mexico
GONZALO LEBRIJA. Born in Guadalajara in 1972 / Lives and works in Guadalajara
ILÁN LIEBERMAN. Born in Mexico in1969 / Lives and works in Mexico
JUAN PABLO MACÍAS. Born in Puebla in1974 / Lives and works between Mexico and Italy
JORGE MÉNDEZ BLAKE. Born in Guadalajara in1974 / Lives and works in Guadalajara
NICOLÁS PEREDA. Born in Mexico in1982 / Lives and works in Mexico
CARLOS REYGADAS. Born in Mexico in1971 / Lives and works in Mexico
GIANFRANCO ROSI. Lives and works between the United States and Italy
JORGE SATORRE. Born in Mexico in1979 / Lives and works between Mexico and Barcelona
and ERICK BELTRÁN. Born in 1974 in Mexico / Lives and works between Mexico and Barcelona
PABLO SIGG. Born in Mexico in1974 / Lives and works in Mexico
TERCERUNQUINTO. Collective formed in Monterrey in 1996 / Live and work in Mexico
HÉCTOR ZAMORA. Born in Mexico in1974 / Lives and works in Sao Paulo

The exhibition was presented at the Amparo Museum in Puebla (Mexico) until 15 January 2012. It is the result of shared research between these two museums.

“Resisting the Present. Mexico 2000/2012” catalogue: four essays by Angeline Scherf and Angeles Alonso Espinosa, Serge Gruzinski, Magalí Arriola, Guillermo Fadanelli, an interview between Alejandro Jodorowsky and Bayrol Jiménez, a chronology by Michel Blanscubé and detailed notes on each artist presented. Editions Paris Musées, 360 pages, 30 Euros.

1 comment:

  1. "I lived" There are more than 6 years ago with a group of friends. It is our sleeping bags 😊

    ReplyDelete