MUAC

INFORME

00 muac indice.indd 3

9/23/08 6:38:04 PM

6

ÍNDICE

074 Nahum B. Zenil 076 Pedro Friedeberg 078 Melecio Galván

008 Presentaciones / Presentations

080 Enrique Guzmán

018 Las Colecciones de Arte Contemporáneo de la unam: una revisión. Olivier Debroise The Contemporary Art Collections of the unam: A Revision. Olivier Debroise

082 Julio Galán

032 Heidrun Holzfeind

088

034 Diego Rivera

090 Teresa Margolles

036 David Alfaro Siqueiros

092 Santiago Sierra

038 Héctor García

094 Carlos Amorales

040 Nacho López

096 César Martínez Silva

044 Enrique Metinides

098 Betsabée Romero

046 Graciela Iturbide

100 Thomas Hirschhorn

048 Gerardo Suter

102 Jerónimo Hagerman

050 Leandro Katz

104 Minerva Cuevas

052 Rubén Ortiz Torres

106 Iñaki Bonillas

054 Silvia Gruner

108 Tercerunquinto

056 Ulf Rollof

110 Melanie Smith

058 Juan Francisco Elso

112 Erick Meyenberg

060 José Bedia

114 Erick Beltrán

062 Germán Venegas

116 Felipe Zúñiga

064 Mathias Goeritz

118 Miguel Ventura

066 Calimocho Styles

120 Steve McQueen

068 Eduardo Abaroa

122 Omar Gámez

070 Abraham Cruzvillegas

124 Gabriel Acevedo Velarde

072 Sarah Lucas

126 Daniel Guzmán

00 muac indice.indd 6

084 Adolfo Patiño 086 Enrique Ježik semefo

9/23/08 11:36:09 PM

128 Francisco Castro Leñero

184 Fernando Ortega

130 Yishai Jusidman

186 Gabriel Orozco

132 Manuel Mathar

190 Mauricio Alejo

134 Jaime Ruiz Otis

192 Jorge Pardo

136 Claudia Fernández

194 Pae White

138 Federico Herrero

196 Pablo Vargas-Lugo

140 Torolab

198 Isa Genzken

142 Francis Alÿs

200 Edgar Orlaineta

146 Sofía Táboas

202 José Dávila

148 José Miguel González Casanova

204 Damián Ortega

150 Jan Hendrix

206 Gabriel Kuri

152 Marcos Kurtycz

208 Jim Lambie

154 Stefan Brüggemann

210 Marta Palau

156 Mario García Torres

212 Vicente Rojo

158 Carlos Aguirre

214 Manuel Felguérez

160 Rubén Gutiérrez

216 Sol Lewitt

162 Liam Gillick

218 Ernesto Mallard

164 Thomas Glassford

220 Fernando García Ponce

166 Atelier Van Lieshout

222 Helen Escobedo

168 Corey McCorkle

224 Catálogo de obras / Catalogue

170 Tom Friedman

245 Agradecimientos / Acknowledgements

172 Nic Hess

246 Comité de Adquisición / Adquisition committee

174 Luis Miguel Suro

248 Directorio / Directory

7

176 Jorge Méndez Blake 178 Tacita Dean 180 Anri Sala 182 Pipilotti Rist

00 muac indice.indd 7

9/23/08 6:38:05 PM

a collEction is not jUst a plain accUmUlation or a random gathEring of objEcts, bUt thE displaY of a critical and conscientious exercise. And if this affirmation applies in a generic way to collectionism, it acquires further relevance when we ask ourselves about the role of public institutions in the conformation of collections.

Why should the UNAM form collections? And why should it structure a contemporary art collection? A collection is an active patrimony and its value goes beyond its material character: it builds the possibility of thought. Each and every single one of the pieces in this collection is an open question about the vitality of contemporary art, its legacies and proposals, and about the progress of artistic creation in Mexico and the cultural dynamics that weave around its diffusion and reception. On the other hand, it accentuates the importance of research and strengthening of the University’s patrimony, under reasoned and rigorous criteria.

There is a widespread and well-funded expectation towards this collection from the intellectual, artistic, academic, and the university communities, since it constitutes, after 50 years, the UNAM’S response to the inertia in conservation, protection and research of the artistic and historic heritage of the recent past. It will offer a solid frame for the double task of disclosing and analyzing contemporary art with plural means. Specialists and regular audiences are recognizing the need to develop and suggest more solid approaches in which the interpretation contexts should broaden and the documentation media be strengthened.

In this sense, the University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC) will be a crucial axis. Through the MUAC, the collection fully participates in the University’s cultural panorama and adds different nuance to the cultural dynamics in Mexico. By principle, it is an extended initiative that allows to link contemporary art with other creative and reflective disciplines, but it also seeks to open the role of university museums towards new links with the community inside the university and the society as a whole: to place a bet for exploration, risk, propositions and thought.

Without a doubt, this new museistic space enriches the University’s Cultural Center, which now offers an integral perspective of the diverse artistic expressions. The University Museum of Contemporary Art—a mirror image of the University capacity to merge different cultural actions and concerns, as well as it transforms them into long-standing strategies—strengthens the unam’s commitment with the generation and diffusion of knowledge, and the vital importance of culture.

11

Sealtiel Alatriste Cultural Diffusion Coordinator

01 muac presentaciones.indd 11

9/23/08 6:40:03 PM

collEctions arE frEqUEntlY EnvisionEd as signs of a war against timE, allowing for thE continUEd ExistEncE of what everyday and circumstantial occupations scatter and relegate to oblivion. Although there is an undeniable alliance between memory and the acts of documenting and collecting, no collection becomes an immobile body, an antagonist to the passage of time. As interested eyes gaze upon it, the collection becomes richer due to the multiple interpretations offered by different specialists, publics, and generations, but also due to the wills that periodically converge to make it grow, on fortunate occasions supported by that combination of opportunity, judgment, and prospective sense that can grant importance and transcendence to a collection. When it becomes part of a project that is continuously looked after and revised, the collection reveals itself as a vital form of relating to the world and to time. Also, public collecting is one of the most fluid initiatives for the articulation between specialized research and outreach; through their exhibition sparking commentary, whether museum displays, printed, or electronic, the works collected are eloquent gateways for encounters between the public and professionals dedicated to the preservation and development of science and the arts; in the last analysis, gateways that allow for a dialogue with identity and memory.

All collections are born of sustained and concentrated interest and at the same time become a reflection of the collector, be it a person or an institution. From this perspective, the UNAM’s important role in the study, development, and dissemination of modern and contemporary art had not yet been matched with an equivalent exercise of systematic university collecting, documenting with works the immediate past and the relevance of creative currents that have been worked on—in the case of the University Museum of Sciences and Art or Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Arte (MUcA)—since 1964. With the initiative carried out in 1998 by then director Sylvia Pandolfi as a precedent, a committee was established in 2004 which has allowed the University to develop a systematic and critical collection of recent art; this in turn has led to the growth of the collections held by the Dirección General de Artes Visuales and allowed for a program to build it up on par with university research and the promotion of visual arts. From this impetus an exercise of review and reflection on the collections accumulated by the MUcA throughout the years has been undertaken, echoes of the vicissitudes of Mexican art. As a whole, previous collections, new acquisitions, and the donations of private collectors allow for a review of relevant artistic expressions and currents that have arisen in the country over the past four decades, forming an unprecedented collection within public cultural institutions in Mexico.

All of this would have been impossible without the generous support of Rector Juan Ramón de la Fuente and the University Board, as well as the work of the committee headed by Graciela de la Torre, with the permanent collaboration of Olivier Debroise and Constanza Bolaños. I would like to point out that the members of this group are temporary, allowing for a constant renewal and updating of criteria.

One of the functions of the University Museum of Contemporary Art or Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo ( MUAc) will be to present reviews of this modern and contemporary art collection to the public. The opening of the MUAc as part of the University Cultural Center (Centro Cultural Universitario) will also favor a comprehensive perspective of visual arts connecting them with other creative disciplines. However, the role that can be performed by this modern and contemporary art collection is not limited to its public exhibition; it also extends to theoretical and historical research, suggesting new ideas on conservation and esthetic and historical interpretation. We trust that the dynamism and initiative of the university community will allow for its growth and relevance as a collection vitalized by reflection, study, debate, and that creative exercise, so unattended at times, called contemplation.

15

Gerardo Estrada Cultural Diffusion Coordinator (1999—2007)

01 muac presentaciones.indd 15

9/23/08 6:40:04 PM

116

FELIPE ZÚÑIGA ciudAd de México, 1978. ViVe y trAbAjA en sAn dieGo, cALiforniA. Mexico city, 1978. LiVes And works in sAn dieGo, cALiforniA. Los carteles de lucha libre y toros fabricados por impresores del centro, de inconfundible factura, barata pero tradicional, ya forman parte del imaginario callejero de la ciudad de México. Felipe Zúñiga se sirve de ellos para mezclar citas de intelectuales, políticos, figuras públicas o amigos con ilustraciones que los impresores tienen en su taller. Sin embargo, la labor de reunir imagen y texto no le corresponde a él sino al impresor; personaje que se integra de manera un tanto utópica al discurso de la obra, haciéndolo participar activa y decisivamente en el resultado final. Puto da nombre al proyecto de Felipe Zúñiga, éste se forma con varios “colaboradores”, algunos ni siquiera saben que lo son, pocos son conscientes de ello y a otros no les interesa. De esta forma, la noción de “obra de autor” se diluye en Puto; el texto, la imagen pero sobre todo su procedencia, son lo que sostienen la obra. Cuando el impresor elige una ilustración del catálogo existente en su taller, la frase, extraída de su contexto original adquiere una nueva dimensión. El resultado final la más de las veces es irónico, otras quizá menos afortunado, lo relevante es que el artista no tiene ingerencia en esa decisión, incluso no sabe cómo se verá el cartel. Puto cuestiona la importancia de la obra original. De ahí que sus carteles sean reproducidos por decenas. Su destino último es la calle, pensados para transgredir espacios y alterar buenas conciencias, se convierten en producto de desecho una vez que han cumplido su objetivo. No se pretende que aparezcan en una galería de arte. Las colaboraciones de Puto, intencionadas y no, sirven para que Zúñiga, a través de otros haga un comentario crítico, irónico y divertido sobre la homosexualidad, sobre artistas pop, sobre política y cotidianeidad mexicana. Al pegar sus carteles en la calle traslada estas imágenes al dominio público, lo cual tiene implicaciones políticas y sociales que oscilan entre el derecho a la libre expresión y el vandalismo.

Pro-wrestling and bullfighting posters are unmistakably made by printers downtown; cheap but traditional, they are part of Mexico City’s street imaginary. Felipe Zúñiga uses them to mix quotes by intellectuals, politicians, public figures, and friends with illustrations the printers have in their workshops. Nevertheless, the work of putting together the image and the text is not his but the printer’s, a character that is integrated in a somewhat utopian way to the piece’s discourse, making him participate actively and decisively in the final result. Puto is the name of Felipe Zúñiga’s project, formed by several “collaborators”: some don’t even know it; few are aware that they are; others are not even interested.

This way, the notion of “auteur work” is diluted in Puto; text, image but, above all, origin are what sustain the work.

When the printer chooses an illustration from a catalogue in his workshop, the phrase, extracted from its original context, acquires a new dimension. In most cases the final result is ironic; in others it is less appropriate. What is relevant is that the artist is not involved in that decision; in fact, he does not know what the poster will look like.

Puto questions the importance of the original work; thus the posters are reproduced in large quantities. Their final destination is the street; they are devised for transgressing spaces and for altering good consciences; they become a waste product once they have fulfilled their objective. There is no expectation that they appear in an art gallery. Collaborations in Puto, intentional or not, allow Zúñiga to make a critical, ironic and amusing comment through others on homosexuality, pop artists, politics, and everyday life in Mexico. By sticking his posters on the street he transfers these images to the public domain, which has social and political implications that oscillate between the right to freedom of speech and vandalism.

Mariana Morales, inédito, 2004. Mariana Morales, unpublished, 2004.

03 muac 1.indd 116

9/23/08 6:53:48 PM

117

Putacomunicación, 2004

03 muac 1.indd 117

9/23/08 6:54:07 PM