How can museums provide patrons not just with an aesthetic experience but also a sense of place? How can we enjoy the rough and tumble heartbeat of city streets even in a gallery’s elegant interior? Can inherently illegal forms of art be institutionalized—brought into the museum space—even while maintaining their original political charge?
A recently opened exhibition invites museum-goers to contemplate these riddles and many more. Titled Oaxaca Central: Contemporary Mexican Printmaking, the show in Norfolk, Virginia, at the Chrysler Museum of Art takes visitors by the hand through southern Mexico’s colonial alleyways, giving us a sense of the printmaking process and tasking us to think through ongoing political issues. Organized by the Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Chrysler, Mark A. Castro, Oaxaca Central is almost as good as stroll through show’s eponymous colonial city. Visitors can pick up a “pasaporte” to events related to Oaxaca Central and, like a tourist collecting stamps from international checkpoints, tick off the happenings they see (Fig. 1). Now on display, the art largely succeeds in transporting visitors to the Mexican town made famous by the likes of artists such as singer Lila Downs, actress Yalitza Aparicio, and painter Rufino Tamayo.
Oaxaca remains a unique place for both Mexicans and international tourists alike. Located at approximately 5,000 feet above sea level, the colonial city was built atop a rich Zapotec civilization. Many communities in the outlying towns still speak indigenous languages and maintain traditions dating back centuries. Blessed by a well-preserved old town and located on the Pan-American Highway, Oaxaca has become a vacation destination for international travelers. Somewhat paradoxically, it has also been understood as a hotbed for political activity and especially, politicized arts; this, too, may be immensely attractive for left-leaning culture vultures. As the exhibit labels cogently note, Oaxaca is a veritable hub for “illegal yet tacitly tolerated street art.” During the past twenty years or so, Oaxaca and its artists have learned to inhabit and thrive within this delicate balance.
Oaxaca’s recent history of politicized art begins in May 2006, when striking teachers occupied the city’s main square or zócalo. Less than a month later, police forces forcefully removed protestors during an early-morning raid. In the following weeks and months, protesters demanded the ouster of Oaxacan governor Ulises Ruiz, even while voicing different issues surrounding indigenous rights and labor disputes. Violent clashes between protestors and police ensued, during which time police were involved in a number of human rights violations; these were later recognized by the Mexican Supreme Court. November 25 of that same year was a particularly brutal day, beginning with a massive march to the zócalo by an estimated 70 thousand people. Tear gas was used on the crowds and police agents searched door to door for fleeing demonstrators. On that day, ASARO (Asamblea de Artistas Revolucionarios de Oaxaca) was formed as a way of leveraging art for political change. The Chrysler’s Oaxaca Central includes some of the same artists involved in these original artistic manifestations, even while showing more recent inventions in Oaxaca’s art scene. Appropriate for the general public, the show also gives us a glimpse into the printmaking process (Fig. 2).
Most prominent among those artists featured in the Norfolk show and who have been part of Oaxaca’s art scene during the last twenty years is Mario Guzmán, a founding member of ASARO. Oaxaca Central includes numerous works created by another art collective with which the master printmaker is associated, Subterráneos. Various examples of Subterráneos’ wheat-pasted murals—not unlike those that populate Oaxacan streetcorners—are displayed throughout the gallery (Figs. 3-4). Wisely, the gallery walls are painted in tones remarkably similar to those found throughout Oaxaca’s colonial downtown. The murals, somewhat larger than life-size, represent common street vendors and humble campesinos alongside Zapotec gods. The Subterráneos’ murals exalt the every day while paying homage to Oaxaca’s rich spiritual and cultural heritage.
Other works throughout the gallery constitute variations on similar themes—artists whose work innovates perspectives on Indigenism, regional autonomy, and political rabble-rousing.
Case in point is the work of Jerónimo López Ramírez, better known as Dr. Lakra. Son of the late Oaxacan painter Francisco Toledo, López Ramíez, rechristened as Lakra, explores the verboten, the subconscious, and desire both via his art and his tattoo work (Fig. 5). López Ramírez’s pseudonym—“Lakra”—is likely a rendering of “lacra,” Spanish for “defect” or “trace.” His works’ provocative images suggest not only a challenge to political shibboleths but also, a confrontation with personal, psychological taboos. After all, aren’t our shortcomings—our fears and our dark fantasies—written on the body? Politics can be personal.
Amador Montes’ work, too, suggests an exploration of self but with a greater focus on the fantastical creatures of childhood daydreams (fig. 6). Montes’ energetic and bold brushstrokes are reminiscent of another scion of the street, New York City’s favorite son, Jean-Michel Basquiat. However, Montes differs from Basquiat’s enigmatic symbology by focusing on his adolescence in Oaxaca, which is filled with birds, insects, and nature. What part of the natural world do we carry with us? How does our youth inform our identity as adults? Montes is known to convert his paintings into prints which can then be reproduced many times over. Perhaps, in this way, the intimate, the personal, become public.
Finally, the work of art collective La Piztola presents indelible images that riff on a fruitful, even if well-worn, template for activism throughout the Global South. Indeed, La Piztola shares some common tropes with another Oaxacan collective, Tlacolulokos, or even with musicians such as Manu Chao. Here, Indigenous communities are represented as politically-informed champions of autochthony. Their deep knowledge and spirituality constitute a challenge to the status quo writ large—neoliberalism, capitalism, and even tourism. With “Región Radio,” we see two children, masked like bandits or political freedom fighters (perhaps both?) foreground a backdrop of corncobs—a staple crop for Mesoamerican populations since time immemorial (Fig. 7). They clutch a radio in their hand, showing how they, not unlike the Zapatists in 1994, are able to transmit a message of political opposition. New technologies can be harnessed to save original people.
All told, Oaxaca Central gives us a stunning glimpse into the common knowledge, the street corner philosophies, and sunburnt art that characterizes one of Mexico’s most culturally rich locales.
The show runs through May 11, 2025.
