JUMEX FOUNDATION: "MEMORIAS DEL SUBDESARROLLO"

Until September 9th, at the Jumex Foundation (Mexico), Memorias del subdesarrollo (Memories of the underdevelopment), a collective exhibition that explores the paradigmatic changes generated within the Latin American visual arts during the 70s and 80s takes place.

Ph: Abigail Enzaldo y Emiliio García.

These radical changes were characterized, mainly, by articulating a counter-narrative as opposed to the rhetoric of developmentalism. As a result, a "decolonial" thought emerged in the artistic practices of the region throughout those decades. 

Also, during this period, intellectuals and artists of Latinos echoed the criticisms that came from the field of political economy. Questioning cultural and aesthetic models imposed by the canons, they took a critical distance from it and the formal vocabulary of modernity, incorporating, from a vanguard position, local knowledge, popular and vernacular expressions to its production. Recognizing in turn the value of the cultural manifestations that emerged from the conditions of material poverty, many artists, including some previously affiliated with the modernist avant-gardes of their respective countries, established a dialogue with these cultural forms, thus generating forms of collectivization of the experience that fostered social awareness through spatial modes of perception and participation.

Among the more than 50 artists and collectives that participate in Memorias del subdesarrollo, we should mention the presence of Paulo Bruscky, Eugenio Dittborn, Leandro Katz and Jacques Bedel, among others.