In recent posts, we've explored artists cultivating their practices in Mexico and examined a contemporary artist challenging the conventions of hyper-masculinity. Let’s continue this theme by looking at the work of Ana Segovia, an artist from Mexico City, currently featured in the 60th International Art Exhibition in Venice.
Segovia's paintings and her video "Aunque Me Espine la Mano" (Even if I Prick My Hand) are on display at the Arsenale. Her works are characterized by vivid colors, prompting reflections on the constructions and impositions of gender roles and desire, as well as the pervasive influence of media on these concepts.
Segovia's paintings such as "Vámonos con Pancho Villa!" often reimagine black-and-white film stills from Hollywood and Mexico's Golden Ages; the artist transforms the stills with the use of bright colors, especially bubblegum pink.
Segovia's fascination with film comes from her family connections to the industry. Her great-grandfather, Fernando de Fuentes, was one of Mexico’s most significant early directors, known for the Revolution Trilogy (1933-36). Her grandfather, Fernando de Fuentes Reyes, was a producer who married Yolanda Varela, a star of Mexico's Golden Age of Cinema. Segovia is fascinated about the way these films crafted a new national and artificial identity and, in her works, she reimagines film stills and cultural archetypes with a vibrant and kitschy aesthetic, to deconstruct established notions of gender, identity, and desire.
At the Biennale, Segovia's video installation, "Aunque Me Espine la Mano" (Even if I Prick My Hand), is projected onto a screen in the center of a room with neon pink walls. The room’s vibrant colors, combined with the intense hues of the video, create a visually striking and almost overwhelming experience. In the six-minute video, two charro (Mexican horseback riders) figures in contrasting embroidered suits take center stage.
The faces and genders of these figures remain hidden and ambiguous throughout. They assist each other in dressing, helping with shirts and suits and embrace in a manner that suggests desire. Then the interaction takes a violent turn as they slap each other, and one violently shakes the other. A fist punches a wall, causing it to break. Despite the escalating violence, there is a persistent ambiguity in their gestures and in the unexplained nature of their interaction, leaving the audience to interpret the complex emotions and dynamics at play.
Segovia studied visual arts at the Art Institute of Chicago, specializing in painting and drawing (her artistic inspirations include David Hockney, Dana Schutz, and Francis Bacon). However, it is often the fashion elements in her works that hold the key to their meaning. In the case of her video, the custom-made traditional suits are crucial for interpretation.
The charro, a recurring stereotype in Mexican culture, is closely associated with masculinity. In Segovia's works, it becomes an archetype that she employs to dismantle and challenge conventions. When Segovia initially requested tailors to create the suits in altered nuances, many refused, derogatorily referring to the materials as "fag fabrics." Ultimately, the suits were crafted by the charro grandson of the tailor for Jorge Negrete, an iconic film star of Mexico's Golden Age of Cinema, who epitomized masculinity in the country.
Segovia previously explored other archetypes of masculinity in Mexican culture through fashion and costumes, such as the bullfighter and the deconstructed mariachi/ranchero outfit.
In this instance, the traditional charro suits, symbols of a patriarchal archetype, are transformed and imbued with new meaning within a queer context, while the suits' vibrant colors and the depicted violence disorient and challenge viewers, making them uncomfortable and prompting them to question and reinterpret the symbols they see on the screen.
As is often the case with contemporary artists who produce visually striking works with fashion connections, you wonder if Segovia will be co-opted by the fashion industry. Time will tell, but her interest in traditional costumes and her ability to subvert their meanings make her work worthy of exploration in a fashion collection (and if you're a fashion student take this challenge: is there a traditional garment from your country/culture that you'd like to subvert and reinvent? In which ways do you plan to subvert it? Explore the possibilities getting inspired by Segovia's work).
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