The Museum of the Palace of Fine Arts welcomes Chicano culture for the first time

The legendary Sinaloan singer and composer Chalino Sánchez, known as The king of the corrido, arrive to the Palace of Fine Arts in the least expected way.

Kidnapped and murdered at the age of 31, in 1992, he did so not with his corridos or his music, but as an artistic piece that uses his effigy to reaffirm the links between “high culture” and popular culture, as well as the spirit of resistance, opposition, provocation and playfulness of Chicano art, that visual artistic expression born in the 60s during the civil rights movement in the United States, which vindicates the identity of Americans of descent. Mexican.

By Guadalupe Rosales, the work that recreates the face of that musician on a glass that resembles a hologram is part of the collective AztLÁn, time tunnelthe first exhibition of Chicano art to be held at the Palacio de Bellas Artes Museum.

Open to the public from yesterday until August 23, the exhibition is not only “historic” for what it means and represents, but also for the payment of a debt to Chicano culture and art, stressed Mauricio Maillé, director of the venue.

“It is a very emblematic, significant and important exhibition in the history of art in Mexico, with these links that our Mexican communities have had throughout history in the United States,” he said. “It is a reckoning that we celebrate and that we are proud to finally present” in the country’s largest cultural venue.

The exhibition, curated by the artist Rubén Ortiz Torres and the filmmaker and researcher Jesse Lerner, occupies the National and Diego Rivera rooms of the museum. It brings together works by 33 contemporary artists and collectives, mostly based in Los Angeles, California, who represent several generations of creators of Mexican and Latin descent.

Without stigmas or stereotypes

In this artistic initiative, according to the organizers, a reading of the Chicano movement away from stigmas and stereotypes is offered that contributes to expanding its recognition and presence.

It is presented in “a political and social context marked by migratory tensions, discourses of criminalization and a renewed visibility of the Mexican and Latino diaspora communities to propose a critical reflection on the history shared between Mexico and the United States and on some of the gaps in the dominant narratives of art.”

During the tour before the inauguration, Ortiz Torres highlighted that, unlike other exhibitions of Chicano art presented in Mexico, which have been curated in the United States, this one “was designed for Mexico City and the Palace of Fine Arts and a Mexican public.”

The exhibition is structured around four axes: East Side Stories, Varrio, Desmuralisms and Transtemporalities: Lowriding with the Gods, in addition to having an introductory timeline that contextualizes nine centuries of relations between the central valley of Mexico and the southwest of the current territory of the United States, from pre-Columbian times to the protests of the Chicano Moratorium. Likewise, in the final part the mural is presented The beyondcarried out expressly by 3B Collective.

The concept of Aztlán, a mythical place of origin of the Aztec people resigned by Chicano culture as an emblem of historical memory and cultural affirmation, runs through the entire exhibition. It refers to the area that today makes up the American southwest and that belonged to Mexico until before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

“The reinterpretation of Aztlán emerged as an act of resistance of the Chicano movement, consolidating its identity in the face of discrimination, racism and dispossession since the mid-19th century, and rescuing cultural, family and ancestral values ​​linked to Mexican and indigenous traditions,” according to information from the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature.

For curators, one of the central aspects is intergenerational dialogue. “The majority of the artists belong to the new generations, they are between 30 and 40 years old, but others who were active between the 60s and 70s were also included, with the aim of establishing an intergenerational dialogue.”

East Side Stories, the first axis, includes works that show how clothing and performative actions transformed public spaces into scenarios where Chicano identity is affirmed.

Some pieces were created specifically for this exhibition or are unpublished. Techniques include artificial intelligence, analogue film formats, painting, intervened photography and archives as memory devices.

In Varrio, which takes the term in Caló to designate the territory of the working-class Chicano community, stories of resistance and identity are explored in family memories.

For its part, in Desmuralismos the relationship with the Mexican muralist movement is reinterpreted from street art and graffiti to use walls as canvases from a critical vision, transforming them into public art spaces.

The last section, Transtemporalities…, exhibits works that, with humor and irreverence, combine futuristic and science fiction imaginaries with Mesoamerican knowledge and cosmologies.

There was placed the piece by Guadalupe Rosales that takes up the figure of Chalino Sánchez as a martyr, as well as Mexica Falcon after Dewey Tafoyaby Rafa Esparza, a huge spaceship sculpted in adobe that fuses the Mexica Sun Stone with the Millennium Falcon of Star Wars.

Evolution and reactions

According to Ortiz Torres, Chicano art is experiencing an evolution, “among other things, because the civil rights movement has meant that artists now have access to education. Many of them have already been educated in the best art schools in the world and have had exhibitions in very important spaces.”

Regarding the current complex political context in the United States, he highlighted that Chicano artists not only address the issue, but also react to it. “It is something that affects all artists directly because it is an attack on education and culture in general, especially for immigrant and black artists.

“I would dare say that the success of the Chicano movement has been such that there is a reaction against it. Donald Trump himself is a reaction not only against the Chicano movement, but also against feminism, civil rights, and Afro-Americans.”

AztLÁn, time tunnel It has an alternate program that includes a film series, workshops, talks and discussion tables. Likewise, it will have a catalog sponsored by the Jenkins Foundation.