The Denver Art Museum introduced three artists Pablo Helguera, Alma Lopez, and Damien Ortega to address the question, what makes Mexican modernism relevant today?? To answer this question the exhibit focused on honoring pre-hispanic and indigenous traditions, and Mexico's past life and customs all concerning core themes including appropriation and reclamation as a tool of decolonization, layered identities, and public art.
Artist Pablo Helguera addressed these three themes within his socially engaged art and performance that revolve around memory and linguistics lecture, musical, written, and fiction performances. Helguera discussed public art as activism through his Instituto de la Telenovela / Soap Opera Institute, which examined the impact of Latin American television had on the rest of world on the rest of the world, for example in Russia telenovelas were the number one show. This exhibit had physical instillations of rooms designed in the stereotypical telenovela to illustrate the dramatization of Latin America and the impact this has on not only our community but the formulation of a stereotypical perception abroad.
Helguera additionally confronted layered identities when discussing how complicated his identity was for others to understand as they needed to box him in as either white or Mexican which made him admire the theatrical adventures of being someone else. For people to acknowledge and appreciate Mexican identities he created the Dead Languages Conservatory which preserved languages in extinction within phonograph recordings in a wax cylinder.
Lastly, Helguera confronted reclamation and appropriation in a personal story in which his uncle in 1920 worked for the Federal give during WWII and is famous for creating the “I am Counting on You” Silent Sam image utilized to silence Pan-American troops. During the BLM
Helguera used this poster to reframe this image's message by writing on silence is compliance to reflect on the role we have in injustice
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