La Tinta Grita
"A work of art can be called revolutionary if, by virtue of the aesthetic transformation, it represents, in the exemplary fate of individuals, the prevailing unfreedom and the rebelling forces, thus breaking through the mystified (and petrified) social reality, and opening the horizon of change (liberation)."
-Herbert Marcuse, The Aesthetic Dimension
On March 15th, UNCC held the opening for “La Tinta Grita: The Ink Shouts” in the first floor gallery of Storrs. The collection was put together by Kevin McCloskey, a professor of communication design from Kutztown University, Pennsylvania. McCloskey was kind enough to attend the opening and give some background information on the works, share stories, and answer questions from the viewers. A couple of the artists were invited to attend the exhibit, but unfortunately the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City denied them visas without explanation. The gallery showcases 25 woodblock prints made by the Oaxacan political artist group known as ASARO. A brief history of the events from which the works originated is necessary to fully appreciate their merit.
Oaxaca is the second poorest state in Mexico, with 8 out of 10 people living in extreme poverty, and lacking basic needs such as running water, sanitation, and paved roads. For 20 years the Oaxacan teacher’s union had staged an annual strike by occupying the city’s central plaza, usually lasting a week or two and concluding with small wage increases. But in May 2006, governor Ulises Ruiz Oritz sent in 3,500 police to evict the strikers using rubber bullets and tear gas, causing the hospitalization of over 100 peaceful protestors. Nonetheless, the teachers managed to fend off the police forces, and barricaded the roads to ensure that they would not return.
In response to this situation, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) was formed, and asserted itself as the city’s new governing body. The APPO is “a confederation of teachers, concerned citizens, and representatives of indigenous communities,”1 a loose coalition of all those protesting poverty and injustice in Oaxaca. Their first, and continuing, non-negotiable demand was the resignation of governor Ruiz, who has long been accused of political corruption. In addition to the excessive force used on the strikers, he has been accused of repression and violence towards indigenous groups and political opponents, damaging historical sites with poorly managed public works projects, and is suspected of rigging his election.
As Ruiz refused to step down, the conflict continued to escalate, and erupted in October 2006. After the death of American journalist Bradley Will in a shootout, the federal government sent 4,500 Federal Preventive Police to restore order, with the help of armored vehicles and helicopters to drop tear gas on the crowds. The clashes that occurred in the next few months led to countless injuries, arrests, tortures, ‘disappearances’, and at least 18 deaths. It was around this time that the APPO supporters started to organize according to the sets of skills they had to contribute to the struggle, and this is how the Assembly of Revolutionary Artists of Oaxaca (ASARO) was born. Their mission was to “take our artistic expression to the streets, to popular spaces, to raise consciousness about the social reality of the modern form of oppression that our people face.”2 They created woodblock prints, stencils, paintings, posters, and various other kinds of works that communicated their political views in a simple, direct, and emotional style.
The woodblock prints on display in La Tinta Grita cover a wide range of subjects, from portraits of heros like Emiliano Zapata and Benito Juárez, to violence at the frontlines of the protests, to copyright laws regarding corn. The artists are between the ages of 15-30, with the older ones being master printmakers who teach the trade to the younger members. The inexperienced artists can be spotted on a couple of prints that have backwards wordings, because the maker didn’t realize the text would be reversed in the printing process. But these novice prints are no less composed or impassioned than the others. Each work has a bold, unrefined character that reveals the amount of force involved in the carving process, along with the undeniable skill of the laborer. The topics addressed are very diverse, but all share a general concern with celebrating indigenous rights and denouncing the actions of governor Ruiz. A few depict the Virgin of Guadalupe, and a couple contain a hammer and sickle, which McCloskey suggests may serve the same purpose, as a symbol of faith or devotion. Several feature calavers, skeleton figures reminiscent of the works of Mexican printmaker Jose Guadalupe Posada. The works draw on a rich history of visual culture that lends them to be compared as easily to ancient folk art as to Posado and Siqueiros, as to modern graffiti artist Banksy.
In addition to the woodcuts, the exhibit also features a few photographs taken by Hank Tusinski while he was visiting Oaxaca in November 2006. Most of these show groups of strikers quietly reading the newspaper, conversing, and sitting underneath a wall of ASARO murals. The one that immediately catches the eye is of a small group of artists working on a street tapete, right under the gaze of an intimidating line of fully geared federal police leaning on their riot shields. Tapetes are memorial ‘carpets’ made of colored sand and flower petals, traditionally made to memorialize lost loved ones on the day of their funeral or the Day of the Dead, or in ASARO’s case to mourn another victim of the protests. The one being worked on in the photograph condemns Ruiz for his role in the deaths, with the word ASESINO (murderer) painted over his portrait and skulls stenciled in the corners.
ASARO is about reclaiming the streets. At night, artists go out and spray paint stencils and slogans, wheat paste posters, and put up tissue paper prints on public buildings. If a fellow activist is arrested or killed, they commemorate the event and make it known through a new artwork. “We believe that public art (in all its diverse artistic disciplines) is a form of communication that allows a dialogue with all sectors of society and which makes possible the visualization of the real conditions of existence—the norms and contradictions of the society which we all inhabit.”3 The government responds by silencing this communication with cleaning crews that tear down the posters and cover the walls with paint.
ASARO is about reclaiming the calendar. For nearly every state-sponsored holiday or festival there is a counter-festival held by the community. For instance, Guelaguetza has become a large tourist attraction in Oaxaca in recent years. After Ruiz took the opportunity to cash in on the event by charging high ticket prices, and make the money curiously disappear, APPO held its own free “Popular Guelaguetza.” Another tourist-aimed festival called Night of the Radishes has the alternate “People’s Radish Festival,” where artists use radishes to carve and construct sculptures of barricades, helicopters, police, and other familiar themes.
The artists refuse to sign their names to any of the artworks they make. The anonymity is in part due to the priority of the political message over any kind of fetishization of the artist that may serve financial ends, and partly to emphasize the collective nature of the organization, but it also serves the more practical reason of avoiding incarceration. Many, if not arrested, have suffered beatings at the hands of police or supporters of Ruiz while being caught putting up a new work. However, during the daytime they are able to sell their prints in the city’s central square, which is how Professor McCloskey first stumbled onto their work during a visit in 2007. He recalls, “I asked in my intermediate Spanish: How much? 100 pesos. Just under ten U.S. dollars a print. Then I asked how much longer they would be there. Hasta cosas cambian, Until things change.”4
By December 2006 the barricades were gone and most of the violence had subsided. But today the struggle has still not completely ended; Ruiz is still in power (his term will come to an end this December), a number of police and federal troops remained in the city to maintain order, protests continue to resurge, and ASARO continues to make art, although in a somewhat tamer manner. The main change to the group is their new gallery, Espacio Zapata, made possible by the funding of their growing body of collectors. The gallery is sort of a double-edged sword: it provides the community with a center for gathering and viewing subversive artworks where they won’t be destroyed or erased, but it also effectively confines the art into an easily digestible space hidden from the view of the public. The presence of street art has been made difficult because of the constant surveillance of “traffic cameras” throughout the city, as well as new strict laws against “visual contamination,” but it has not come to a halt just yet. Sporadic blog updates (http://asar-oaxaca.blogspot.com/) with collections of photos taken from around the city reassure us that ASARO is still hard at work reclaiming the municipal landscape.
La Tinta Grita is one of the most exciting exhibits to graze the presence of UNC Charlotte in recent memory. The name of the exhibit is a reference to the “Grito de Dolores” given by Miguel Hidalgo in 1810, the rallying call that initiated Mexico’s fight for independence. In the collection of ASARO’s woodblock prints we can hear the ink shouting the same call to action, the same cry of injustice, and the same longing for change. 2010 is a momentous year, marking the bicentennial of Mexico’s independence from Spain, as well as the centennial of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. One can’t help but hope that this year will bring the next triumphant anniversary to celebrate.
-Ryan Shullaw
"A work of art can be called revolutionary if, by virtue of the aesthetic transformation, it represents, in the exemplary fate of individuals, the prevailing unfreedom and the rebelling forces, thus breaking through the mystified (and petrified) social reality, and opening the horizon of change (liberation)."
-Herbert Marcuse, The Aesthetic Dimension
On March 15th, UNCC held the opening for “La Tinta Grita: The Ink Shouts” in the first floor gallery of Storrs. The collection was put together by Kevin McCloskey, a professor of communication design from Kutztown University, Pennsylvania. McCloskey was kind enough to attend the opening and give some background information on the works, share stories, and answer questions from the viewers. A couple of the artists were invited to attend the exhibit, but unfortunately the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City denied them visas without explanation. The gallery showcases 25 woodblock prints made by the Oaxacan political artist group known as ASARO. A brief history of the events from which the works originated is necessary to fully appreciate their merit.
Oaxaca is the second poorest state in Mexico, with 8 out of 10 people living in extreme poverty, and lacking basic needs such as running water, sanitation, and paved roads. For 20 years the Oaxacan teacher’s union had staged an annual strike by occupying the city’s central plaza, usually lasting a week or two and concluding with small wage increases. But in May 2006, governor Ulises Ruiz Oritz sent in 3,500 police to evict the strikers using rubber bullets and tear gas, causing the hospitalization of over 100 peaceful protestors. Nonetheless, the teachers managed to fend off the police forces, and barricaded the roads to ensure that they would not return.
In response to this situation, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) was formed, and asserted itself as the city’s new governing body. The APPO is “a confederation of teachers, concerned citizens, and representatives of indigenous communities,”1 a loose coalition of all those protesting poverty and injustice in Oaxaca. Their first, and continuing, non-negotiable demand was the resignation of governor Ruiz, who has long been accused of political corruption. In addition to the excessive force used on the strikers, he has been accused of repression and violence towards indigenous groups and political opponents, damaging historical sites with poorly managed public works projects, and is suspected of rigging his election.
As Ruiz refused to step down, the conflict continued to escalate, and erupted in October 2006. After the death of American journalist Bradley Will in a shootout, the federal government sent 4,500 Federal Preventive Police to restore order, with the help of armored vehicles and helicopters to drop tear gas on the crowds. The clashes that occurred in the next few months led to countless injuries, arrests, tortures, ‘disappearances’, and at least 18 deaths. It was around this time that the APPO supporters started to organize according to the sets of skills they had to contribute to the struggle, and this is how the Assembly of Revolutionary Artists of Oaxaca (ASARO) was born. Their mission was to “take our artistic expression to the streets, to popular spaces, to raise consciousness about the social reality of the modern form of oppression that our people face.”2 They created woodblock prints, stencils, paintings, posters, and various other kinds of works that communicated their political views in a simple, direct, and emotional style.
The woodblock prints on display in La Tinta Grita cover a wide range of subjects, from portraits of heros like Emiliano Zapata and Benito Juárez, to violence at the frontlines of the protests, to copyright laws regarding corn. The artists are between the ages of 15-30, with the older ones being master printmakers who teach the trade to the younger members. The inexperienced artists can be spotted on a couple of prints that have backwards wordings, because the maker didn’t realize the text would be reversed in the printing process. But these novice prints are no less composed or impassioned than the others. Each work has a bold, unrefined character that reveals the amount of force involved in the carving process, along with the undeniable skill of the laborer. The topics addressed are very diverse, but all share a general concern with celebrating indigenous rights and denouncing the actions of governor Ruiz. A few depict the Virgin of Guadalupe, and a couple contain a hammer and sickle, which McCloskey suggests may serve the same purpose, as a symbol of faith or devotion. Several feature calavers, skeleton figures reminiscent of the works of Mexican printmaker Jose Guadalupe Posada. The works draw on a rich history of visual culture that lends them to be compared as easily to ancient folk art as to Posado and Siqueiros, as to modern graffiti artist Banksy.
In addition to the woodcuts, the exhibit also features a few photographs taken by Hank Tusinski while he was visiting Oaxaca in November 2006. Most of these show groups of strikers quietly reading the newspaper, conversing, and sitting underneath a wall of ASARO murals. The one that immediately catches the eye is of a small group of artists working on a street tapete, right under the gaze of an intimidating line of fully geared federal police leaning on their riot shields. Tapetes are memorial ‘carpets’ made of colored sand and flower petals, traditionally made to memorialize lost loved ones on the day of their funeral or the Day of the Dead, or in ASARO’s case to mourn another victim of the protests. The one being worked on in the photograph condemns Ruiz for his role in the deaths, with the word ASESINO (murderer) painted over his portrait and skulls stenciled in the corners.
ASARO is about reclaiming the streets. At night, artists go out and spray paint stencils and slogans, wheat paste posters, and put up tissue paper prints on public buildings. If a fellow activist is arrested or killed, they commemorate the event and make it known through a new artwork. “We believe that public art (in all its diverse artistic disciplines) is a form of communication that allows a dialogue with all sectors of society and which makes possible the visualization of the real conditions of existence—the norms and contradictions of the society which we all inhabit.”3 The government responds by silencing this communication with cleaning crews that tear down the posters and cover the walls with paint.
ASARO is about reclaiming the calendar. For nearly every state-sponsored holiday or festival there is a counter-festival held by the community. For instance, Guelaguetza has become a large tourist attraction in Oaxaca in recent years. After Ruiz took the opportunity to cash in on the event by charging high ticket prices, and make the money curiously disappear, APPO held its own free “Popular Guelaguetza.” Another tourist-aimed festival called Night of the Radishes has the alternate “People’s Radish Festival,” where artists use radishes to carve and construct sculptures of barricades, helicopters, police, and other familiar themes.
The artists refuse to sign their names to any of the artworks they make. The anonymity is in part due to the priority of the political message over any kind of fetishization of the artist that may serve financial ends, and partly to emphasize the collective nature of the organization, but it also serves the more practical reason of avoiding incarceration. Many, if not arrested, have suffered beatings at the hands of police or supporters of Ruiz while being caught putting up a new work. However, during the daytime they are able to sell their prints in the city’s central square, which is how Professor McCloskey first stumbled onto their work during a visit in 2007. He recalls, “I asked in my intermediate Spanish: How much? 100 pesos. Just under ten U.S. dollars a print. Then I asked how much longer they would be there. Hasta cosas cambian, Until things change.”4
By December 2006 the barricades were gone and most of the violence had subsided. But today the struggle has still not completely ended; Ruiz is still in power (his term will come to an end this December), a number of police and federal troops remained in the city to maintain order, protests continue to resurge, and ASARO continues to make art, although in a somewhat tamer manner. The main change to the group is their new gallery, Espacio Zapata, made possible by the funding of their growing body of collectors. The gallery is sort of a double-edged sword: it provides the community with a center for gathering and viewing subversive artworks where they won’t be destroyed or erased, but it also effectively confines the art into an easily digestible space hidden from the view of the public. The presence of street art has been made difficult because of the constant surveillance of “traffic cameras” throughout the city, as well as new strict laws against “visual contamination,” but it has not come to a halt just yet. Sporadic blog updates (http://asar-oaxaca.blogspot.com/) with collections of photos taken from around the city reassure us that ASARO is still hard at work reclaiming the municipal landscape.
La Tinta Grita is one of the most exciting exhibits to graze the presence of UNC Charlotte in recent memory. The name of the exhibit is a reference to the “Grito de Dolores” given by Miguel Hidalgo in 1810, the rallying call that initiated Mexico’s fight for independence. In the collection of ASARO’s woodblock prints we can hear the ink shouting the same call to action, the same cry of injustice, and the same longing for change. 2010 is a momentous year, marking the bicentennial of Mexico’s independence from Spain, as well as the centennial of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. One can’t help but hope that this year will bring the next triumphant anniversary to celebrate.
-Ryan Shullaw
1 Dr. John Pohl, gallery placard.
2 ASARO, gallery placard.
3 http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2008/06/64061.php
4http://commonsense2.com/2008/07/art-culture/hasta-cosas-cambian-until-things-change/
Thanks much for the thoughtful review and overview of ASARO's work. As the curators, my wife Patt and I were very pleased with the warm reception the exhibition received at the Storrs Gallery. We were impressed that students repainted the gallery expressly for this show.
ReplyDeleteDr. Angela Herren of UNC's Dept of Art History and Prof. Nora Wendl of the School of Architecture wrote the grant that brought the artwork of ASARO to UNC, and we appreciate their contribution to the success of this exhibition.
Kevin McCloskey, Kutztown,PA