Escultura Social: A New Generation of Art from Mexico City

Mexico City has emerged as a thriving center of contemporary art. Escultura Social features recent work by a group of artists whose influence has already extended far beyond Mexico and focuses on how they have contributed to an international dialogue through their use of nontraditional materials, new media, and critical perspectives.This book takes Joseph Beuys’s idea of ＂social sculpture,＂ or escultura social, as a multivalent reference point for understanding how these socially engaged works draw connections between people and nature and promote a demystified and democratic concept of art-making. Featuring the work of twenty artists, this bilingual volume includes several artists’ writings by pioneers of artist-run exhibition spaces: Stefan Brüggemann, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Yoshua Okón, and Pedro Reyes. Critical essays on the contemporary Mexican scene and relevance of Beuys’s ideas are accompanied by illustrated texts on each artist in this unique and important book.Bilingual (English/Spanish)

Published in association with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

Exhibition Schedule:

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (June 23 - September 2, 2007)

Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham (January 15 - May 31, 2009)

Julie Rodrigues Widholm is assistant curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Itala Schmelz is director of the Sala de Público Siqueiros, Mexico City.