DEATH AND THE INVISIBLE HAND: CONTEMPORARY MEXICAN ART, 1988-PRESENT by Mónica Rocío Salazar APPROVED BY SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: ___________________________________________ Charles Hatfield, Co-Chair ___________________________________________ Charissa N. Terranova, Co-Chair ___________________________________________ Mark Rosen ___________________________________________ Shilyh Warren ___________________________________________ Roberto Tejada Copyright 2016 Mónica Salazar All Rights Reserved A mi papá. DEATH AND THE INVISIBLE HAND: CONTEMPORARY MEXICAN ART, 1988-PRESENT by MÓNICA ROCÍO SALAZAR, BS, MA DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HUMANITIES – AESTHETIC STUDIES THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS December 2016 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Research and writing of this dissertation was undertaken with the support of the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History. I thank Mrs. O’Donnell for her generosity and Dr. Richard Brettell for his kind support. I am especially grateful to Dr. Charles Hatfield and Dr. Charissa Terranova, co- chairs of this dissertation, for their guidance and encouragement. I thank Dr. Mark Rosen, Dr. Shilyh Warren, and Dr. Roberto Tejada for their time and commitment to this project. I also want to thank Dr. Adam Herring for his helpful advice. I am grateful for the advice and stimulating conversations with other UT Dallas professors—Dr. Luis Martín, Dr. Dianne Goode, Dr. Fernando Rodríguez Miaja—as well as enriching discussions with fellow PhD students—Lori Gerard, Debbie Dewitte, Elpida Vouitis, and Mindy MacVay—that benefited this project. I also thank Dr. Shilyh Warren and Dr. Beatriz Balanta for creating the Affective Theory Cluster, which introduced me to affect theory and helped me shape my argument in chapter 4. I want to acknowledge the support from the Mexican institutions that allowed me to do the research for this dissertation. I thank the staff of the Biblioteca Alfonsina at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León for their welcoming support; in particular, I am grateful for the help of Natalia Berrún. I am also grateful to Fernando Rodríguez at the Centro de Documentación of the Museo Rufino Tamayo, as well as Cristina Ortega at the Biblioteca de la Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo. The conversations I held with artists Geardo Cantú, Gonzalo García, and Rubén Maya also informed this dissertation. I am grateful for their time and generosity. I am also indebted to my many friends and family members who in different ways contributed to this project. I thank Karla, Eduardo, Amanda, Nico, Daniela, Andrés, Ale, Javier, Vero Esquino, v and Larry for helping with Carolina. I am also grateful for the support of my loving family— Cristina, Enrique, Cristy, Marce, Kike, Eugenio, Jorge, Claudia, Jorgito, Mariana, and David. Above all, I thank the encouragement and support of my parents, Alejandra, Rafa, Rafita, Valeria, and Elva, who take care of Carolina and me every summer. Last but not least, I am grateful for the love and unconditional support of Oso and Carolina. October 2016 vi DEATH AND THE INVISIBLE HAND: CONTEMPORARY MEXICAN ART, 1988-PRESENT Publication No. ___________________ Mónica Salazar, PhD The University of Texas at Dallas, 2016 ABSTRACT Supervising Professors: Charles Hatfield, Co-Chair Charissa N. Terranova, Co-Chair This dissertation is about the presence of death in contemporary Mexican art, specifically the ways in which it transforms an ancient tradition while reflecting the sociopolitical changes brought about by the neoliberal policies that were put into place during the presidency of Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988–1994). It studies the relationship between the narrative of death representations in Mexican art; the economic and sociopolitical turmoil of the 1990s; and the presence of death in the works of prominent contemporary Mexican artists—Teresa Margolles, María García-Ibañez, Gabriel de la Mora, Lenin Márquez Salazar, and Gonzalo García—in order to argue that their work not only transforms the national tradition of death to which it belongs, but also responds to the unprecedented changes imposed by neoliberalism. My dissertation also argues that the current crisis of place—an overarching anxiety over the physical territory of the country (which is threatened by neoliberalism)—has a strong presence in contemporary Mexican art, and is evident in its treatment of the national symbol of death. It aims to demonstrate how the ending of decades of land distribution that were crucial in the construction of a national identity vii bound to the land, where the bones of its ancestors lay, was the catalyst for new kinds of death representations that appeal to the senses, the emotions, and universal ideas. Through the study of a selection of artworks of four contemporary Mexican artists, this project will demonstrate how the death imagery that started to appear in the art of the 1990s marks a radical break from the traditional symbolism of the nationalistic imagery started by José Guadalupe Posada and Diego Rivera, reflecting no less than a reinvention of the national identity in the face of globalization. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS …………………………………………………………………..........v ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ……………………………..………...................…………………xi CHAPTER 1 MEXICAN DEATH: FROM NATIONALIST TO CONCEPTUAL …..................1 1.1 The Forgotten Case of ROCI Mexico …………………………………………...........1 1.2 Mexico in the 1980s …………………..………………………………………............4 1.3 The Hegemony of a Nationalist Pictorial Tradition …………..………………............8 1.4 Resistance Attempts: From Generación de Ruptura to Neoconceptualismo…….......12 1.5 Contemporary Mexican Art: Neoconceptualismo …..…………………………........16 1.6 The Uninterrupted Presence of Death…...……………………………………...........20 1.7 Towards a (Neo)Conceptual Death...…………………………………………….......23 CHAPTER 2 LANDLESS PEASANTS, LANDLESS ART ……………..……….....................27 2.1 Death, Land, and the Market...…………………………...………………..................27 2.2 The Land: From Restitution to Commodification (1917-1992)……..……................30 2.3 Neoconceptualism in Mexico …..…………………………………………...............43 2.4 The All-Embracing Neoliberal Thought..……………………………………............52 2.5 Landless Art or the Renegotiation of the Territory in Contemporary Mexican Art....57 2.6 Conclusion …..…………………………………………………………………........70 CHAPTER 3 NEITHER LAND NOR FREEDOM: NARCODEATH ART AND THE CRISIS OF PLACE ………………………………………………………………………………………72 3.1 Slim and el Chapo: Narcotraffic under Neoliberalism ……………………………...76 3.2 Narcotraffic and the Crisis of Place …………………………………………………81 3.3 On Narcoculture ……………………………………………………………………..83 3.4 Art’s Narco Turn …………………………………………………………………….87 3.5 Reclaiming the Territory: Narcodeath Art and the Sense of Place ………………….90 3.6 Narcodeath Art and the Revitalization of the Exceptionalist Myth …………………96 3.7 Al Cliente lo que Pida (Give the Client Whatever He Wants): Narcodeath Art Abroad ….........................................................................................................................101 ix 3.8 Territories of Violence ………………………………………………………..........104 3.9 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………....109 CHAPTER 4 WHEN DEATH HITS HOME..............................................................................111 4.1 Death Hits Home …………………………………………………………………...114 4.2 Home as an Alternative Space ……………………………………………………..119 4.3 Ready-Made Death ……………………………………………………………...…135 4.4 When the House is No Longer a Home ……………………………………………141 4.5 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………149 CHAPTER 5 WE ARE BAROQUE: THE ART OF THE ABSENT BODY ………..………..150 5.1 The Body in Mexican Art …………………………………………………...……..153 5.2 The Dead Body …………………………………………………………………….160 5.3 Affective Minimalism ……………………………………………………………...163 5.4 Conceptualism and Minimalism as Absence ………………………………………166 5.5 We Are Baroque …………………………………………………………………...170 5.6 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………184 CHAPTER 6 FROM MARGINAL TO MAINSTREAM: MEXICAN DEATH ART 1988- PRESENT ……………………………………………………………………………………...186 6.1 El Astrónomo: Against the Fixity of Place ………………………………………..186 6.2 1988 to the Present ………………………..………………………………………..189 6.3 Further Considerations ………………………………………………………….....191 BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………………………...216 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH……………………………………………………………...........234 CURRICULUM VITAE x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1.1 Robert Rauschenberg, Altar Peace/ROCI MEXICO, 1985.............................................193 2.1 Gabriel de la Mora, Memoria I, 2007..............................................................................194 2.2 Zona MACO Logo, 2014................................................................................................194 2.3 Banner with Zona MACO Logo, 2015............................................................................195 2.4 Vicente Razo, Museo Salinas, 1996................................................................................195 2.5 Pablo Vargas Lugo, Sidewalk, 2003................................................................................196 2.6 Francisco Goitia, Viejo en el Muladar, 1927...................................................................197 2.7 Petronilo Monroy, Alegoría de la Constitución de 1857, c.1869....................................197