Chicano Art Exhibition | Fine Arts Inauguration

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Museum of the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City inaugurated its first exhibition dedicated to Chicano art, “AztLÁn, tunnel of time,” with the participation of various artists from Los Angeles to create a binational cultural bridge with the United States.

The exhibition began to be conceived almost three years ago and was carried out expressly for the museum (MPBA), which houses important murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco in its collection.

“We return to the nature of the origin of this space, on the one hand, of muralism and, on the other hand, also expressions that have to do with Mexican art,” said Joshua Sánchez, chief curator of the MPBA. “With a broad, global vision, in this case binational and that has to do with the diaspora of Mexicans in the United States.”

Sánchez was associate curator for “AztLÁn, tunnel of time,” which was curated by artist Rubén Ortiz Torres and filmmaker, researcher and writer Jesse Lerner, as well as the advice of Rita González, curator and head of the contemporary art department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

The exhibition features works by more than 30 artists, mostly contemporary, and two collectives. During the press tour, creators such as Gabriela Ruiz, Shizu Saldamando, Rubén Ochoa and Guadalupe Rosales were present to talk about their works.

Among the pieces, the mural “The Beyond” stands out with a vintage car tire falling engulfed in flames like a meteorite on a blue background, commissioned by the MPBA to 3D Collective, and a plastic stencil by graffiti art pioneer Chaz Bojorquez from 1969, titled “Señor Suerte.”

There is also a spaceship by Rafa Esparza, inspired by the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, but with the Sun Stone, known as the Aztec calendar, engraved on its top. The artist created it after he was impressed by a work by graphic artist Dewey Tafoya that he met more than a decade ago.

Before building his ship, Esparza had done a performance in which he presented himself as “an astronaut from the past or the future,” who walked on adobe blocks. On the back of his astronaut suit, Esparza had the spaceship that is presented in Fine Arts printed. The ship, titled “Mexica Falcon after Dewey Tafoya,” was created in 2024 with molds printed on wet adobe.

“It is a material that I inherited from my father, who before emigrating to the United States, he was an adobero in Ricardo Flores Magón, Durango,” Esparza said. “Working with that material was an experience that brings a lot of healing. The land is already a context in itself, it carries memories, it carries life, it carries seeds. All of those things interest me when I am working with adobe.”

Pieces such as Esparza’s spaceship or a metal stele by Beatriz Cortés mix past with future.

“There is a group of artists who have a notion of temporality that is different,” said Ortiz Torres. “They realize, they see that indigenous art already had many of these things, that there was already a simultaneity, that there was already an abstraction.”

The history between Mexico and the United States has been complicated and close for more than a century, with an enormous commercial and migratory exchange, while it has gone through wars, interventions and changes in its geographical limits.

The policies of Donald Trump’s government and the responses given by President Claudia Sheinbaum are another reflection of these interactions, at a time when, in addition, Mexico and the United States will host the 2026 Soccer World Cup together with Canada. This exhibition comes in that context.

“We never imagined that the tensions would reach this point, but we believe that a project of this type is even more relevant,” Sánchez said. “Our commitment is to a culture of non-violence, to an idea of dialogue, of communication, although it sounds a bit cliché, but it does have to do with building bridges more than walls.”

Curator Ortiz Torres pointed out that the exhibition is a recognition of Mexican cultural production and its impact on the diaspora in the United States. The curators focused on Los Angeles because it is the American urban center with the largest population of Mexican origin and because of the history of the city founded in the Spanish colonial era.

“It covers many areas. Yes, there is an anthropological aspect, there is an artistic aspect and a social aspect,” he said.

The exhibition will feature conversations with artists, as well as a film series at the National Cinematheque.