[Blake_Stimson,_Gregory_Sholette]_Collectivism_aft(z-lib
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[Blake_Stimson,_Gregory_Sholette]_Collectivism_aft(z-lib

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The Mexican Pentagon 169It was against this background of repression and violence that thegroups made their appearance in the 1970s. They shared an interest in communicatingwith people on the streets and exposing the criminal actionsof the Mexican regime. Out of all the groups, Proceso Pentágono was thelongest-lived, and the one that managed to articulate the most coherentartistic and political program. I would like to devote the rest of this chapterto analyzing three projects that demonstrate this group’s working methodsand political concerns: a 1973 street action, the group’s project for the 1977Paris Biennale, and a 1980 book publication.PROCESO PENTÁGONOProceso Pentágono was founded in 1973, the year of the military coup inChile, by Felipe Ehrenberg, Carlos Finck, José Antonio Hernández, and VíctorMuñoz (Figure 6.2). Initially, the group was formed to search for alternativesto the government-run museums and galleries in Mexico City—locales that Proceso Pentágono denounced as complicit, however indirectly,FIGURE 6.2. Proceso Pentágono, 1977. Left to right, Víctor Muñoz, Carlos Finck, FelipeEhrenberg, José Antonio Hernández. The members left an empty seat to represent the place “chance”occupies in their activities. Photograph courtesy of Víctor Muñoz.

170 Rubén Gallowith the government’s policies of violent repression. In one of its documents,the group claimed that “working in a group, that is to say, as a collective,was a necessary step to confront both the state’s bureaucratic apparatus thatadministers cultural life and the elitist maWas which—consciously or unconsciously—reproducethe dominant ideology.” 8 One of Proceso Pentágono’smost pressing concerns was to Wnd alternative exhibition venues that couldexist outside the “state’s bureaucratic apparatus.”This refusal to participate in government institutions led the groupsaway from the museum—a decision that, as Gregory Sholette has shown, wastaken by most activist artists around the world—and out on the street. 9 Todrive this point home, Proceso Pentágono staged one of its Wrst projects, “Anivel informativo” (On an Informational Level, 1973) on a street outsideMexico City’s most ofWcial museum: the Palace of Fine Arts, a corny, pretentious,cake-like marble behemoth that was the last public project commissionedby dictator PorWrio Díaz before being ousted by the revolution in 1910.“A NIVEL INFORMATIVO” (1973):BRINGING ART OUT ON THE STREETThe venue for “A nivel informativo” was politically charged. More than anyother government space, Bellas Artes, as the Palace of Fine Arts is knownto city dwellers, illustrated the vast disconnect between cultural institutionsand everyday life in the city. Bellas Artes stands in one of the liveliest andmost vibrant working-class neighborhoods in the city—the Centro—but itsinterior is a cold, tomblike, marble gallery. Outside there are crowds of streetvendors, book sellers peddling Marxist treatises carefully laid out on whitesheets on the sidewalk, Indian women begging for money with their babiesin tow, young couples making out, children screaming, and all kinds of peoplemaking a racket—young and old, rich and poor, employed and unemployed;inside, there are empty galleries illuminated by crystal chandeliers.The street outside Bellas Artes is dirty, full of food, garbage, detritusleft behind by the crowds; inside, the marble Xoors are kept spotless byan army of sweepers and cleaners. Outside, there is street culture: impromptuperformers—Wre-eaters, kids dressed as clowns, fortune-tellers—offering theirservices for a few pesos. Inside there is a ghostly space devoted to opera, ballet,and other spectacles of High Culture. Theodor Adorno once pointedout that the words “Museum and mausoleum are connected by more thanphonetic association. They testify to the neutralization of culture,” and nowhereis this more evident than around Bellas Artes: the street teems withlife; the museum is a mausoleum, a tomb, a dead space. 10When Proceso Pentágono was invited to present a project at

The Mexican Pentagon 169

It was against this background of repression and violence that the

groups made their appearance in the 1970s. They shared an interest in communicating

with people on the streets and exposing the criminal actions

of the Mexican regime. Out of all the groups, Proceso Pentágono was the

longest-lived, and the one that managed to articulate the most coherent

artistic and political program. I would like to devote the rest of this chapter

to analyzing three projects that demonstrate this group’s working methods

and political concerns: a 1973 street action, the group’s project for the 1977

Paris Biennale, and a 1980 book publication.

PROCESO PENTÁGONO

Proceso Pentágono was founded in 1973, the year of the military coup in

Chile, by Felipe Ehrenberg, Carlos Finck, José Antonio Hernández, and Víctor

Muñoz (Figure 6.2). Initially, the group was formed to search for alternatives

to the government-run museums and galleries in Mexico City—

locales that Proceso Pentágono denounced as complicit, however indirectly,

FIGURE 6.2. Proceso Pentágono, 1977. Left to right, Víctor Muñoz, Carlos Finck, Felipe

Ehrenberg, José Antonio Hernández. The members left an empty seat to represent the place “chance”

occupies in their activities. Photograph courtesy of Víctor Muñoz.

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