"Cambio, Cambias, Cambiamos" / Exhibition Proposal

“Cambio, Cambias, Cambiamos”

(“I change, you change, we change”)

Theme: This exhibition explores Mexican contemporary artists and their take on the social, political, and economic issues Mexico faces. Being a daughter of immigrants and being Mexican-American, I relate to much of the artwork presented by the three artists I chose. The issues addressed are issues such as the war with the drug cartel, poverty, hunger, and capitalism. I also understand that these issues bleed into our own country's media and political debates. Most of the time opinions are biased and misinformed when there is talk of Mexico and its citizens. I see this art as a form of awareness, resistance, and most importantly a vehicle of change. I hope this exhibition provides more understanding of our neighboring country Mexico, its people, and breaks the stereotype perpetuated by the President of this country. Cambio, Cambias, Cambiamos presents the issues from the point of view of Mexican citizens and artists, Artists such as Natalia Almada, Minerva Cuevas, and Pedro Reyes who wish to bring awareness and bring change for their country through their chosen mediums.

Artists:

Natalia Almada


Almada is a Mexican-American filmmaker that creates documentaries about Mexico’s history and realities, especially within the context of drug crime and violence. One of the films chosen for the exhibit is, El Velador (The Night Watchman), which takes a look into Sinaloa’s cartel-related increase in deaths through the growth of the city's mausoleums. In 2006 Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderon, made a declaration that he was going to target the drug cartels. That declaration tragically incited what is now an ongoing civil war. Almada shows that when a cartel member dies in Culiacán, their body is laid to rest in a graveyard that looks like a miniature city. This cemetery is protected by el velador, who's humble home pales in comparison to the elaborate and tall mausoleums of the cartel members. The importance of this piece in "Cambio, Cambias, Cambiamos" is that the film tells the story of violence and power without showing any literal violence.
El Velador 2011

Film still of El Velador 

Additional Selected Work: 

Al Otro Lado (To The Other Side)- 2005. The film follows an aspiring corrido singer who makes the journey to the United States.
The main character's two choices to make a better life for himself and his family are to cross the border illegally or to begin to traffic drugs.
The film explores many of the reasons why people in Mexico make the difficult decision to come to the United States and why some resort to drug trafficking.
Almada perfectly captures the obstacles and risks immigrants face in their journey to improve their economic status and overall livelihood.
This film humanizes those that are simply labeled "illegal immigrants" into actual people who sacrifice more than we realize for the American Dream.


Film Poster 


Film Still 


Minerva Cuevas

The Del Montte re-branding campaign was created to bring awareness to companies such as Del Monte using land owned by indigenous people to grow crops while the majority of the people there suffer from hunger and poverty. Cuevas has re-branded many other known brands in her art and altered logos and slogans to reflect their ugly truth. For Cambio, Cambias, Cambiamos this work from Cuevas brings to light that the American companies many of us buy from, often utilize land and labor from impoverished countries, especially Mexico and Central America.


Del Montte

Del Montte, 2003, Acrylic on Wall, 500 x 600cm
100 relabeled tomato cans, 

Additional Selected Work:
In her project, Mejor Vida Corp (Better Life Corp), Cuevas would help the community by leaving "gifts" in the forms of changing barcodes for cheaper product prices, issuing student I.D's, and free subway tickets. These "micro-sabotages" allows for the community to receive the help they may not have gotten from their governments. 

Mejor Vida Corp,1998-2012

Mejor Vida Corp 1998-2012


Pedro Reyes

Pedro Reyes created an incitive called “Disarm” which turns weapons into functioning instruments.
Reyes hopes this initiative is adopted nationally in Mexico, in hopes to safely and purposely take weapons out of circulation.
It is important to note that Mexico only has one gun store that legally sells firearms in addition to very strict gun laws. Most of the weapons actually come from the United States.
Imagine (violin 1) 2012
recycled metal
66.0 x 29.0 x 12.0 cm
Disarm 

Additional Selected Work:

Lastly for the exhibition, Pedro Reyes' project, pUN (People's United Nations) not only allows for issues from the country of Mexico to be discussed and rationalized but for all nations. Reyes presents a role-play where regular citizens become delegates for their region. They then participate in activities with one another where they can begin to solve real issues through a game. It is an effective and engaging way for visitors to interact with each other after going through the exhibit and its theme.
2013


Example of the project in motion at the Hammer Museum
https://art21.org/artist/pedro-reyes/
Pedro Reyes' Website
Artist Statements:

 Natalia Almada: "Whenever violence is happening, I think that one of the first that happens is that there's silence. I couldn't ask, like, "Who is buried here, and why did they get killed?" Those questions would have put me in danger and the person I was asking in danger, so why not try to understand the situation in its silence?"

Minerva Cuevas: " In this visual society, it seems that we are at the same time blinded. All the things that we face every day that are signs of the social crisis, sometimes they get transparent and, uh, forgotten, so some of my projects, the exercise is very much reworking the visual code to make things visual again."

Pedro Reyes: "The notion of sculpture is having the understanding that you can take that material and give it shape.  Something that was designed to kill, how will it produce sounds for music? I often find myself knocking at the doors of different government agencies trying to persuade them to embrace this initiative as something that could happen on a national scale because we need to get rid of all the weapons that are entering our territory from the United States. Doing these workshops is an attempt to transform not only the material metal to try to create a psychological transformation and, hopefully, a social transformation."


Bibliography

Barahona, Igor. "Poverty in Mexico: Its Relationship to Social and Cultural Indicators." Social Indicators Research 135, no. 2 (2018): 599-627.

Fraga, Christopher, Abercrombie, Thomas, Ginsburg, Faye, Myers, Fred, Rosaldo, Renato, and Sullivan, Edward. Campaigns of Cultural Production: Contemporary Art and Politics in Mexico City, 2012, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.
Fullerton, Elizabeth. “Sabotage: A Conversation with Minerva Cuevas.” Sculpture, March 26, 2019. https://sculpturemagazine.art/sabotage-a-conversation-with-minerva-cuevas/.
Neri, Louise. “Pedro Reyes: Disarm.” NGV, October 24, 2013. https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/pedro-reyes-disarm/. 
Pov. “Film Description: Al Otro Lado: POV: PBS.” POV, January 2, 2006. http://archive.pov.org/alotrolado/film-description/. 
“POV.” PBS. Public Broadcasting Service, September 26, 2012. https://www.pbs.org/video/pov-el-velador-filmmaker-interview-natalia-almada/. 


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