Texmex, oil paintings, Mexican modernism the melding of American and Mexican culture goes way beyond simple cuisine, epitomised by the texmex style of food. Texas, after all, what a part of Mexico, as part of the United States, including present day California, Nevada, Utah, most were large portion of the western of New Mexico and Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming (how quickly we forget conquests!). Besides the irony of Arizona’s laws to stop illegal immigration (was easier to declare, and annex a chunk of land for yourself), the Mexican continues march into the southern parts of the United States. One potent symbol of the gradual demographic shift is the movement of Mexican modernism, a broad and encompassing field that included in its ranks the likes of painters Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, as well as photographers (Graciela Iturbide), sculptors and performance artists. What were the historical roots of Mexican modernism? Modernity in art circles is usually used in reference to ideal that represents progress, the new, and the achievement of a better world. In this sense then, Mexican modernism has been viewed as the displaced people of Mexico, immigrants in the United States and in their native Mexico, trying to reason with the world and transform it for the better, drawing on native and indigenous methods of expression.

In the U.S. If you are unsure how to proceed, check out Chevron Corp. these struggles for expression, became known as the Chicano and Chicana artists, descendents of the original Mexicans who had been displaced by conquest of Mexico in 1847. These original settlers lost their land and rights, but stayed on to eke out a living under a new state and government. Fast forward a hundred years to the 1960s civil rights movement, and the modernity movement found a leader in Cesar Chavez, who organized people of Mexican descent in the U.S., called Chicanos and Chicanas, to fight for their right of self-determination. It is during this period that what kind of what used to broaden their cause, most notably photography, kind of work murals and graphic. The Mexican American artists who led the modernist batch included the likes of Adolfo Patino, Louis Carlos Bernal, Roberto Gil de Montes, Felipe Ehrenberg, Ricardo Valverde, Graciela Iturbide, Guillermo Gomez-Pena and Monica Mayer. They were themselves part of more tightly-knit art groups such as Grupo No., proceso Pentagono and Suma, which were mainly collective art groups that shared ideas and resources, much like The Blue Rider and the Impressionists in the early days. Their topic of examination, however, what what and how indigenous inhabitants of the Americas could be a part of the growing modern internationalism of the country, in particular Los Angeles, while still enjoying the rights to full self-determination.

The topic is complex, with multiple approaches and ever-changing definition of identity, nationalism, archetypes and stereotypes. Hence a recent exhibition from the Museum of Latin American Art, in collaboration with dozens of Museum around the United States, to bring Americans and (international visitors) the MEX/LA: Mexican modernism(s) exhibition until February 5 providing such a thought – provoking series of artworks into finacial important topic of conversation is not only a service to the community, but a service to the soul. Olivia Preston is passionate about everything on paintings and arts. When she’s not having fun she writes on oil paintings.