Drug-Related Murders Inspire Mexican Art
Drug-related murders inspire a young Mexican painter as a sign of shifting art.
MEXICO CITY, April 9, 2009 -- Mexico City is home to some of the world's most admired artists, among them Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera who are as famous for their prolific work between the 1920s and 1950s as they are for their love-hate relationship.
The movie "Frida," starring Salma Hayek as Kahlo, illustrated the couple's unique creative and romantic tension, which was the source of much pain and great works of art.
The couple lived in separate houses for years, after Rivera's refusal to put an end to his bachelor's way of life. They were married twice.
Fifty years after Rivera's death, Mexico's National Palace, where Rivera's murals are exhibited, and Kahlo's Casa Azul, or Blue House, are some of the city's most visited places.
While Kahlo's work reached out to many people through her physical and emotional pain -- Kahlo was severely injured after a tragic tramway accident and left unable to have children -- Rivera's work celebrated Mexico's identity and history.
His series of murals in Mexico's government buildings tell the country's history from its Indian roots, to the colonization's exactions, to the 1950s dreams of a socialist society.
By painting glorious scenes of Mexican Indians working in mines or in the field on one hand, and acidic scenes of Wall Street financiers living a lustful life on the other, Rivera expressed his vision of a redemption of Mexico through the scolding of capitalist ideas and the healing of its colonial wounds.
Today, however, a new generation of artists is rising to prominence, expressing new themes of inspiration and fears.
One of them is Omar Rodriguez Graham, 30, who was born and raised in Mexico but trained in the United States as a painter.
He is one of Mexico's forthcoming artists, part of a movement that has extended its work to the United States and Europe. And then there are Western artists such as Damien Hirst who sell their work in Mexico City.
Graham's works are sold at the prestigious Hilario Galguerra gallery in Mexico City and in Europe.
He finds inspiration in gruesome tabloid pictures.
