Week 3: Revolution on paper: Mexican prints 1910–1960/British Museum

Happy February all, am not feeling the love personally. This week (week 3 of my cultural odyssey for all you not in the know) I had grand plans to go to the Turner show as it was the last weekend and the delightful Georgie lent me her membership card. However, by the time I managed to drag myself out of bed on Sunday couldn’t really face missioning it down to the river so settled for the British Museum exhibition; Revolution on paper: Mexican prints 1910–1960, instead, which had the double bonus of being both near and free. This exhibition had been recommended to me by my lovely Mexican flatmate Javier, but I wish I had thought to ask him what the fuck the Mexican revolution was all about before I went as, alas, the exhibition had not my beloved audio guide and my knowledge was sadly lacking. So, bought to you by the wanders of cut and paste here is a brief summary for all you out there as ignorant as moi:

Between 1910 and 1920, Mexico was convulsed by a socialist revolution that aimed to topple the elite ruling class and improve conditions for society at large. The left-wing government which emerged laid great emphasis on art as a vehicle to promote the values of the revolution.

I love the use of the word convulsed there. This exhibition covered the work of three artists considered to be the masters in this medium: Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros as well as work by printmakers involved in the Taller del Gráfica Popular, or TGP (the national print workshop) as well as the man many considered the father of the Mexican print making tradition; Posada.

Firstly, I was rather disappointed by the work of Diego Rivera whose mural paintings obviously I am familiar with but whose work in other mediums I haven’t really seen before. His were by far the least visually engaging of the ‘three masters’ although I did quite enjoy one of the nudes. The aspect I found most interesting was the label accompanying a portrait of Frida Kahlo which suggested that due to the Hollywood movie (basically) Kahlo is now more famous that Rivera. Haha, you could almost see the curled lip of the curator.

The work I found really stunning was that of José Clemente Orozco who totally blew me away. Please click on the below links to see 2 examples. Some of his pieces reminded me somewhat of Millet in his portrayal of the poor and downcast as identity-free yet monumental and timeless figures, their individual suffering representing the suffering of an entire class/nation. Two images of crowd/demonstration scenes were also amazing and demonstrate (I am assuming) the influence of surrealism on these otherwise documentary style political scenes:

http://www.oberlin.edu/faculty/svolk/landscape.jpg

http://kungfuartcritic.com/static/content/2009/08/vida/07_the_masses.jpg

The exhibition had a good selection of prints by Posada who was particularly famous for his death day prints which, along with large amounts of sadly unintelligible (to me) text, were decorated with images of skeletons acting out various satirical comments on society – SO Mexican!! I particularly liked one called The Graveyard of all the Skeletons which commented on the gulf between the classes in Mexico where the poor are left with unmarked graves whilst the rich have all the lavishness of a proper burial. The print shows the different classes, as skeletons, picnicking together in a graveyard. This reminded me of one of the mini documentaries accompanying an episode of Cities of Gold (amazingly informative and interesting) which discussed the concept of death in cultures like Mexico, where it is seen as a helpful friend accompanying one through life rather than the terrifying grim reaper of judo-Christian theology. These prints were so popular images from them have now been totally assimilated into Mexican visual culture.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/future_exhibitions/mexican_prints_1910%e2%80%931960/highlight_objects.aspx


Wrapping this up now but just a quick word about the work produced by the TGP which was a collective of print makers working together in a ‘national workshop’ from 1937 onwards – really beautiful work basically.

Highly recommend this exhibition to all, especially good as it’s free!