Sensacional! Mexican Street Graphics
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA
18 November 2006 – 4 March 2007
Review by Tonya Warner
Upon walking into the Yerba Buena galleries, you are greeted by a statue of a giant luchador admiring a cup of coffee, a testament to the intersection of commerce and pop culture celebrated in Sensacional!: Mexican Street Graphics. This is an exhibition not of graffiti, but of the usually untrained and underappreciated folk art found on mundane streets of Mexico. Included in the show are advertisements painted on independent shops, printed ad posters and covers of raunchy pulp magazines, alongside various packaging and informational posters. This is a traveling show organized by the independent Mexican publishers Trilce Ediciones, beginning in 2001 with an exhibition at the Museo de la Cuidad de Mexico, the show has since been to Los Angeles, Spain, and New York. In addition to a catalogue for the exhibition (which seems to be the best format for viewing this work), they have designed a website specifically for the show (as of now only available in Spanish) where people around Mexico are encouraged to contribute their own photographs of this home-brewed art form.
Overall, the appeal is to the viewer’s appreciation of kitsch and the sense that “bad” design is sometimes more interesting than “good.” There is also an element of (somewhat condescending) humor when an untrained artist tries to copy well-known cartoon characters – you end up with a sickly green Bart Simpson or Gizmo looking like he’s just ingested too much peyote – figures that, in their very wrongness, seem that much more endearing. However, what one comes away with is a sense that the technical accuracy or realism of the image does not matter so much as its visual potency. As a form of communication, these images are able to transcend barriers of language or culture while remaining indicative of the community in which they are created.
In the literature for Sensacional!, there is much talk of the merits of man-made, imperfect and unique design work in the face of both corporate monopolies and an ever-encroaching technology-driven society. This postulating about computers taking over our lives is nothing new – hell, Baudrillard suggested that we are symbiotically connected to our technologies back in the 90s. David Byrne (yes, that David Byrne), in the book accompanying the exhibition, even goes so far as to paint a hellish picture of perfectly mechanized beings as the endpoint of a mechanized world. He even adds to the “no duh!” annuals by stating that our imperfections are what make us human. All this to justify the importance of the work in this exhibition, work by anonymous and underappreciated artists who serve to remind us that we are not robots. Yes, how come we are not robots yet? It seems to be the logical conclusion of Byrne’s argument. Somehow we, as a creative species, prevail as individuals despite our self-induced demise. The problem with the anti-tech argument is that most people, unlike Byrne, do not necessarily need reminding of what is “human” or “real” – I would believe that the famous musician turned hopeful artist does not live in the “real” world, therefore, does he really need to be our spokesperson?
The issue of design versus anti-design – especially in terms of hand-painted graphics – is of particular note in the techsploited Bay Area, where rich programmers live alongside poor immigrant families, with young crafty artists somewhere in between. A lot of the novelty of some of these graphics is taken away by the fact that their equivalents exist here in as very real a form. If I were to mention to a friend “that taqueria with the dancing tacos,” there would be no question of where I meant. This sort of hand-designed advertising is so ingrained in Mexican culture it too has been imported to California.
Although they can be argued as countering mass-produced corporate branding, these images exist in a visual and cultural realm of their own. The beauty of these images, from an advertising stand-point, is that they are not competing for your attention against other posters and billboards – their uniqueness and quirky imperfections catch one’s eye and hold in the memory; the insidious corporate advertising technique of saturation and repetition has backfired.
An interesting point those heralds of the cult of “realness” have glossed over is the use of copyrighted figures – characters pillaged from various Disney and Warner Brothers cartoons and other pop culture references, appropriated to sell ice cream or auto parts. For instance, one image that appears in Sensacional! Is a rather disturbing picture of a dissected rabbit with the head of Bugs Bunny, designed to sell meat. That is the point – yes they are taking matters into their own hands, but these artists and storeowners employ such already recognizable characters to sell their wares. There is some thought put into these designs, they are not just painted out of personal expression, they are geared to grab the attention of their target audience – that of the local community. It is the definition of a grassroots art form. What to me seems the most notable is the attention paid to the audience, mixed with personal quirks and humor rather than to rules of design, market research, or generally any manner of formulae.
Which brings us to the exhibition at Yerba Buena; whereas in the exhibition in Mexico artists were invited to paint huge signs directly on the walls, for the displays elsewhere sign painters were commissioned to recreate paintings from photographs on large hanging fabric or wooden boards. The original images, as 4x6 snapshots, line up across the floor in overwhelming procession. It is a bit of a shame to compare the photos to their copies as the originals are undoubtedly better. There are also three-dimensional light boxes covered by pulp magazine covers copied onto transparencies. With a mixing of these reproductions, real “artefacts” and photos of the originals, all in a variety of scale and material, the display method is definitely gutsy. It effectively undermines the preciousness of the art object while attempting to capture their original spectacle. Sensacional!, as an exhibition, makes an effort to transcend mere documentation but at the same time seems to further distance the visitor from the “anonymous” artists and context. Perhaps this is why the book format seems more suited to this material. Nevertheless, these images, when presented within an art gallery setting – and therefore denied their original function – still stand up as beautiful cultural barometers.
http://www.ybca.org/tickets/production.aspx?performanceNumber=2116
http://www.sensacional.com.mx/
http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=407&Itemid=90
posted by tonya at 12:28 PM
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Courbet at the Met: (May 2008)
I've always found Courbet to be one of the more interesting art personalities. I would imagine contributing as a major art world revolutionary would require so. But the Met has really brought this description home for me. The catalog picture, a close up self-portrait of the artist in a vulnerable state of exasperation, drives home the idea that you are getting more than you paid for. Between the politics, scandalous eroticism, and virtuous landscapes, who could ask for more? Let's take a peek, shall we?
A professor of mine once told me that the first reason a person looks at a painting is the visual quality. And that it is more often than not this characteristic that dictates whether the mobile audience of a museum stops and ponders, or skips and passes. Courbet's work has always had the attributes of the former. Upon first entering the exhibition space it is easy to notice the appeal of the artist's skill. Meticulously rendered landscapes are often not the first images associated with Courbet in the annals of history or among enthusiasts, but these are some of the first works the visitor comes across. This is either done inadvertently or, as I am reading too much into it, to whet the appetite for the rest of the display, which will further challenge our perceptions of this French Modern Master. It is through these picturesque visual appetizers of Flagey, the Seine, and the Valley of the Loue that the viewer is able to appreciate the delicate skill of Mr. Courbet's coordination. Rich colors pulsate from canvases over 150 years old. The lack of deterioration is noted, as there are portfolios by artists 50 years newer that resemble photographs of stilled lightning.
Swept up in the current of the aesthetics, you are pushed downstream to more figurative works. Bathers, Sleepers, and Beautiful Irish Women (or are they the same woman), hold frozen in time, as if their only reason for existing was to hold this pose for your eternal enjoyment. The gilded frames could serve to line a Victorian era mirror, which would be suitable because Courbet's subjects of nature, society, and the body easily reflect our own states of being and show us the layers of humanity.
Entire reviews could be written on his collections of self-portraits alone. Courbet's depictions of himself reveal his inclination to paint himself into different roles. You'll see him as the traveler in "Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet," the haughty young man in "Courbet with a Black Dog," and in a moment of instability as "The Desperate Man," the exhibition title shot.
Finally, we come to the maverick's treatment of the human body. And while not the last images you see as you exit the gallery, one might say they are the last ones you are thinking about when you do. A small grouping so controversial, back in the last half of the 1800's and today, that to see them in New York this year you have to enter a partitioned off area with a warning that the works included might not be suitable for children. And I agree with them. I don't recommend the recent Botox transfusion to step inside the parlor unless you have someone to raise your eyebrows for you, because you just might hurt yourself trying. A blatant, raw, all too honest painting titled "L'Origine du Monde" (The Origin of the World) is the show-stealer. I'm not going to drip the details for you here (in case some pre-teen is locked away in his room stealing a read from this blog), but it looks like what it sounds like, and then some. It was so scandalous back then that at the Met you get to read a little blurb about how fellow artist Andre Masson was commissioned by an owner of the Courbet work to create a landscape on a wooden panel, flirtingly similar to "L'Origine." This wooden panel, when slid aside, revealed the controversial Courbet piece, in a secret compartment. And who said museums were boring? While the rest of the show in no way disappoints, you might linger your way on from there, not really plumbing the depths of other artwork you see, but with a mischievous smile on your face as if someone let you in on a dirty secret.
All in all, some artworks catch the eye and interest more than others, but a show worth seeing if you really want to experience Courbet. So if you didn't make it to the collection this time around, don't expect this to be the last you hear of Monsieur Courbet. Although this is his first major retrospective in over thirty years, his colorful life and work promise to keep him in the spotlight of modern research and thought. We can only look forward to the next serving of his exciting imagery, and maybe this one will even let the children in.
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