La revolución que hace arte

Date: 1929

Medium: Woodcut

Dimensions (cm.): 19.1 x 15.0

Alternate titles: La Adelita

Published edition: Unknown

Contemporary publication: 

References: Information to be added

Commentary: In 1929 the members of Agorismo, a short-lived group of writers and artists to which Méndez belonged, held an exhibition in a circus tent, the Carpa Amaro (Amaro Circus tent), in the center of Mexico City, where they displayed copies poems. Méndez provided the cover illustration for the catalogue of the exhibition. His woodcut La Revolución que hace arte (The Revolution That Makes Art)  portrays a Zapatista soldier, with bandolier and sombrero, playing a harmonica, seated on a railroad track. In Méndez’s print, the Zapatista soldiers represent the struggle for agrarian reform. Because the soldier is playing a harmonica, the print communicates the message that the war was a temporary condition. He is everyman, bearing the hopes of the Revolution. Here Méndez referred to performative aspects of the Revolution; as the title of the print emphasizes, it is the “revolution” that makes art. The soldier/musician is a symbolic agent representing the creative process that results from the victory of the Revolution. However, the musician is isolated from his comrades, suggesting the dilemma of the artist in political life, a theme Méndez developed further in later works. (Deborah Caplow)

Catalogue record number: 319