Los Grupos and the Art of Intervention in 1960S and 1970S Mexico
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City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2015 Los Grupos and the Art of Intervention in 1960s and 1970s Mexico Arden Decker Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/901 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] LOS GRUPOS AND THE ART OF INTERVENTION IN 1960s AND 1970s MEXICO by ARDEN DECKER A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2015 i ©2015 ARDEN DECKER All Rights Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Art History in satisfaction of the Disseration requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Dr. Katherine Manthorne ———————— ——————————————— Date Professor Katherine Manthorne Chair of Examining Committee Dr. Rachel Kousser ———————— ——————————————— Date Professor Rachel Kousser Executive Officer Professor Anna Indych-López ———————————— Professor Edward Sullivan ———————————— Professor Mona Hadler ———————————— Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT LOS GRUPOS AND THE ART OF INTERVENTION IN 1960s AND 1970s MEXICO By Arden Decker Advisor: Katherine Manthorne Throughout the 1960s and 70s, Mexican artists employed art interventions in commercial galleries, cultural institutions, and city streets to facilitate a renegotiation of the role of art (and the artist) in society. The art intervention, a mode of conceptualism, served to circumvent traditional spaces for the display of art and to destabilize and expose the hierarchies or power structures that shaped the art world and society at large. Artists began to explore alternative definitions of the artist and the art object as early as 1961, when progenitors of conceptualism such as Mathias Goeritz, José Luis Cuevas, and Alejandro Jodorowsky produced art interventions in galleries, theaters, art schools, museums, and public spaces. These new interventionist practices were forged within the context of local and global social revolutions. In Mexico, widespread repression and censorship at the hands of the state culminated in the 1968 student and workers’ movements. Tragically marked by the government- initiated massacre of peaceful demonstrators in Tlatelolco, the movement accelerated incidents of protest, police and military brutality, and a crisis within cultural institutions. Though the Mexican government presented itself as aligned with socialist causes, the 1970s saw an unofficial dirty war launched against perceived radicals to quash the momentum activists had gained in 1968. This heated environment found artists in a continuing struggle to find new forms of expression as well as spaces for the display of their work. Many turned to collectivization and conceptualist tactics in what has come to be called the movimiento de los grupos or the “Group Movement” that flourished between 1973 and 1979. iv Despite the proliferation of art interventions across the two decades (and within similar socio-political conditions) connections between the 1960s generation and the Grupos of the 1970s have not been adequately addressed. Accordingly, this project examines the ways in which strategies of intervention served as a form of resistance for both generations. I argue that the intervention served as a primary tool in the renegotiation of the social role of art and the artist. As a vehicle of conceptualism, interventionist practice served to introduce institutional critique, new media and mass communication, as well as performative actions as artistic modes, irreversibly altering the cultural landscape of Mexico. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the guidance of my adviser, Dr. Katherine Manthorne. I am truly grateful for her mentorship, support, and generosity throughout this process. I am also thankful to my readers, Dr. Anna Indych-López, Dr. Edward Sullivan, and Dr. Mona Hadler, for their careful readings and thoughtful feedback. Their insights have enriched my project tremendously. I would like to extend my gratitude to Art History Department of the Graduate Center, CUNY, and in particular the Executive Officers that have assisted me in the program: Dr. Patricia Mainardi, Dr. Kevin Murphy, Dr. Claire Bishop, and Dr. Rachel Kousser. This project would not have been possible without the support of the Fulbright-García Robles award, which facilitated my research in Mexico City. My research was also assisted by the generous travel grants awarded by the Graduate Center and by the tremendous collections and staff of the Centro de Documentación Arkheia, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, UNAM. Your assistance has been invaluable. I am indebted to the numerous colleagues and mentors who have helped to shape this project: Dr. Deborah Cullen, Elvis Fuentes, Dr. Karen Cordero at the Universidad Iberoamerican, as well Pilar García and Sol Henaro of MUAC, Dr. Jennifer Boles, Cristóbal Andres Jacome, Dr. George Flaherty, Gabriela Aceves-Sepúlveda, Dr. Susana Vargas Cervantes, Julio García Murillo, Regina Tattersfield, and “toda la banda” from Centro de la Imagén. I would also like to extended very warm thanks to the many artists that were more than generous in sharing their ideas and reflections. This project would have been impossible without them. I am eternally grateful to the friends that have helped to guide me through this project and offered a hand when needed, I could not have accomplished this without you: James Oles, vi Jennifer Josten, my Graduate Center sisters (Jennifer Favorite, Marisa Lerer, Renee McGarry, Andrea Ortuño, and María Laura Steverlynck), Gina Dawson, Gigi Ng, Nikki Arendt, Alison Hearst, Andrea Karnes, Thomas Glassford, Suzanne Villiger, and mis hermanos from the Red Treehouse (especially Jorge Silva). A special thanks to Jacobo Fernández for his seemingly infinite patience and encouragement. I cannot express enough gratitude for the support of my beloved family: Catherine, Robert, and West Decker, and last, but never least: Lee, Mr. Drummond, Peanut, Louie, and Carol. vii CONTENTS ABSTRACT. .i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . .vi INTRODUCTION . 1 Literature Chapter Summaries Chapter 1. APERTURES FOR EXPERIMENTATION: INTERVENTIONS OF THE 1960s . .28 The Progenitors Reconsidering the Ruptura Mathias Goeritz and the International Neo-Avant-Garde Fed Up!: los Hartos and the Anti-exhibition Panic in Mexico: Alejandro Jodorowsky Panic Party: the Ephemeral at San Carlos The Ephemeral for Canto al océano José Luis Cuevas and the Ephemeral Mural Chapter 2. BEYOND THE MOVIMIENTO: COUNTERCULTURES AND CONCEPTUALISMS INSIDE (AND OUTSIDE) MEXICO, 1968-1971 . 85 The Mexican Counterculture and jipismo El Corno emplumado Jodorowsky and the International Counterculture Autogestarnos: the Salón Independiente The Mural efīmero, 1968 Hersúa and Arte Otro Foreign Intervention: Felipe Ehrenberg in London Chapter 3. INSTITUTIONS, INFORMATION, AND INTERVENTION IN FELIPE EHRENBERG AND GRUPO PROCESO PENTÁGONO . 139 viii Come Together: (Mis)Understanding the “Grupos phenomenon” Ehrenberg’s Chicles, chocolates, cacahuates Proceso Pentágono before Proceso Pentágono A nivel informative and the Palacio de Bellas Artes as a Site of Intervention El Secuestro and Abduction as Institutional Critique Proceso Pentágono in the X Paris Youth Biennial Chapter 4. PerformanS: HUMOR AND IRONY AS STRATEGIES OF INTERVENTION IN NO-GRUPO. .183 The Formation of No-Grupo and Juan Acha’s No-Objetualismo An Act of Sabotage: No-Grupo and the X Paris Youth Bienniale Sequestered Geometrism: Presencia ambiente Gunther Gerzso Montajes de momentos plásticos and the Sección Annual de Experimentación (1979) Peyote y la Compañia’s Transformance Myth and Media: Atentado al hijo pródigo at the Museo de Arte Moderno CONCLUSION. .232 A Grupos Legacy Bibliography. 241 Illustrations. 256 ix ILLUSTRATIONS Fig.1 Group photo of “Los Hartos,” 1961……………………………………...…….………257 Fig.2 Crashed helicopter used as backdrop in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s performance for the unveiling of Manuel Félguerez’s Canto al oceano, 1961. Photographer unkown. ……………………………………………………………………………………….….258 Fig.3 Vicente Rojo, Vieja señal # 2, 1967 and Lilia Carrillo, The End, 1958…………..……259 Fig.4 Alberto Gironella, Black Queen, 1961 and Francisco Icaza, La plaga (Plague Series), 1963. ……………………………………………………………………………………260 Fig.5 José Luis Cuevas, Portraits of Kafka and His Father (Worlds of Kafka and Cuevas series), 1957 and Letter to Mathias Goeritz……….……………………………………261 Fig.6 Mathias Goeritz, Message Number 7B, Ecclesiates VII:6, 1959 and Message, 1960-70. …………………………………………………………………..………………………262 Fig.7 Installation view of “Los Hartos,” featuring works by Rodríguez, Maqueda, and Reyes Ferreira, 1961. ……………………………………………….…………………………263 Fig.8 Oboe performance by Consuelo Rodríguez de Soto Franco at the “Los Hartos” exhibition, 1961.……………………………………..…………………………………263 Fig.9 Installation view of “Los Hartos” including works by Asta, Goeritz, Friedeberg and Jose Luis Cuevas’s Vision panoramica de las artes plásticas (Panoramic Vision of the Plastic Arts), 1961. ……………………………………………………………………………..264 Fig.10 La ópera del orden, 1962, directed by Alejandro