Collectivism after Modernism - autonomous learning - Blogs

The Mexican Pentagon 167
grupos (the groups). These included Grupo Proceso Pentágono, Grupo
SUMA, Grupo Tetraedro, and Taller de Arte e Ideología (Art and Ideology
Workshop, TAI), which embraced collectivism both as a working method
and as a political value. This is one of the most fascinating and least known
periods in Mexican art, and most surveys either ignore it or devote, at most,
a few sentences to these radical experiments with the processes of production
and distribution. 2 Though their dynamics, working methods, and artistic
production varied considerably, most of the groups shared a number of
traits: their members were young and passionate about politics (especially the
recent events that had shaken Latin America, including the 1973 U.S.backed
coup in Chile and the military dictatorship in Argentina); they created
projects, usually on the street, that straddled the line between art and
activism; and they saw collective organization—artistic and otherwise—as an
important step toward building a socialist society. In contrast to the muralists,
who were largely Wnanced by state institutions (and used their work to
further the ruling party’s vision of Mexican history), these groups operated
not only outside but also against most state institutions.
Felipe Ehrenberg, one of the founding members of Proceso Pentágono,
argued that the most radical achievement of the groups was “the
collectivization of artistic practice.” 3 “Our Wndings,” he wrote, “eroded concepts
that were drilled on us in childhood (a powerfully individualist outlook,
solitary work habits, a cult to alienation).” Producing work as groups rather
than as individuals was “one of the world’s most revolutionary achievements
in the Weld of visual arts,” Ehrenberg argued, and a practice that was linked
to other utopian experiments in collectivism, including “the ejido, the kibbutz,
the koljoz, and agricultural co-operatives.” 4
In Ehrenberg’s view, participating in a group required members
to change their work habits and develop a Xexibility he praises as a poetics
of collaboration. “Collective creation,” he wrote, “can be compared . . . to
[the techniques used by] jazz bands or Afro-Caribbean musicians, in which
set structures provide a frame for improvisation.” 5
Most of the groups were founded in the 1970s—Proceso Pentágono
was the Wrst to arrive on the scene, in 1973, followed by Tetraedro in
1975, SUMA in 1976, and others, including the No Grupo (Non-Group)
in later years—and disbanded during the 1980s. The peak of their fame came
in 1977, when four groups were invited to represent Mexico at the Tenth
Paris Biennale.
These collectives shared a concern with proposing strategies of
resistance to the increasing brutality of the Mexican state. There were two
important historical events that shaped the political atmosphere of 1970s
Mexico in which these artists operated. The Wrst of these events was the