El derrumbe de la estatua

In this context, the public statue and the mural painting have been two of the preferred models of the Mexican state to build the national imaginary of Mexico in the 20th century. From the epic and celebratory forms of official art to the works commemorative of glorious or traumatic events (such as the memorial to the victims of violence in Mexico), power has sought to produce sanctified spaces that are set apart, by means of public art.

The art of the second half of the 20th century in Mexico has attempted to subvert these practices that appropriate persons, the past and events for the purposes of society. Against the monument and ideological reification of conventional public art, much of the artistic output of the second half of the 20th century disrupts this character by means of interventions, interruptions and the creation of situations that aim at the interaction between individuals and their surroundings, and not the remote contemplation of monuments.
 

This exhibition explores the forms in which a range of modern and contemporary artistic practices in Mexico have emerged from the critique, demolition and search for alternatives to a national public art. The exhibition deconstructs the idea of the statue and the monument, at the same time exploring the nomadic and ephemeral practices of interventions in social space that resignify public space as a field of vital and political tensions.