Arte Mexicano: a Beacon in the age of AIDS

Arte Mexicano: Imagenes en el Siglo del SIDA features fifty-four Mexican artists responding to issues surrounding HIV/AIDS. The show is a visual sociology project undertaking as a collaboration between the CU Art Galleries and guest curator Dr. George Rivera, CU professor of sociology. An essential question was the driving reason for organizing this exhibition. Can the visual arts be a useful tool in helping people inform themselves about HIV/AIDS? And, as a consequence, either inform or change their behaviors and possibly save their lives. The act of raising this question is significant to both art and sociology. In the visual arts, pragmatic intentions abound, and the critical task is to demonstrate results. To a sociologist a partnership with artists provides access to data of a different sort, a kind that blends aesthetic experience with observation and analysis. In Arte Mexicano there is a common goal to raise human awareness shared by science and art.

As the show was being assembled it grew to include a broad selection of Mexican artists. There was tremendous positive response from galleries, directors, writers and artists. There was a willingness to participate that exceeded the ability to accommodate. Another point was that it also seemed reasonable to address a topic as complex and widespead as HIV/AIDS through a multiplicity of voices-for no particular culture or subculture has escaped its devastation. Therefore, by intent, this show includes older and younger artists, men and women, gay and straight, established and emerging, known and unknown, urban and rural. There are artists experienced in making AIDS-related imagery, as well as those who accepted the challenge to step outside their routine. There are a variety of styles, perspectives and stories presented in the show and catalogue.