by Ernest Hogan
One of the perks
of having a day job shelving books at a library is that I get to
spend a lot of time cruising those shelves, scanning lots and lots of
books. Now and then, one grabs my attention and demands to be read.
This was the case of Mexico's Revolutionary Avant-Gardes: From Estridentismo to ¡30-30! by Tatiana Flores. The cover, a detail
from Fernando Leal's mural,The Feast of the Lord Chalma,
intrigued me and triggered memories from the days when I read stacks
of art books.
Decades later, I
wasn't really clear about what Estridentismo and ¡30-30! were. But my art is suddenly getting attention, and I'm writing manifestos.
Looks like a refresher course is in order.
Mexico's art has
always been different. There's something about this continent that
inspires art. It can be argued that avant-garde and postmodernism
have existed there (here? Is that border still there?) for thousands
of years. Like that talking statue that told the Chichimecs leave
Aztlán to go searching for an eagle and snake fighting on a cactus on
an island on a lake, to build Tenochtitlán, which is now the largest
urban center on the planet. Things like that don't happen in the
European tradtition.
Estridentismo came
along in the 1920s, after the Revolution, as a reaction against
academic art in the European tradition, not only trying to connect
with an ancient past and a folkloric present, but to express what
it's like to live in a modern, urban, technological Mexico. Almost
futuristic, and like Italian Futurism, but without the facism.
It started with
Manuel Maples Arce plastering the walls of Mexico City with his
manifesto Actual No. 1, more like graffiti than the social
media blitz that would happen today. Later they would try to
reenvision Xalapa into Estridentópolis, parking and photographing a
car on the steps of the cathedral in a precursor to performance art.
They also produced
magazines, murals, prints, masks, as well as paintings and sculptures.
They were trying to reach the public, instead of complaining about
how the public is ignorant.
Grupo de Pintores
¡30-30! (named for the .30-.30 Winchester rifle that was popular during
the revolution) came after Estridentópolis failed to materialize, and was lead by Ramón Alva de Canal, Fermin Revuletas, and Fernando
Leal, who were also involved with Estridentismo. According to Tatiana
Flores, “¡30-30! sought not just to destroy retrograde attitudes
but to construct a progressive future.” They were mostly teachers and
students of the open-air painting schools, and art education centers
rebeling against academicism.
The tradition of
revolution continued, and still continues today. The student rebels
of the twenty-first century could learn a few things from this book,
if only to look at the illustrations to steal some ideas.
Ernest Hogan
stopped trying to be avant-garde a long time ago, but he gets called that anyway. And some of his drawings have sold in a gallery.
