Student number: 33274541
“Identity does not grow up from the ground, nor drop down from the skies.
Identity is not something given once and for all, nor is it discovered; it is
constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed endlessly. There is no Identity;
there are only different positions adopted in producing it.” 1
Establishing the national identity is a process of constant changes, the
times of glory and war, which tie the people together. However, we need means
of passing the ideas and feelings which build the Identity. That is when art
steps in. When I think of Mexico I see Edgar Koi, El Curiot, Spaik and Graciela
Iturbide. As I am mainly interested in street art and photography, I directed
my research towards these areas. In the beginning of this year Barbican held
the exhibition titled 'Everything was moving', where I first encountered works
of Graciela Iturbide. In the library I found a book dedicated to that show. Most
of my research took place in the library. The additional articles I completed
from the Internet. I was not able to find any publications on current street art
in Mexico, so I had to look up the information on the Internet. I used online
portfolios of the artists El Curiot and Spaik as well as articles on street art
blogs.
Mexican muralist movement was a vanguard combination of cubist and
futurist elements with strong political tinge painted on huge spaces. This
format of artwork was taken up due to mexican artists' attraction to
monumental art of Italian Renaissance and the Baroque tradition. Plenty of
murals were painted as a response to the Revolution deriving the socio-political
1 John Mraz, 'Looking for Mexico : modern visual culture and national identity', (Durham,
DukeUniversity Press, 2009), 2.
situations of the post-revolutionary Mexico. Murals were easily accessible to
anyone as they were painted in public places. This was possible because,
unlike contemporary Mexican graffiti, most of them were...