{"id":1403,"date":"2009-07-05T00:43:25","date_gmt":"2009-07-05T07:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/?p=1403"},"modified":"2012-06-25T18:39:42","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T01:39:42","slug":"mexican-prints-at-university-of-notre-dame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/mexican-prints-at-university-of-notre-dame.html","title":{"rendered":"Mexican Prints at University of Notre Dame"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Caida
"Caida de Tenochtitlan" (Fall of Tenochtitlan) \u2013 Angel Bracho. Linoleum block print. 1960. Detail of inside front cover for the TGP portfolio, "450 A\u00f1os De Lucha." <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The prints of the Mexican Taller de Gr\u00e1fica Popular (TGP – Popular Graphic Arts Workshop), are being presented at the Snite Museum of Art<\/a> at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana from July 12, 2009 to September 13, 2009. Titled Para la Gente: Art, Politics, and Cultural Identity of the Taller de Gr\u00e1fica<\/em>, the exhibition presents forty prints created by artists who worked in the TGP print collective in Mexico City from the mid-1930s to the early 1950s. Internationally known for their highly-political prints, the TGP workshop generated woodblock, linoleum, and lithographic prints that remain unparalleled to this day.<\/p>\n

I first discovered the TGP as a teenager in Los Angeles during the late 1960s. For Chicanos, TGP prints provided an exciting touchstone with Mexican art, culture, history, and politics, but in general the artworks also offered universal insights into the human condition \u2013 revealing the hidden class dimensions behind issues of poverty, repression, and war. Sometime in the early 1970s I acquired a copy of 450 A\u00f1os De Lucha: Homenaje Al Pueblo Mexicano<\/em> (450 Years of Struggle: Homage to the Mexican People), a significant portfolio of prints by twenty-five TGP artists that vividly recounts the history of the Mexican people.<\/p>\n

\"Hacia
"Hacia La Nacionalizacion de la Mineria" (Towards the Nationalization of Mining) - Jes\u00fas Escobedo. Linoleum block print. 1960. Detail. From the TGP portfolio, "450 A\u00f1os De Lucha."<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Published by the collective in 1960, 450 A\u00f1os De Lucha<\/em> is actually a soft-cover unbound \u201cbook\u201d that contains 140 reproductions of prints by artists such as Leopoldo M\u00e9ndez, Pablo O’Higgins, Alberto Beltr\u00e1n, Mariana Yampolsky, Alfredo Zalce, Luis Arenal, and Elizabeth Catlett. The prints originally served as street flyers and posters for the political instruction and edification of an illiterate population, and tens of thousands of copies were widely distributed. The free prints were literally \u2013 Para la Gente (For the People). As a radical chronicle of Mexico\u2019s entire history, the remarkable print portfolio covers everything from the 1519 heroic Aztec resistance against the Spanish Conquistadors (Cuauhtemoc <\/em>– Leopoldo M\u00e9ndez), to a woodblock print celebrating the nationalization of Mexico\u2019s mineral wealth in 1960 (Hacia La Nacionalizacion de la Mineria<\/em> – Jesus Escobedo).<\/p>\n

A focal point of the Snite Museum exhibit is a linoleum block print by Leopoldo M\u00e9ndez, Paremos la Agresion a la Clase Obrera. Ayude Usted. A los Huelguistas de Palau, Nueva Rosita y Cloete<\/em>. (Let us Stop the Aggression toward the Working Class. Help the Strikers of Palau, Nueva Rosita, and Cloete). M\u00e9ndez created the print in 1950 as a street poster calling for solidarity with mine workers in their strike against the U.S. owned company, Mexican Zinc Co. The print is a consummate example of the combative spirit that motivated the TGP collective.<\/p>\n

\"Paremos
"Paremos la Agresion a la Clase Obrera. Ayude Usted. A los Huelguistas de Palau, Nueva Rosita y Cloete." (Let us Stop the Aggression toward the Working Class. Help the Strikers of Palau, Nueva Rosita, and Cloete) - Leopoldo M\u00e9ndez. Linoleum block print. 1950. On view at the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. This street poster by M\u00e9ndez called for solidarity with mine workers in their strike against the American owned company, Mexican Zinc Co.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The workers at the Nueva Rosita, Palau, and Cloete mines in Coahuila, Mexico, organized for humane working conditions, decent pay, and union representation, and when they went on strike against Mexican Zinc, the company retaliated by firing the strikers and hiring strike breakers. The Mexican government declared the area under martial law and sent in the army. Union leaders were arrested, the union\u2019s treasury was seized, and union activity banned. The mine company controlled the food supply stores and health care facilities in the strike area, and used that control to crush the worker\u2019s strike by closing down vital services. Around 4,200 striking miners responded by staging a \u201cCaravan of hunger<\/a>\u201d march, walking more than 400 miles to the capital behind a flag emblazoned with the image of the Virgin de Guadalupe. After walking for 50 days to present their case to Presidente Miguel Alem\u00e1n, and rallying tens of thousands in the nation\u2019s capital, Alem\u00e1n declared the strike illegal. The defeated miners were sent back on trains to their hometowns and the strike remained unresolved.<\/p>\n

\"Professor
"Professor Ram\u00f3n Orta del R\u00edo, assassinated in June of 1938." - Leopoldo M\u00e9ndez. Lithograph. 1939. From the artist\u2019s portpolio of seven lithographs titled, "In The Name Of Christ: They Have Assassinated More Than 200 Teachers." Professor Orta del R\u00edo was murdered by religious zealots during Mexico\u2019s so-called \u201cCristero War\u201d of 1926-1929.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A particularly moving and provocative series of prints by Leopoldo M\u00e9ndez not displayed at the Snite Museum is the artist\u2019s, In The Name Of Christ: They Have Assassinated More Than 200 Teachers<\/em> (En Nombre De Cristo: Han Asesinado M\u00e1s De 200 Maestros). The prints have to do with the counter-revolutionary \u201cCristero War<\/a>\u201d of 1926-1929, when fundamentalist Cristeros (\u201cfighters for Christ\u201d) launched an armed rebellion against the Mexican government because of the anti-clerical Mexican Constitution of 1917<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reformists had worked for a secular democracy that would reduce the Catholic Church\u2019s enormous land holdings as well as end their stranglehold over education; but fundamentalists took up arms in 1926 when Presidente Plutarco Calles began to strictly enforce anti-clerical provisions of the constitution. Religious zealots were vexed by enforcement of provisos like Article 3, which states – \u201ceducation shall be maintained entirely apart from any religious doctrine and, based on the results of scientific progress, shall strive against ignorance and its effects, servitudes, fanaticism, and prejudices.\u201d However, fundamentalists were most irritated by Article 130, which \u201cStates that church(es) and state are to remain separate.\u201d By the time the conflict ended in 1929, some 90,000 people had perished in the violence.<\/p>\n

In 1939 the administration of Presidente L\u00e1zaro C\u00e1rdenas<\/a> (1934-1940), commissioned M\u00e9ndez to create a portfolio of seven lithographic prints on the subject of educators who had been murdered by Catholic fundamentalists during the Cristero uprising. The resulting lithographs commemorated seven different teachers who had been brutally slain by religious zealots, depicting the teachers under threat, in the throes of death, or after they had been assassinated. In the lithograph shown above, M\u00e9ndez portrayed the gruesome killing of Professor Ram\u00f3n Orta del R\u00edo in Nayarit, one of Mexico\u2019s 31 states. The killers doused the body of their victim in gas and set him on fire.<\/p>\n

\"The
"The strike of 50,000 Honduran workers exploited for more than 50 years by the monopoly of the United Fruit Co., is a just cause." - Alberto Beltr\u00e1n. Linoleum block print. 1955. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Created in 1955, Alberto Beltr\u00e1n\u2019s original linoleum-block print (above) was reproduced as a poster expressing solidarity with striking workers in Honduras. Since the early 1900s U.S. companies totally controlled Honduran agricultural production and exports, largely based upon the cultivation of bananas, making Honduras the original \u201cBanana Republic.\u201d The Standard Fruit Company and the United Fruit Company \u2013 both U.S. businesses \u2013 virtually ran the country. It was the president of United Fruit, Sam Zemurray, who infamously said of Honduran officials; \u201cA mule costs more than a deputy.\u201d From 1903 to 1925, the U.S. Marines intervened in Honduras<\/a> no less than seven times. After decades of ferocious exploitation by U.S. commercial interests, Honduran banana workers staged a historic strike for better working conditions and higher pay that began on May 1, 1954.<\/p>\n

Beginning in the north coast town of El Progreso, the strike lasted around two months and involved over 14,000 banana company workers. The work stoppage quickly paralyzed other port towns dominated by U.S. companies, eventually spreading to the capital Tegucigalpa. Workers from other industries went on strike in solidarity with the banana workers, with some 40,000 workers eventually joining the labor action. Activists throughout the hemisphere supported the Honduran workers, and it was at the highpoint of the great strike that Alberto Beltr\u00e1n created his print, which he titled: La huelga de 50,000 trabajadores hondure\u00f1os explotados por m\u00e1s de 50 a\u00f1os por el monopolio de la United Fruit Co., es una causa justa<\/em> (The strike of 50,000 Honduran workers exploited for more than 50 years by the monopoly of the United Fruit Co., is a just cause). Despite harsh repression from the U.S. companies and their paid-off government lackies, the striking workers were victorious and won their major demands.<\/p>\n

Beltr\u00e1n\u2019s Honduran solidarity poster could not be timelier considering the military coup in Honduras at present. If the TGP collective were still in existence it would surely react to the current putsch with fierce condemnation. While President Obama expressed \u201cgreat concerns\u201d regarding President Zelaya being toppled by the military, the Los Angeles Times noted<\/a> that:<\/p>\n

\u201cU.S. officials did not demand the reinstatement of Zelaya. The administration left its ambassador to Honduras in place, while several governments in the region recalled theirs. And despite control over millions of dollars in aid and massive economic clout, the administration did not threaten sanctions or penalties against Honduras for the formation of a new government the day after Zelaya was dragged from his bed and removed from the country Sunday. Before Sunday, Obama administration officials were aware of the deepening crisis and said they spoke to Honduran officials in the hope of resolving the dispute and averting a forced transfer of power.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Morelos
"Morelos" \u2013 Celia Calder\u00f3n. Linoleum block print. 1960. Detail. In this rare multi-color print from the TGP portfolio "450 A\u00f1os De Lucha," the artist portrayed Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Morelos, one of the illustrious revolutionary military commanders of the 1810 independence war against Spain. Morelos was eventually captured by the Spanish and executed by firing squad in 1815.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TGP artists focused their considerable artistic skills upon real world outrages like wars and military coups, and there is hardly an offence they did not address through their art, but they also busied themselves with creating sympathetic, dignified, and evocative portrayals of the broad masses of the Mexican people; their labors, aspirations, discontents, and advancements.<\/p>\n

In the \u201cDeclaration of Principles\u201d published in their 450 A\u00f1os De Lucha<\/em> portfolio, the Taller de Gr\u00e1fica Popular artists proclaimed that their works were part of the \u201cconstant struggle to help the Mexican people defend and enrich their national culture, independence, freedom, and peace.\u201d Those principals will undoubtedly be shining through the prints exhibited at the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame.<\/p>\n

[Another excellent resource for the study of the TGP in general and the works of artist Leopoldo M\u00e9ndez in particular, is the book Revolutionary Art and the Mexican Print<\/a> by Deborah Caplow.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The prints of the Mexican Taller de Gr\u00e1fica Popular (TGP – Popular Graphic Arts Workshop), are being presented at the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana from July 12, 2009 to September 13, 2009. Titled Para la Gente: Art, Politics, and Cultural Identity of the Taller de Gr\u00e1fica, the exhibition presents forty prints created by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chicanarte-chicano-art","category-mexican-muralism","category-prints-posters"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}