Images Re-Vues (Sep 2008)
Le Mexique populaire et les images tragiques. Sur les traces de l’artiste Nicolás De Jesús
Abstract
This article begins with the following question: “Can one laugh at tragic images?”. It starts off in Mexico, where burlesque has a long tradition. Examining certain visual and literary images produced since the Mexican Revolution of 1910 serves as an introduction for getting to grips with the work of Nicolás De Jesús, a contemporary artist from a Nahua village in the State of Guerrero, where the art of painting on amate paper is predominant. Analysing his work allows a reflection on the more wide-reaching question of how the globally diffused images are interpreted locally. Studying the engraving titled Voladores, meant to be an allegory of the tragedy of 11 September, helps to understand the real event is perhaps less in “the spectacular image of 11 September” he reproduces, than in the choice he makes to consider this episode in the light of the engraver José Guadalupe Posada, whose burlesques and satiric works at the dawn of the Mexican Revolution had a decisive effect on subsequent generations.
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