Rosângela Rennó. Exhibition view with (left to right) Los Angeles (Lori Shepler, Los Angeles Times); Senador Camará (Wania Corredo, O Globo News Agency); Assunción (Ruben Alfonso, Reuters), 2009; Digital print, inkjet, on Hahnemülle Photo Rag 308 paper; 
66 x 44 in. Courtesy of the artist.

In Body of Soul (the state of the world) (2003-2016), Rosângela Rennó amplifies and digitally modifies newspaper pictures that document a diverse range of public demonstrations. From a distance, Rennó’s three large-format photographs show crowds, but are zoomed in to focus on one person who stands holding a small portrait of, presumably, a lost loved one. From afar, the images are crisply legible, but sharpness dissolves as viewers approach the images and the halftone dots that were hard to distinguish from a distance appear outsized when up close. It becomes evident that the dots are not uniformly distributed; there are different densities deliberately arranged throughout the image, with tighter and smaller dots composing the image of the loved one, thus rendering it visible from all distances.

Although in her artist statement, Rennó aims to create a link between the spectator’s reflection in the frame’s glass and the daguerreotype technique of mirror imaging, what is most striking in the context of this show are the work’s titles. Each is named for the image’s original photographer, or the operator for Barthes: Ruben Alfonso from Reuters, Lori Shepler from the Los Angeles Times, and Wania Corredo from O Globo. It is the photographers who are identified—a surprising contrast to their amplified yet anonymous subjects. However, it is not these photographer’s original works we are seeing, but an image cropped and modified by Rennó to highlight a certain feeling; thus the work shifts not only each image’s authorship, but also its original punctum. By focusing on the image within the image, Rennó is altering the photograph’s effect from one that emphasizes the force of collective mobilization to the power of an individualized story, while granting the right of those who have already physically disappeared to not be swallowed in a sea of mechanically flattened visual narratives.

Teresa Margolles. El Exhumado, 2014; Armchair and plastic wrap; 47 x 35 x 43 in; C-print; 64 x 48 in. Courtesy of the artist.

In El Exhumado (The Exhumed, 2016), Teresa Margolles disrupts the safe distance between viewer and image by bringing a piece of evidence—a specter itself—out of the photograph that hangs in the gallery’s wall and placing it in the exhibition space. Concerned by structural violence in northern Mexico, Margolles photographed a dilapidated home in Juárez, a city infamous for its permanently high rate of femicides and drug-related crimes. In the photograph we see a sofa—framed by wooden ornaments and once flamboyant red upholstery highly significant of a middle class status—trapped beneath the rubble of the collapsed ceiling. Exhumed as if it was a wounded body, the sofa now stands stoically in the gallery, its colors and features barely visible under protective plastic that wraps it and keeps it together. By saving this object from its otherwise inevitable demise, the artist refuses to accept what appears to be an unchangeable, doomed fate of Juárez, while also invoking a powerful embodiment of human struggle into the otherwise immaculate exhibition space.

Fredi Casco. The Return of The Sorcerers, Vol. 1, 2005; Digital prints; 7.8 x 9.8 in., each. Courtesy of the artist.

In the gallery’s lower floor, Fredi Casco’s The Return of The Sorcerers (2005, 2011, 2012) is presented in its three volumes, each a separate episode in which the artist uses a different set of photography-based strategies to confront the toxic legacy of Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguay’s dictator from 1954 until 1989. The eponymous horror story by Clark Ashton Smith, written in 1931, seems to have influenced the artist whose dark humor is unmistakable even when dealing with his own country’s most harrowing episodes. While in Smith’s story the unarticulated limbs of a corpse come back from the grave to haunt its killer, in Casco’s work, it is the lost or amputated images—collected by the artist in Asunción’s flea markets—of military men and their enabling cronies that come back to our present day to be identified, if only metaphorically, as culprits in the many crimes of Stroessner’s regime.

Fredi Casco. The Return of The Sorcerers, Vol. 1, 2005; Digital print; 7.8 x 9.8 in. Courtesy of the artist.

Twenty-four black-and-white pictures belonging to Volume 1 of the series line three walls of the gallery. At first sight the photographs appear to document diverse state dinners with middle-aged men and women, older military and clergymen, and what looks like leaders from different countries talking, signing papers, and drinking in official monotony. Upon closer inspection, we see that these characters not only appear homogenous in attire and attitude, but they’ve actually been digitally cloned; some have had their faces interchanged, while the heads of others have been covered with gas masks. The effect is both comical and disturbing, as the artist’s manipulations highlight the fact that in order to succeed in its genocidal enterprise, the Paraguayan dictatorship required—as all repressive regimes do—the compliance of an interchangeable set of minions coming from civil, religious, and political circles, both national and internationally.

From Strossner’s years of cold-blooded rule in Paraguay to present day Juárez, Spectres presents a distressing picture of a continent in which institutions seem to suffer systemic amnesia. The artists in this exhibition prevent their respective specters from vanishing by zooming into appropriated images to get to their symbolic cores, unearthing the symbols of a domesticity interrupted by crime and corruption, and by creating archives and imagining their corresponding stories out of what the system conveniently deems trash.

Written in the first person, Camera Lucida was Barthes’ attempt at grasping the power of photography to invoke the dead in the eyes of the living. For as important as the spectrum was for him, it was the spectator—himself in grieving—who was at the center of his argument. In these images it is again the spectator who is pressed to recognize the power of photography to have effects on things far larger than sentiment, indeed making us see and feel, but also forcing us to remember, think, and even act.

Spectres is on view at Mor Charpentier through December 22, 2016.

[1] Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981).

Poster calling for the return of the disappeared normalistas. Photo: Jorge Gomez del Campo.

According to some critics, neoliberal reforms account for much of this violence. The chapter on Ciudad Juarez in Ed Vulliamy’s book Amexica is a particularly good example; it situates the epidemic of femicides in that city in the context of the structural changes brought about by the North American Free Trade Agreement. Furthermore, Vulliamy asserts that the particularly brutal character of narco/state violence in Mexico results from the drug war’s neoliberal form.

The question of how art responds to, or ignores, this climate is of utmost importance. Recently, the College of Art and Design of the National Autonomous University of Mexico organized a conference, XI Simposio Internacional del Posgrado en Artes y Diseño, on management and professionalism in design, documentary film, and the visual arts. Peppered throughout the talks given by important and august museum directors, curators, art-investment bankers, copyright lawyers, and gallerists were many dissident voices calling for and describing another, more socially conscious art world. The presentation by curator and artist Carlos-Blas Galindo Mendoza, in conjunction with the roundtable he moderated, revealed the contradiction implicit in staging a conference about professionalism and management in the context of the social, political, and humanitarian crises facing contemporary Mexico.

In his talk, “Inserción de Productos Artísticos Visuales en Circuitos Establecidos de Distribución y Consumo, así Como en Redes Independientes,” Galindo ironically explained how to “make it” in the art world: The number-one rule is to never make anything that poses a real threat to neoliberal capitalism. He went on to describe the extant art world as globalized and generic; art objects have to be like a pair of jeans, equally sellable in China, Europe, or Thailand; curators and critics are thinkers-for-hire, justifying what the market values. This art, according to Galindo, is masculinist and authoritarian.

Santiago Ortega Hernández, speaking at the roundtable moderated by Galindo, further indicted the art world. In his thoroughly researched talk, “La Sartén por el Mango. El Coleccionismo Empresarial en el Mercado del Arte,” the artist and academic traced the links between big business, investment banks, and art. This link between art and capital is a matter of record; at one point, however, Ortega Hernández suggested that anyone who participates in these markets and institutions tacitly supports the human-rights abuses carried out by some of the businesses and banks heavily invested in art.

Galindo challenged the audience to develop a solution to these ethical, moral, and aesthetic questions. He called for the development of a new kind of art, a postcolonial art that is feminine, militant, solidary, irreverent, and diverse. This new art would be tied to a particular place and time, it would interrogate power and capital, and it would act with a communitarian—and even revolutionary—spirit. Fortunately, at least to some extent, this art already exists in the work of dozens of local artists and collectives operating within and on the periphery of the art world.

Ambra Polidori. Recuerdo de Ciudad Juarez, 2011; postcards and display rack; 200 x 30 x 30 cm. Courtesy of the Artist and the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico D.F. Photo: Jorge Gomez del Campo.

Internationally recognized artists like Teresa Margolles directly confront the worst results of neoliberal reforms in Mexico. Her work at the Venice Biennale, ¿De Qué Otra Cosa Podríamos Hablar? (2009), and En el Aire (2003) at the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), are examples of how art speaks to power from within the institution. In one work, someone mops the floor with water impregnated with crime-scene remains; in the other, the artist mixes these remains with soap bubbles that float around the viewer. The suggestion is clear; these rarefied art spaces have some relationship to the violence that exists outside of their hermetic walls. Ambra Polidori exhibited a piece in the MUAC that powerfully addressed the ideological and economic realities of femicides in Ciudad Juarez. Recuerdo de Ciudad Juarez (2011) consisted of a rack filled with postcards of crime-scene photographs of femicides with the text Recuerdo de Ciudad Juarez (“Souvenir of Ciudad Juarez”) in playful, colorful script. This piece still resonates as one of the most powerful and complex denouncements of violence by a contemporary Mexican artist.

Casa Gomorra. Photo: Gustavo Ruíz

There are many other works coming from important Mexico City museums and commercial galleries that address this reality, but Galindo’s talk suggests that these works might not meet the criteria of the new art he calls for. Why, he asks, do we include some of this work in the material and ideological institutions of the art world and not others? It seems that for Galindo, any art included in the field is complicit with the politics and conventions of the gallery and museum; nonetheless, countless artists and collectives, which meet most, if not all, of the criteria set forth by Galindo, operate within, and on the periphery, of the art scene in Mexico City. Some important collectives facilitate the production of dissident culture and cultural artifacts. For example, Casa Gomorra is a home and cultural center dedicated to post-porn, trans-feminist, and queer/cuir projects, shows, workshops, performances, and parties. Tepetongo Balneario Crítico works at the boundary between art projects, political activism, and academic research.

Photo: Tepetongo Balneario Crítico.

Rexiste is an informal association of individuals and artists dedicating themselves to arts-based political action. They helped organize two key events this last year: the action commemorating the assassination of a young graffiti artist by police, and the “occupation” (the building was used with the permission of sympathetic administrators) of the Palacio de Bellas Artes as the center of a weekend of art and protest. Cráter Invertido, a collective with anarchist leanings, is one of the most active groups in the contemporary art scene. They are one of the few groups to operate simultaneously on the periphery and in the center of the art world (they were invited to participate in the most recent Venice Biennale). They have been active for a few years and routinely have shows, workshops, free communitarian meals, and performances informed by anarchist aesthetics. There are many more of these groups in Mexico City, and countless more throughout the country. Mexico is full of art whose themes and structures actively work against the worst results of neoliberal policies in the country.

The story of one artist and activist in particular is indicative of this reality. At Casa Gomorra, Denise (last name withheld to respect her privacy) recounted her experiences organizing resistance to narco/state violence in Monterrey, the capital of the state of Nuevo Leon in the north of Mexico. She told us about strategies that mostly centered on reclaiming public space from violence. For instance, if a cartel hung bodies from a bridge, they’d organize a queer/cuir bike ride across it. Or, when violence shut down all the bars and parks of the historic downtown, artists and activists rented apartments and studios, and opened cafes and galleries as artistic and political actions.

This kind of praxis is remarkable and brave on its own; however, Denise continues to work even after being harmed by the worst of narco/state violence. She was one of two women on a bus that was stopped on the highway by what she believes were government paramilitaries. The paramilitaries separated the women. They lined up all the men and executed them. They then kidnapped the two women, beat, tortured, and gang-raped them, and left them for dead on the side of the road.

The women managed to flag down a passing bus. The driver let them travel to the nearest town in the luggage compartment. When Denise arrived at the town, she made her way to a local hospital. The doctors concluded that there had not been a rape; her vagina had lubricated. This horrifying experience has not impeded Denise’s ability to resist, to organize, to write, and to make art. Mexico is filled with stories like this—of people who will not give up hope that their lives will continue, that their loved ones will be found alive, or that the perpetrators of violence will be brought to justice.

Artists and artists’ collectives have been key in building community, maintaining awareness, and pressuring the state for justice and accountability. Galindo is absolutely right in calling for a new art. I hope that sympathetic people within the most important government and private art institutions listen. This new art already exists; it simply needs more of the material and social support the art world could provide.

Graciela Sacco. Enfrentados (serie Tensión Admisible), 2011; photographic inlay on wood, installed on wall. Courtesy of Diana Lowenstein Gallery and Artist.

The work of the six Latin American and Latino artists in Hidden Histories personalizes the staggering statistics of displaced, marginalized, and murdered individuals, both historically and presently. Using commonplace materials, these artists attempt to give voice to those who have been silenced or forgotten. At the front of the gallery, a broken wooden barricade overlaid with an image of Argentinian protesters confronting military police juts outs from the wall. Graciela Sacco’s Enfrentados (serie Tensión Admisible) [Confronted (Admissible Tension Series)] has a fractured barrier and an air of resistance; it stands as the lone positive response to the struggle against injustice.

Teresa Margolles. La Búsqueda (The Search), 2014; multimedia installation with sound; 112.5 x 71 ¼ x 47 ¼ in., 112.5 x 38 x 47 ¼ in., and 112.5 x 52 x 47 ¼ in. Photo: Thomas Strub.

In Untitled (Mobius), artist Luis González Palma fabricated a roll of felt resembling a blanket or rug that reveals the face of a young woman obscured by red threads. The woman is from one of Guatemala’s vulnerable indigenous communities. Lacking basic human rights, these communities have been held back and suppressed. The contradiction of revealing and obscuring, along with the title’s reference to a Möbius strip, alludes to the past and present marginalization of these people.

Doris Salcedo. Untitled, 1995; wood, concrete, steel, glass, and cloth; 110 × 47 × 14 ½ in. Photo: Ken Howie.

The Colombian civil war and ensuing unrest and violence motivated Doris Salcedo to create works wrought with emotional and psychological tensions. Her untitled piece from 1995 is one of a large group of sculptures combining domestic wooden furniture with cement. An armoire has been filled with cement and rendered dysfunctional; the furniture and its associations with domesticity and the body become evocative of death and entombment.

Vincent Valdez. The Strangest Fruit, 2014; pencil on paper; 40 x 26 in.

In contrast to Salcedo’s more abstract references, there are two figurative drawings by Vincent Valdez from his The Strangest Fruit series. Inspired by the history of lynched Mexicans and Mexican Americans from the late 1800s well into the 1930s, the title is borrowed from Abel Meripool’s poem “Strange Fruit,” made famous by Billie Holiday’s 1930s recording of the same name. The haunting lyrics use the metaphor of “strange fruit” to characterize victims hanged from trees. Valdez individualizes the erased histories of Latinos by drawing his friends in the positions of the dead. Depicted in modern clothing, the young men in these drawings poetically reference the current state of racial discrimination toward Latinos in the United States.

Annie Lopez. Sighting Mexicans in Phoenix, 2012; cyanotype on paper; 26 ½ x 17 ½ in. Courtesy of the Artist.

Similarly, Phoenix-based artist Annie Lopez is a fourth-generation Mexican American who incorporates her personal history into works that echo the sentiments of discrimination that underpin the exhibition. Sighting Mexicans in Phoenix (2012) is a photograph of her mother and aunt walking happily down the street in the 1950s, printed with gun sights over their bodies in reference to current-day racial profiling. Naturalized Citizens (2013) uses her family’s naturalization papers to create a cyanotype paper dress that alludes to the need to display one’s citizenship when it is so often called into question just by outward appearance.

While the works in Hidden Histories bravely assert a multitude of issues in Latin America and the U.S., the question lingers as to why the exhibition is sequestered in a small gallery wrapped around the freight elevator. The Phoenix Art Museum’s concurrent exhibition features works by such heavy-hitting Latino artists as Alfredo Jaar, Vik Muniz, José Bedia Valdés, Félix González-Torres, and Luis Molina-Pantin, among others. It would have been refreshing to see the Hidden Histories works, more than half of which are by women, expanded in a larger space to allow the sound of those voices to go from a whisper to a shout.

Hidden Histories in Latin American Art is on view at the Phoenix Art Museum through August 23, 2015.

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Teresa Margolles, Las Llaves de la Ciudad (detail), 2011. Performance and installation. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Rafael Burillo.

There have been several recent shows considering how art is affected by nationality. Maybe it’s a response to the generic aura found on the floors of art fairs. Disponible at the School of the Museum of the Fine Arts, Boston is a good example that asks what it means to be a Mexican artist. It’s an incomplete exhibition that deserves a books worth of supporting texts, but as a rough exploration of Mexico’s current potential, it’s lucid and descriptive.

The title is taken from Mexico’s empty billboards, advertising that they are not currently taken. Disponible is an ambiguous word, translating to available or changeable. Disponible partially functions as a metaphor for Mexico’s adjustable, compelling, and dynamic contemporary art scene. The title also slyly points to the sizable share of international art sales Mexican artists and galleries are generating (See: Kurimanzutto). After all, the billboards in question are a constant reminder to “the job creators” that they could be enhancing their brands right now.

The most interesting pieces included in Disponible display Mexico as more than a place for drug dealers and low-wage workers. Marcela Armas‘s video Ocupación shows her 2009 performance where she walks like she’s a car in the flow of traffic. She wears a backpack that has an air horn like a car would and she uses it when she has to wait in the string of traffic. The crush of congestion is something we all have insights into, yet can’t keep from happening. It’s a material reality for all seven billion of us.

Hector Zamora, White Noise – Shed 6 Installation (detail), 2011. Installation originally developed for the Auckland Arts Festival, New Zealand. Courtesy of the artist.

Hector Zamora‘s White Noise- Shed 6 is an installation about the relationship between land and colonial rights in New Zealand. After England made New Zealand a colony, land rights were delineated by planting white flags on the borders of private property. Zamora planted 500 flags on a Aukland beach to begin a conversation on this issue and after one day was relegated by the Mayor to exhibiting his work on private property. There was no physical connection to public space after that. This public question was exiled to a private location, transforming his artwork from a sociable interaction into a private sculptural territory. The Mayor tried to exclude the public policy issues and transformed the work from an investigation of a very local, esoteric law to a universal and emblematic colonial critique. Exhibiting it in Boston reflects how it will be a displaced art piece, deported from its appropriate venue no matter where it’s displayed now.

Manuel Rocha Iturbide, I Play The Drums With Frequency (detail), 2007–11. Drum set, sound installation. Courtesy of the artist.

Manuel Rocha Iturbide‘s I Play Drums with Frequency, is the stand out work in Disponible. It’s the least politically formulaic, the most seductively mysterious, and best example of the ambiguity in the title of the show. Is begs the audience to confront their stereotypes about Mexican art. This inventive sound sculpture plays a drum set not with sticks, but with small speakers. A electronic soundtrack composed by Itrubide vibrates the set, and in turn the room. I want to be able to play with this sculpture. I want to put my own soundtracks into the speakers and hear the results. It is a discrete and a most salable object that would look great in an art fair. The noise would draw as much attention as the empty billboards do in a city. “Come buy me! I’m available!”

Disponible, on view at SMFA from September 13- November 19, 2011, was co-curated by Hou Hanru and Guillermo Santamarina for the San Francisco Art Institute. In includes Natalia Almada, Arturo Hernández Alcázar, Edgardo Aragón, Marcela Armas, Manuel Rocha Itrubide, Mauricio Limón, Teresa Margolles, and Hector Zamora