Dreams of a Nation. A year later, 2011

Museo Nacional de Arte
Ciudad de México, México
Curaduría: José Luis Barrios
10 november 2011 – 12 february 2012

The aim of the exhibition design proposal of Sueños de una nación. Un año después, 2011, was to expand, diversify and interpret the curatorial statement. It explored the dialectic between fantasy and reality behind political rhetoric and imaginary constructions of our country.

Throughout the four thematic clusters of the exhibition, the visitor takes a tour from the dream to reality through a deconstruction and dismantling space.

The first core, Soñar en rosa mexicano, explores the idealized forms produced after the triumph of the Mexican Revolution through images of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the present day. The proposed museography “hyper aesthetic” the room, to recreate a dreamland.

In the second core, Morirse de risa, the visitor is invited to “wake up” from this dream. The curator proposed cartoons as a vehicle and to trigger critical questions.

The cartoons were displayed in large scale direct on the wall to emphasize the rawness of the material and its content.

The design room creates an optical illusion by changing the relation between walls, ceiling and floor.

The third core of the exhibit, Ahí está el detalle, explores through photography and media the most recent pressing problems facing the country: poverty, migration, discrimination, organized crime, impunity, increasing militarization.

The museography seeks to “strip” the reality from the apparent use of materials, which through its symbolism of both color and texture, are the elements that allow us to become a support for the work to “wake up to reality” with a critical consciousness.

Finally, Contemporary art practices contemplate the installation of four artists performed in different public spaces of our country.