Home Exhibitions MoLAA MEX/LA: Mexican Modernism(s) in Los Angeles 1930-1985

MEX/LA: Mexican Modernism(s) in Los Angeles 1930-1985

September 17, 2011 – January 29, 2012

MEX/LA: “Mexican” Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930-1985 is an exhibition that intends to tell a history of L.A. or of Mexico that often has not been seen as neither and yet it is important and both. Like any other history, it is partially true and forgets.This history is a fragmented and contradictory one with different points of view that often clash and differ but are necessary pieces of an incomplete puzzle. It is a history that looks at the past to construct a future because ultimately there is a present that allows us to make it possible. Some of this history is known and yet it is necessary to make evident since it is often forgotten and still challenges certain assumptions of how and when Los Angeles became an important art center. It was in the 1930s when José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro

Siqueiros produced their murals in the L.A. area, stirring big controversies and influencing American artists. This exhibition is also an opportunity to instigate the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach to recognize itself not just as an importer of an “external” culture, but also as part of the production of it from an inside. It is not a history of a “periphery” around a “center” or of a “minority” in a place where there is no center and does not have a clear majority. It is an exhibition about the uneasy relations between the old and the new and the north and the south. MEX/LA is an exhibition about conflict, misinterpretation, appropriation, fascination, resilience and more. It is an exhibition that recognizes that the history of art is a creation and therefore an art project in itself.

We talk about “modernisms” referring to the new and a sense of vanguard in a historical frame. We refer to “Mexico” as a point of departure but not necessarily of destiny and of “Los Angeles” as a critical point at the edge of this construction, which makes it more complex. MEX/LA is not an ethnic exhibition but rather one that addresses cultural constructions and exchange as part of the modern experience.

We are interested in the idea of “nation” as a form of expression and self-determination and not of exclusion. This idea does not exist in opposition to modern internationalism but it is rather an intrinsic part of it. The exhibition, in a way, is like the city of Los Angeles itself. Like a modern collage it is a fragmented juxtaposition of simultaneous, clashing and contesting representations and misrepresentations that do not quite integrate but talk to each other and together form a whole. Through different media as varied as painting, film, photography, animation, street art, fashion, car customizing, music, architecture, etc., different systems with their particular notions of art, aesthetics and culture collide like tectonic plates in a seismic zone.

Rubén Ortiz-Torres, curator and Jesse Lerner, associate curator MEX/LA: “MEXICAN” MODERNISM(S) IN LOS ANGELES, 1930–1985 FOCUSES ON HOW NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM ARE MODERNIST CONSTRUCTIONS WHICH ARE COMPLEMENTARY AND FUNDAMENTAL IN THE FORMATION OF MEXICAN, AMERICAN, CHICANO ART AND THE ART OF THE CITY. MEX/LA IS ORGANIZED BY THE MUSEUM OF LATIN AMERICAN ART (MOLAA) AND CURATED BY RUBÉN ORTIZ-TORRES IN ASSOCIATION WITH JESSE LERNER. THE EXHIBITION MEX/LA: “MEXICAN” MODERNISM(S) IN LOS ANGELES, 1930-1985 IS IS PART OF PACIFIC STANDARD TIME WHICH IS AN UNPRECEDENTED COLLABORATION OF MORE THAN SIXTY CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS ACROSS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, WHICH ARE COMING TOGETHER TO TELL THE STORY OF THE BIRTH OF THE LA ART SCENE. INITIATED THROUGH GRANTS FROM THE GETTY FOUNDATION, PACIFIC STANDARD TIME WILL TAKE PLACE FOR SIX MONTHS BEGINNING OCTOBER 2011. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME IS PRESENTED BY THE GETTY FOUNDATION AND BANK OF AMERICA.