Oswaldo Guayasamín

Oswaldo Guayasamín (1919 - 1999) was a very influential artist from Ecuador. His body of work consists of pieces that speak to the social and political injustices the artist perceived in the world around him. The United Nations awarded him a prize for an "entire life of work for peace." Guayasamín was heavily influenced by the Cuban Revolution and was a huge supporter of Fidel Castro. When Guayasamín died in 1999, much of Ecuador's work force went on strike and held vigils for the man who spent his life supporting the indigenous peoples of the country.

I am strongly impacted by his work, I find it to be wholly unique the cohesiveness is impressive to me. It is fascinating to sort through his work and follow his progression... I also find it interesting that he never really strayed from his decided subject matter, you don't really get that with other artists very often. I am also really stricken with the way in which he paints hands. Hands appear time and time again in his works, and they are incredibly expressive.

I find the fact that he dedicated his entire career to those who needed him to be worth mentioning, and he is still regarded as a national hero in Ecuador, as well he should be.

May 5

today is cinco de mayo.
that is worth mentioning.

i'm not sure about the stamp...

Tina Modotti

Tina Modotti (1886 - 1942) was an Italian-born photographer. She started out acting in silent films, and soon moved to America, and later to Mexico. I think one of the funniest things I have read about her is that she often said her profession was men. She was married to a producer in America, whom she left when she began an affair with photographer Edward Weston. Weston's work is more widely known than Modotti's, but she is featured in several of his most famous works. She is also a subject in five of Diego Rivera's murals and Lupe Marin blamed Modotti's affair with Rivera for their split. Enough about her personal life....

Modotti was a member of the Mexican Communist Party and was politically active for many years. She joined the party in 1927 and her work took a sharp turn toward more socially and politically minded subject matter; many of her works appeared in the leftist journal El Machete. The second photograph I have included in this post is from that same year and is anything but understated.

Rivera's mural entitled The Distribution of Arms features Modotti (at right) along with Siqueiros and Frida Kahlo handing out weapons to Mexican revolutionaries. And Kenneth Rexroth said he was terrified of Modotti, but called her "the most interesting person in Mexico City." Quite a compliment.

José Sabogal

Peruvian artist José Sabogal (1888 - 1956) was one of Peru's premier indigenistas. Sabogal was of Spanish, rather than Indian descent, but that didn't stop him from becoming one of the most active artists promoting the life and culture of the indigenous peoples of Peru.

The work at left is called "Arquitecto Quechua." This page includes a brief bio and several of Sabogals' works.

Sabogal became involved in the indigenista movement and began considering himself an indigenista after a trip to Mexico in 1922, where he saw the impact of the murals of artists like Rivera, Siqueiros, and Tamayo. As a teacher, he urged his students to ignore the European movements like Fauvism and Cubism, and to focus on the methods and techniques native to their people. Sabogal was initially rejected for the indigenist themes that he was later celebrated for, and there are still those who reject his work. People like this think his work depicts the "proud and grand Inca instead of a depiction of the actual misery within which Indians lived."

No one tries to deny the huge influence he has had on Latin American art. Or art as a whole, for that matter.

Nicolas de Jesus

I am really into the work of Nicolas de Jesus. I was lucky enough to purchase a print of his in Mexico. Much of his work makes political statement about the US, while other is reflective or commentary on Mexican culture.
The image to the left is titled "Despierta America." Several other works in the same style are found here...

from zihua.net:
"Born December 6, 1960 in the indigenous Nahua region of Guerrero, Mexico. Nicolas de Jesus developed his art through his parents and his community. Painting on Amate (bark paper) is a local tradition in the village of Ameyaltepec where Nicolas is from. His work reflects the spectrum of his experiences from his origins in a traditional Mexican village to the problems of the Mexican migrant in the United States and his concern for preserving his cultural identity.
In an attempt to preserve his culture one theme that Nicolas de Jesus has exquisitely developed is that of Calaveras (skeletons). One of the oldest traditions in Mexico, which has indigenous roots, is the celebration of the "Day of the Dead". It is a tradition that goes back several centuries before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in 1519. It is a tradition found today in a few regions of Mexico that are characterized by a concentration of indigenous populations, such as the regions of the Balsas basin, which at present is Nahuatl-speaking community, here in this state of Guerrero.
The Day of the Dead is a collective manifestation, a celebration of death as an extension of life. Death motivates happiness when the deceased gets to his or her second stage of life(death), there the soul continues to live. The process of dying is considered part of a cycle (life-death) just like everything else in nature and not a lineal process as it is in the western world.
This tradition is presented through graphics and personal text by artist Nicolas de Jesus.

"The word death is not pronounced in New York, in Paris, in London, because it burns the lips. The Mexican, in contrast, is familiar with death, jokes about it , caresses it, sleeps with it,celebrates it; it is one of his favorite toys and his steadfast love. True, there is perhaps as much fear in his attitude as in the others, but at least death is not hidden away."
- OCTAVIO PAZ

Hable con Ella

Clip of Caetano Veloso singing "Cucurrucucú Paloma" from the Pedro Almodóvar film Hable con Ella. I'm not sure if he could possibly have a smoother voice... simply amazing. Also, this film won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 2003, and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film.

Also, gives you something nice to listen to while you read my blog. You're welcome.

Mais Veloso

I like his website, full of clips, bio, photos, etc...

Caetano Veloso...

Here is an interview with Caetano Veloso by Christopher Dunn from 1996, it appeared in Transition.

The interview follows Dunn's book Brutality Garden, and is quite insightful. Dunn gives a brief biography of Veloso and Gilberto Gil before beginning the conversation. I found it very interesting to read Veloso's first hand account of the emergence of the Tropicalista Rebellion, and fascinating to hear that he refers to himself as "just a radio singer." Interesting coming from someone so influential in raising the question of what it means to be Brazilian, and then forcing the answer to change.

Another blog worth checking out...

...besides mine.

Xispas is an interesting blog well worth your time, focusing on Chicano art, culture, and politics. There is much political content on the blog, much about the war in Iraq, much about current Mexican politics and political activism. It seems impossible, at most any point through the last two centuries, to separate art from social activism. Granted, there will always be artists who paint things like cottages covered with snow and plates with schnauzers on them... but in most every corner of the world there are those who use their creativity as a means for effecting change.

The picture above is by Sergio Hernandez, and presents a new take on Dia de los Muertos...

Art for a change...

Here is an essay by artist Mark Vallen about the Siqueiros mural entitled "Portrait of Mexico Today." It is an informative article about the piece and about the style of DAS in general.

Mark Vallen also has a blog which is fairly interesting, unlike most blogs. He writes a great deal about Latino artists, both past and present. He presents a wealth of information pertaining to many topics from feminism, to social responsibility, to punk rock. He also has a number of 'punk portraits', dating back to the late 70s. Very interesting.

Gilberto Gil

Here is an interesting interview with Gilberto Gil from The Guardian....

Among many other things, Gil discusses the legal battle with Time Warner over his statement that he would attain rights to some of his music and provide it for free downloading. Time Warner disagreed, because they owned the rights and, naturally, they want to provide things that aren't free.

More Tropicália

Another article on the art movement Tropicália...

The original exhibition of Hélio Oiticica's Tropicália was in 1967, an installation at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro. Some interesting tidbits about Oiticica: he studied samba, was the passista in 1965, known for his Parangolé pieces, where audience is encouraged to put on a cape and become the art by dancing the samba, participating in a parade, etc... the word is slang for 'sudden confusion among peoples.' Also, interestingly, he had a terrible drug habit and died of a stroke at age 43, also studied with Grupo Frente (1954 -1956). Grupo Frente was a leftist circle of abstract artists including Ivan Serpa, Lygia Clark, and Lygia Pape. He later broke away and helped found the Neo-Concrete group with Lygia Clark. His Tropicália work is an important work from his career, and gives the name to the movement we think of when we talk about Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Os Mutantes. The piece features palm trees, narrow pathways, puddles, nooks and crannies with sand and trash... Oiticica referred to his installations in this genre as 'trashiscapes.' The article discusses this recent exhibit which featured scaffolding and presents a view of the piece that was not available to the original audience in 1967. Interesting, we have to wonder what the artist would think of that... I feel that he may be uneasy about the birds eye view, simply for the fact that he intended the piece to be a participatory experience where you would get your shoes wet, literally and figuratively, in the slums of Brazil.

Here is another article from the New York Times about a recent Oiticica exhibit in Houston.

A bit more on Tropicália

Tropicália refers to an art collective that came about in Brazil in the 1960s. The movement was undeniably linked to the tenets proposed in Brazil more than thirty years earlier by Oswald de Andrade in his “Manifesto Antropófago” – the work itself and the surrounding movement which celebrated not the internationalism of other contemporaries, but rather turned back toward Brazil to create a cultural cannibalism and embrace the juxtapositions so prevalent in modern Brazilian life. Tarsila do Amaral, Anita Malfatti, Vicente do Rêgo Monteiro and other modernistas of Andrade’s time thought of themselves being of both ‘the jungle and the school.’ This was an idea that the tropicalists of the 60s embraced fully; this philosophy “fit… like a glove.”
The name ‘Tropicália’ used to describe the counter-cultural movement of late 1960s Brazil is derived directly from the work of the same name by Hélio Oiticica in 1967, an installation at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro. The work is a seminal piece in Brazilian art history, and Art History as a whole, and of its purpose Oiticica said that: “…The myth of ‘tropicality’ is much more than parrots and banana trees: it is the consciousness of not being conditioned by established structures, hence highly revolutionary in its entirety. Any conformity, be it intellectual, social, or existential, is contrary to its principal idea.”
The fascinating part of the movement as a whole, to me, is its ability to take parts of Brazilian past and apply them in a modern sense – the products seem modern and groundbreaking, never folkloric. Some parts are embraced, other parts of the culture are parodied – still the result is cohesively Brazilian. Very few artists the world over have achieved this goal with estimable success. To use elements so strongly tied to the Brazilian past – both indigenous and colonial – without it transcending into historical recreation-ism (like the Brazilian version of a Renaissance Fair) is quite impressive. The way in which Tropicália oversteps this obstacle is impressive.
Hélio Oiticica stated that, “Any conformity, be it intellectual, social, or existential, is contrary to its principal idea.” He also said we should all ignore his work prior to 1959. Perhaps it was too conformist. I'm not a huge fan of his work, but I can see its influence.

Os Mutantes

Here is an interesting article by Todd Simmons from The Brooklyn Rail about Os Mutantes, a little bit on their history, a little musical history, a discussion of their contribution to modern music and their influence as it is still being felt...

Interesting discussion of their adverse experiences of being bombarded with eggs and fruit by upset audience members. Although, wouldn't we all prefer that to the torture or deportation visited upon some of their contemporaries?

FridaTube...

I wish the changes were a bit slower, and I am not exactly sure the music fits well with the work, but I like the fact that all these pieces are in one place...

Can't get enough Siqueiros???

In Los Angeles a few months ago there was a speaker's panel discussing the work of DAS, his murals, censorship, public art, some about the history of Los Angeles. There is a video online of the evening here...

Scroll down through the list at right - video is labeled "Siqueiros Speaker Series: The Art of Censorship"

My essay...

Here is the essay I put together about the way Siqueiros created his figures and what I believe he is trying to accomplish by doing so...
*there are many links throughout, so be sure to check them out.

The Faces of Siqueiros

David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974) is widely known as one of the tres grandes of the Mexican mural movement. Siqueiros and many others consider his work a political and revolutionary tool whose concepts could not be separated from the aesthetic aspect. Throughout his oeuvre there is a continuum of subjects with noticeably non-descript facial features. There are a few exceptions to his technique, most notably with figures from Mexican history. Beginning with his early works and continuing through his murals from the last years of his life, the faces of his subjects are uniform and rather expressionless, in what appears to be a statement about humanity. Through a brief discussion of his technique and with closer examination of several of Siqueiros’ key works this paper will demonstrate his adherence to this artistic principle for the duration his lifetime.

Two works each from his early period, Campesino, Obrero, Soldado (Fig 1) and Ethnography (Fig 2), two from the middle of his oeuvre, The People for the University. The University for the People. (Fig 3) and The People in Arms (Fig 4), and one piece from his late period, The March of Humanity on Earth and Toward the Cosmos (Fig 5 & 6), are concrete examples of the surreal, anonymous characteristics of his subjects. In the works I will examine, the consistency of method is quite pronounced. The only information Siqueiros gives us comes in the form of dress and situational surroundings of the character(s). Many of those portrayed are iconographic in nature and Siqueiros fills the works with the large volume of the subject in almost every case. It is fascinating that he manages to accomplish so much with a face that says so little. Quite often we think of faces as being the necessary vehicle of emotion; these works effortlessly defy that rationale.

Figure 1
From his earliest works, Campesino, Obrero, Soldado and Ethnography both have subjects with cartoonishly generalized features. The three equivalent figures in Campesino, Obrero, Soldado (1924) have what appears to be the same face and same figure with different dress. This, along with their hand-in-hand gesture presents them as a singular political unit with the same wants and needs. Siqueiros notes that the unavoidable “…problem was to express [oneself] with a figurative art capable of saying things which were important to our people.” Using these faces of uniformity may have presented a way of making the important things applicable to everyone. This work was created for the artistic-revolutionary journal El Machete that featured many artists who often took no credit for their works or writings. The group of artists dedicated to the cause of El Machete was a rather unique historical phenomenon that forcefully put into action a weighty social ideology.

Figure 2
Ethnography (1939) features a huge figure that towers over the piece who wears a pre-Columbian mask. This gesture may be the pinnacle of facelessness, since we are unable to discern any of the true facial features of the subject. His subject fills the frame wholly, and the man is clad in the rural, white cotton or linen garb the artist associated with indigenismo. Siqueiros placed an equal importance on his work as an artist and his political activism. Through his use of native symbolism and subject matter we can sense the import the artist placed on such grand representations of native culture. This is one of the most striking pieces by Siqueiros in my opinion, I feel he is saying a great deal about the people of Mexico and their struggles in a powerful way.

Figure 3
During the 1950s he painted more works in this vein, notably The People for the University. The University for the People. and From the Dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz to the Revolution - The People in Arms. With his huge mosaic entitled The People for the University. The University for the People.(1952-6) Siqueiros intended to make a national experience one that was ‘universally valid.’ Perhaps his usage of the mosaic technique was a metaphor for the anonymity and uniformity of humanity as a whole. The five people depicted in the mosaic have the same hair and facial features, alongside similar gestures. The eyes and eyebrow arcs of all four front-facing figures are indistinguishable.

Figure 4
The People in Arms (1957-65) is one of the most obvious examples of Siqueiros’ use of comparable facial features as an important part of his work and beliefs. It is a part of his 4500 square foot mural in the National History Museum that describes the Revolution of 1910. The mural features a mass of armed men and a few women bearing forward, heavily toward the viewer as revolutionary soldiers; all seem to hold the same stance and wear roughly the same uniform. Apart from moustaches on a few of the men, the faces are strikingly similar. Even the women are only distinguishable as such because of their dress. As the faces and hats blend into each other in the background they become even more surreal in their consistency. They meld into a mass of sombreros and rifles united againstPorfirio Díaz, the agreed-upon villain of the time, and his Porfiriato.

Figure 5
From his later years, the grand mural The March of Humanity (1971) depicts some subjects with black circles for faces, the ultimate in facelessness. This mural became his largest work, exceeding 50,000 square feet. Such a massive undertaking, professor and art historian Leonard Folgarait refers to the work as “…not only a work of art, but also as a symbol and carrier of Mexican political ideology.” The massive mural encompasses the entire Polyforum Siqueiros, interior as well as exterior. Part of the interior portion features recognizable human beings with dehumanized features.
Figure 6
Portions of the exterior take this cohesion of humanity and facelessness to a new level, where many of the figures have only black circles where their faces should be. Siqueiros used this blurring of form and technique to emphasize the mass communication purpose of the Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros. The building is only a building because it has certain architectural characteristics; mostly it serves as a permanent structure to showcase this momentous work. The mural is often seen as being reflective of the time in which it was created, although Siqueiros intended it to transcend the moment and the country in which it was created; being somewhat stronger in rhetoric than in analysis of reality. Throughout the work, around the building, the figures meld into and out of humanness; their facial features continuously characterless.

The works of David Alfaro Siqueiros use subjects with facial features that have little if any reference to a non-fictional person. The artist creates a blending-together of his people, which indicates his belief of humanity as a singly immense, interwoven unit with similar lives and goals. His work succeeds in conveying an emotion and purpose without the conventional use of facial expression or characteristics. His mastery of technique is evident in the care and detail in the lack of detail where he intends it. His convictions and beliefs about humanity seem to be so strong that they were persistent and evident in his technique spanning his career. When criticized by a newspaper reporter about his presentation of the problems of humanity, Siqueiros replied, “Paint what you wish, or permit me to paint what I wish. Leave me alone, en libertad.” In freedom, indeed.

Here are my sources for this essay:
Ades, Dawn. Art in Latin America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.

Azuela, Alicia. “El Machete and Frente a Frente: Art Committed to Social Justice in Mexico.” Art Journal 52 (Spring, 1993): 82-7.

Campbell, Bruce. Mexican Murals in Times of Crisis. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2003.

Derr, Virginia B. “The Rise of a Middle-Class Tradition in Mexican Art.” Journal of Inter-American Studies 3 (July, 1961): 385-409.

Folgarait, Leonard. So Far from Heaven: David Alfaro Siqueiros’ ‘The March of Humanity’ and Mexican Revolutionary Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Goldman, Shifra M. “Siqueiros and Three Early Murals in Los Angeles.” Art Journal 33 (Summer, 1997): 321-27.

King, John. Review of So Far from Heaven: David Alfaro Siqueiros’ ‘The March of Humanity’ and Mexican Revolutionary Politics, by Leonard Folgarait. Journal of Latin American Studies 21 (October, 1989): 610-11.

Kline, Herbert, Gertrude Ross Marks, Edmund F. Penney, Ricardo Montalbán and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Walls of fire: The story of Los Tres Grandes. Produced and directed by Herbert Kline et al. 81 minutes. Mentor Productions, 1971. Videocassette.

Rochfort, Desmond. Mexican Muralists: Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1993.

Siqueiros, David Alfaro. Iconografía de David Alfaro Siqueiros. Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1997.

Siqueiros, David Alfaro. Lectures to Artists. Chicago, Illinois: New University Thought, 1962.

Shorris, Earl. The Life and Times of Mexico. New York: WW Norton and Company, 2004.

Siqueiros

I am working on a piece about David Alfaro Siqueiros, discussing some of his techniques and several of his pieces. Of Siqueiros, Trotsky biographer slash historian Isaac Deutscher said, "[he was a] buccaneer whose art, revolution and gangsterism were inseparable."

Here is an article from the NY Times about the legal battle involving a Siqueiros mural presently in storage in Argentina - locked away by a court order, and quite possibly suffering irreparable damage. This is an article from 2001 so I will do more investigating as to the current situation...

More on Amero

This is a work featured on the Amero website, called Burden, date listed is 1930s. This concept of the burden bearer appears repeatedly throughout the work of Latin American artists. The image became a rather controversial one to many in the first half of the twentieth century. Artists like Siqueiros and Orozco were quite vocal with their disdain of this portrayal of the indigenous population. Many artists also embraced images like these as a return to nationalism and celebration of their roots. Given the time period, easel works like this one were surely owned by the Bourgeois, and we have to wonder what their view of these barefoot individuals would have been.

Emilio Amero...

I wrote a little discussion of one of the works of Emilio Amero which resides in the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art on the OU campus. Amero is not one of the most famous Mexican artists, but he was involved very early on his career with artists such as Zalce, Diego Rivera, Orozco, etc. In fact Amero was one of the first muralists to be commissioned by Vasconcelos and the post-revolutionary government. One of his great passions (and skills) was lithography, and he often held workshops that were attended by most of the Mexican artists you have heard of. His website has even more info on his work and his ties to the University of Oklahoma, where he established a print studio... It is nice to be able to visit the works of someone like Amero on your own campus. I also really like this picture of him. Sorry that I do not have a picture of the piece, they do not like you take pictures in the museum and I cannot find a reproduction online... You will just have to go visit this piece yourself.

Anywho, here is what I wrote about The Game, one of the Amero pieces we have in our museum. I also understand that Dr. Phelan, dean of the OU School of Art is currently doing a research project focused on Amero's work. Here goes:

The Game is Cool.

The Game, a powerful work by Emilio Amero (1901-1976), is a somber piece that draws in the viewer. Emilio Amero is a talented artist who worked in many mediums, but primarily created easel works. Born in Ixlahuana, Amero later moved to Mexico City and attended the San Carlos Academy. The works of Amero exhibited at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art are fascinating pieces. The Game is a large work, approximately 4 feet high by 5 feet wide. Amero created the work from egg tempera on panel in 1955. The work features several female figures, all abstracted, conceptual nudes.

In my estimation, the singularly most striking feature of the figures in The Game is their hollow eyes and solemn expression. The eyes are what immediately draw one’s attention and invite sustained viewing. Also featured in the composition is a background brick wall at a corner-angle, and the ground is covered in a rubble-gravel type material. The simulated texture of the ground cover and the brick is nearly exact.

Another captivating aspect of The Game is the color. The composition is comprised almost entirely of reds, oranges and dark yellows. The warm colors draw in the viewer and set an emotional mood that echoes the expression of the figures. The figures and background all have a substantial mass and seem solid in their position. Even the female figures who are full of movement seem to be solid, weighty women.

The work is full of vertical lines, many of which curve with the movement of the women and accentuate the female form present. The overlapping bodies in the foreground have a rounded, feminine shape and a distinct vertical line. The brick wall in the background is a massive structure with a decidedly vertical feel, extending beyond the composition at top. The wall is done with a linear perspective and acts as a solid anchor to the movement and activity of the figures in the foreground. Each female figure has her head slightly askew, adding the overall vertical line with a noticeable diagonal tilt.

I was immediately drawn to Amero's work at the Museum. All of his works feature figures with similar hollow eyes. This work, being the largest in size and scale, was even more spectacular in its emotion. I found the eyes and expression of the figures to be quite captivating. The line of the piece gives it an emotion and movement that is mesmerizing. I am intrigued by the title, and the fact that there seems to be a magical object held by the seated figure, who somehow appears in charge of this “game.” I wish there was more information on this work in the gallery catalog or online, I am interested in hearing what others have to add to this discussion.

About this blog...

I am creating this blog for a class centered around the Latin American left from 1900 - present. My focus will be on the artists, writers, musicians, and other intellectuals of the region and their involvement with leftist ideas and movements. My plan is to provide linked articles, works, and commentary about the people I will focus on, and hopefully create some sort of cohesive body of work on the topic. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.