The
explosive color and conventional grotesquerie of pre-Columbian art in
Central America mixed with the mordant wit, violence and melancholy of
Spanish art gave Mexico a unique and vibrant visual culture which keeps
manifesting itself in ever-shifting forms — in the playful morbidity
of Jose Posada's 19th-Century popular prints, in posters from the
golden age of Mexican cinema (the 1940s and 50s), in the work of the
great 20th-Century Mexican muralists like Diego Rivera, and now in the
bold visuals of Mexican filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso
Cuaron.
This
visual culture also hums along, sometimes magically, in the vernacular
art of Mexican street signs, posters, packaging labels and handbills.
Unmitigated as these are by the academy or by corporate standards of
slickness and “good taste”, they offer on one level the best insights
into the essence of the Mexican visual imagination.
A
wonderful collection of Mexican street graphics has been published in
book form, called Sensacional!, and it's a real delight. The arty
and/or academic texts included in the book cannot diminish the charm
and power of its images, which resist traditional (and even
post-modern) critical analysis. You can find the book here:
A
nice pendant to this book is Cine Mexicano, a terrific collection of
vintage Mexican movie posters — similar in some ways to Hollywood
movie posters from the same era but inflected with a purely Mexican
sense of color, style and drama. You can find it here:
Cine Mexicano
