The relationship between art and artists with design and editorial production is as old as it is essential. In Mexico there are plenty of examples of this link, one of the most significant being that of the Economic Culture Fund (FCE), which since its foundation in 1934 has brought together countless creators to give graphic identity to their books and collections.
This is, broadly speaking, the story that the exhibition tells. In the Fund, not everything is letters: Ninety years of graphics in the Economic Culture Fundorganized as part of the celebrations of the 90th anniversary of that publishing imprint of the Mexican State, which falls on September 3.
Inaugurated on Thursday at the Chancery Museum (Republic of El Salvador 47, Historic Center), where it will remain for two months, it is made up of a selection of 250 pieces from the collection of that publishing house, including graphic works, sketches, paintings, books, phonographic material, architectural models and a timeline.
Likewise, 14 works from the National Museum of Prints should be considered, by authors such as Leopoldo Méndez, Alberto Beltrán, Juan Soriano, Fernando Castro Pacheco, Rufino Tamayo, María Teresa Toral, Vicente Rojo, Marysole Wörner Baz, Vlady, Liliana Porter and Alberto Castro Leñero, to mention a few.
His presence in that venue occurs after his visit, a year ago, to the Mexican pavilion at the Bogotá International Book Fair, where, according to Marco Barrera Bassols, coordinator of International Liaison of the FCE and one of its two curators, he received to half a million visitors.
The exhibition, according to the also museographer, pays tribute to that seal, its history and some of its collaborators, while giving an overview of the FCE from the graphic work that, in close relationship with the word, has contributed to establishing its presence and forging its personality in Mexico and Latin America
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It is, in short, the reconstruction of a publishing history and, at the same time, a tour of the national and international artistic scene, structured around six thematic cores. The most important, due to its length, was curated by Ana Carolina Abad, and is the one that refers to the history and relationship between graphics, illustration and the history of the 11,790 titles published by that label between 1935 and the May 29 of this year, explains Marco Barrera in an interview.
“We started the exhibition with two complementary cores to the graphics. In the first we can listen to the audios of a radio program, The viewpoint of America, which the FCE created when it turned 15 years old. There we heard, for example, Daniel Cosío Villegas, founder of the label, talking about the miracle that the creation and survival of this publishing house represented, a miracle that 90 years later is still happening,” he points out.
▲ The exhibition is a tribute to the relationship of art and artists with design and editorial production.Photo Yazmín Ortega Cortés
For the official, it is important that people understand the dimension of this publishing house in various areas, among them in the art created expressly to illustrate the books, whether the covers or the interiors, an area in which the greatest artists have collaborated. of the country, from exponents of the Mexican School of Painting and the Popular Graphics Workshop, to the Generation of Rupture and other currents.
The list is endless, with names like Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo, Elvira Gascón, José Moreno Villa, Alberto Beltrán, Leopoldo Méndez, Celia Calderón, Miguel Covarrubias, Juan Soriano, Raúl Anguiano, José Chávez Morado, José Luis Cuevas, Carlos Jurado, Vlady, María Guerra, María Teresa Toral, Manuel Felguérez, Leticia Tarragó, the Dutchman Boudewijn Ietswaart and Liliana Porter.
From closer generations are Alberto Castro Leñero, Alberto Blanco, Juan Pablo Rulfo, Olga Margarita Vázquez, Alfonso Salvador, Alfonso Orozco Mora, Boris Viskin, Helen Escobedo, Francisco Castro Leñero, Perla Krauze, Daniel Lezama, Emilio Said, Estrella Carmona and Irma Palacios, among many others.
We must also consider Francisco Toledo, Vicente Rojo and Antonio Helguera, all of whom died in recent years and to whom this exhibition pays tribute, as well as the graphic designer Rafael López Castro, who has maintained close and fruitful collaboration with this house. editorial.
Historian Ana Abad highlights that the artists who have participated in the FCE are also relevant figures in Mexican art. So, she says, it is not a parallel event, but a small story within the history of Mexican art.
What I like about this exhibition is that it highlights artistic work that has a use, a function, because it is often undervalued. And what we do for this purpose is to put it into dialogue with the collection of the National Museum of Prints, because the majority of illustrators are graphic artists, in this very ancient marriage between the book and graphics.
he adds.
“So, this dialogue is made of the works of art for himself with all these small vignettes that, in addition, one sees that they are not treated as works of art, as the dimensions where the reproductions are going to be made are annotated, circled or marked. It’s all very fun; “It also teaches us the process of the book and shows us that it is not a linear development.”
A temporary FCE bookstore is installed within the exhibition, in addition to a bus book being placed in the square next to that venue certain days of the week, indicates Marco Barrera, who also anticipates that a book alluding to the exhibition will be published.