La Jornada: Exhibition at the Vlady Center endorses the universality of Vicente Rojo

The artist Vicente Rojo (1932-2021) was “one of the most influential people in the generations of the second half of the Mexican 20th century, even in an almost subconscious way because he never signed as a designer; he was incredibly modest,” says Fernando Gálvez, director of the Vlady Center, when talking about Vicente Rojo, paint and design the universean exhibition that opens today at the Autonomous University of Mexico City.

Co-founder of publishing houses, artistic director, editor and designer of the logos of a long list of magazines, cultural supplements and newspapers, there came a time when “one always had something designed by Vicente in hand, whether it was a novel, a magazine or a newspaper. In this sense, there is a link in the intellectual and visual formation on his part to several generations who had this privilege. He was a universal man of a different size.”

Gálvez exemplifies with the cover created by Rojo for the first edition of One hundred years of lonelinessby Gabriel García Márquez, for Editorial Sudamericana, “a classic.” He also designed the logo and headers for the different sections of The Day when it emerged, in 1984.

The exhibition at the Vlady Center aims to show the breadth of the work carried out by Rojo over more than six decades, without separating his activity as a designer from that of an artist. “For me it is very clear that there is an absolute connection in the development of his aesthetic approaches as a designer and as a painter, despite the fact that he always wanted to generate two very different paths. He started in design at a very young age and at that stage he almost dedicated more time to design, work that sustained his career as a painter.”

Watershed in the editorial field

Rojo was an abstract artist – he had a figurative beginning – something that is reflected in his design. However, in the abstract composition there are photographic elements in many of his designs that serve to illustrate the theme of the book or poster in question, notes Gálvez. In 1960, Rojo founded the Era publishing house together with José Azorín and the Espresate brothers, who in turn “changed the Mexican cultural scene,” thanks to “their exquisite vision for selecting the books to publish.” As Don Vicente said, it was his laboratory because there he could expand and do what he wanted in terms of design.

This is how “we read José Emilio Pacheco, José Revueltas, Carlos Monsiváis, Elena Poniatowska, who published their most emblematic books in Era.” The person in charge of the Vlady Center points out that the first text edited by Era was The Battle of Cuba from Fernando Benítez, Rojo’s initial mentor who invited him to participate in supplements such as Mexico in Culturefrom the newspaper Newsy Culture in Mexicofrom the weekly Always!

In Era he also published a book dedicated to the history of his uncle, General Vicente Rojo Lluch, chief of the General Staff of the Popular Army of the Republic during the Spanish civil war. “Rojo began to introduce texts of personal interest, but linked to this discussion and historical situation of his time. The publishing house also published works such as What every revolutionary should know about repressionby Victor Serge, father of Vladimir Kibalchich Rusakov, Vladyrepresentative with Rojo of the Generation of Rupture, an artistic movement that confronted nationalism and muralism.

For Gálvez, this “discussion has been simplified since then because the most radical painters of artistic nationalism, linked to David Alfaro Siqueiros and the Taller de Gráfica Popular, disqualified those of the Ruptura as bourgeois artists because they painted abstractly or differently.” However, “Rojo never stopped being an active left-wing character,” something evident in the texts he published.

In addition to the editorial material, the exhibition includes pictorial work, much of which comes from the Payment in Kind program of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP), whose history dates back to 1957, when a group of artists, headed by David Alfaro Siqueiros, requested the then director of the Income Tax, Hugo B. Margáin, for the option of paying their contributions through pieces of their authorship.

However, at that time, there was no art market. “With the Rupture movement, more private galleries opened. First there was Prisse with Vlady, Alberto Gironella and Héctor Xavier, which became the trigger for many others that created a space for artists of that generation who did not yet have much institutional acceptance. From there a market begins to emerge.”

According to Gálvez, when Rojo realized that “there were sales, he approached the head of the SHCP and told him: ‘now the program makes sense’. It was already approved as law, the regulations only had to be renewed. Rojo pushed to make it operational and to start using it. Today it is an essential tool for the artistic community, but also for the Mexican State, because museums do not have the budget to buy works. The Payment in Kind program is a social agreement that does not exist in any other country and allows “We have several collections.”

Rojo delivered his first work to the program in 1976 and not only maintained that bond until his last days, but always contributed his best works. “I selected 38 pieces by Vicente and I know that I have the best of the different periods of his production.” For the curator, Rojo, “despite being very serious and of few words, he knew how to be the voice of everyone.”

Vicente Rojo, paint and design the universeopens today at 7 p.m. at the Vlady Center (Goya 63, Insurgentes Mixcoac neighborhood).