In this 1997 catalogue essay, the Cuban-Mexican curator Osvaldo Sánchez attempts to characterize the emerging generation of Mexican artists, who came onto the artistic scene following the eruption of neo-mexicanismo [Neo-Mexicanism] in the 1980s. Sánchez frames this generation within the context of “the prolonged decline of modernity.” In his view, artistic discussions in the postcolonial nations remain trapped in the binary of false oppositions: between nationalist aesthetics and international, derivative Postmodernism; between populist state and global forces of capitalism. According to Sánchez, the youngest generation of Mexican artists productively utilizes the tensions resulting from those dichotomies in order to engage in critical “socio-cultural self-analysis,” presenting an “ironic, nonhierarchical gaze at the cultural heritage of the nation.” The new generation, fueled by immigrant artists and Mexicans trained abroad, rejected painting favored by the work of neo-mexicanismo. Instead, it adopted a more conceptual approach, using sculptural objects and installation as their primary means of expression. Sánchez discusses briefly the work of Boris Viskin, Yishai Jusidman, Silvia Gruner, Melanie Smith, Gerardo Suter, Carlos Arias, Néstor Quiñones, Betsabeé Romero, Diego Toledo, Carlos Aguirre, and Marco Arce, among others.

The Havana-born curator Osvaldo Sánchez (born 1958) emigrated from Cuba to Mexico City in 1990. He was a director of such institutions as the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Rufino Tamayo, Museo de Arte Moderno, and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Carrillo Gil. His essay “Out of Bounds?” was published in the catalogue of the traveling exhibition México Ahora: Punto de Partida / Mexico Now: Point of Departure (Columbus: Ohio Arts Council, 1997).Sánchez’s text exemplifies the challenges of writing about national scenes following what became known as a global turn in the artistic practice of the 1990s. His rejection of neo-mexicanismo [see Olivier Debroise, “¿Un posmodernismo en México?,” document # 1126726] signals the curator’s willingness to embrace a new deterritorialized artistic language. At the same time, however, Sánchez seeks to identify the markers of specific local concerns in the works, aiming to reconcile the national and the international. [See also Néstor García Canclini, “Entrance,” document # 1126661.]