El Machete and Frente a Frente: Art Committed to Social Justice in MexicoAuthor(s): Alicia AzuelaSource: Art Journal, Vol. 52, No. 1, Political Journals and Art, 1910-40 (Spring, 1993), pp. 82-87Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/777306Accessed: 19/11/2010 15:15

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82

El Machete and Frente a Frente Art Committed to Social Justice in Mexico

Alicia Azuela

uring the twenties and thirties, Mexican artists enlisted journals to voice and illustrate their ideas concerning art and society. El Machete [The ma-

chete] (1924-29) and Frente a Frente [Front to front (i.e., head to head)] (1934-38) served as forums for debate on political issues as well as on the appropriate subject matter and form of socially relevant art. El Machete, launched by SOTPE, the Sindicato de Obreros T6cnicos, Pintores y Es- cultores (Union of Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculp- tors) in early 1924, advocated the goals of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. For artists, this meant making art and culture accessible to all people through public murals and graphics of social criticism and political statement. Initially, some of the artists of El Machete were influenced by the Ateneo de la Juventud (Athenaeum of Youth), a group of artists and intellectuals such as Jos6 Vasconcelos, Alfonso Reyes, and Antonio Caso, who believed that the arts were both the highest expression of the human spirit and a key force in social evolution. However, gradually the publication shifted away from the ideology of the ateneistas and became more aligned with the Mexican Communist Party. Frente a Frente was the organ of LEAR, the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists), during the administration of the LAzaro Cair- denas government (1934-40). Like El Machete, it advocated socially relevant art for the people. Although both journals supported the ideas of the Revolution, Frente a Frente was more closely aligned with the Communist Party, specifically the declarations made at the First Congress of Soviet Writers in Moscow in 1934, where socialist realism became the Party's officially sanctioned art. It supported a more militant graphic art, heavily influenced by similar radical work being produced in Germany, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States. The editorial policies, declarations, and illus- trations of each publication expressed the commitment of artists to contemporary social issues.

El Machete reflected the program of SOTPE, a union founded on December 9, 1923, during a time when the Alvaro Obreg6n government favored the unionization of workers and farmers. By unionizing, artists joined their fellow "workers" in protecting their rights and lobbying for good working conditions and fair wages. Further, they indi- cated their desire to have a voice in national politics and to

employ their art as a vehicle of political content. Many of the union's members originally belonged to the Grupo Solidario del Movimiento Obrero (Workers Movement Solidarity Group), founded in 1922 by Vicente Lombardo Toledano, who as director of the National Preparatory School from 1920 to 1924 witnessed at first hand the creation of the first murals and the protests against them. In March 1924, a few months after its formation, SOTPE published the first issue of El Machete.

The manifesto of SOTPE, published in the June 1924 issue of El Machete, was signed by Xavier Guerrero, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siquerios, and others. It presented the artists' view that art and politics were inseparable, and that art had to be created within a real historical context and to foster political goals. The unionized artists asserted:

Our social reality is one of transition from an archaic order to a new order. Those who create art must strive to include in their work clear ideological propaganda for the people, art armed for combat, that makes people aware of their history and their civil rights. Beauty will nourish their [the people's] sensitivity, and art will preserve their rich traditions.'

The manifesto addressed the "popular trinity"- soldiers, farmers, and workers-as the essence of revolution- ary power. Those who signed the manifesto became self- appointed protectors of this trinity and identified with the ancestral Indian heritage and with all oppressed peoples. The native Indian was hailed as the symbol of the true Mexican, embodying the nation's spiritual and physical vir- tues. The Indian was the essence of being Mexican, the antithesis of criollismrno, the Spanish colonial establishment that enslaved the people, the oppressive tyrant portrayed with hatred in the corridos (popular ballads) published in El Machete. A union between culture and the Indian race was also proclaimed: "Indian tradition is the best of all traditions. It is great precisely because, being of the people, it is collective, and that is why our fundamental aesthetic goal is to socialize artistic expression and to totally obliterate bour- geois individualism."2 Artists were invited to become cul- tural workers, to join the social, aesthetic, and educational battle initiated by SOTPE. The manifesto proclaimed that "the triumph of the masses will lead not only to a new social order, but also to art that is ethically, historically, and

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cosmically of paramount importance for our people, compa- rable to that of our remarkable indigenous culture."3 The principles set forth in the manifesto determined the nature of SOTPE members' work. It also meant a dogmatic spurning of those artists who did not embrace the creed. SOTPE was particularly critical of the Contempordneos, a group of writers, painters, and poets who asserted that art was social but who opposed propaganda art. The two groups engaged in a heated debate on issues of cultural identity, the role of art within the context of nationalism, internationalism, and tra- dition, and the relationship between art and politics.

SOTPE's directive found its artistic expression in mu- rals and in the graphic arts, with easel painting rejected on principle and repudiated as aristocratic. A few months after the manifesto was published, union artists launched a violent antigovernment campaign that led to the cancellation of most of their contracts for murals. As a consequence, artists turned to graphic arts, which became equal in their minds in importance with murals as a means of public expression. In August 1924, Siqueiros declared that the pages of El Ma- chete were his "new walls."4 Designed to reach the people even when government censorship barred its sale, El Machete was originally produced in such a way that it could be pasted on walls or folded as a newspaper for distribution.

El Machete addressed the masses. Texts dealing with national and international workers' issues and Marxist theory were written by both Mexicans and foreigners; among the latter were the German Adolf Goldschmidt and the American Bertram D. Wolfe, both founding members of the Mexican Communist Party. Although there was no art section, the artists Guerrero, Rivera, and Siqueiros wrote articles regu- larly. For a public that was largely illiterate, illustrations were of critical importance in transmitting information. SOTPE members often illustrated corridos with political cartoons or drew visualizations of the essential content of the articles. El Machete seldom gave their contributors a by-line, symbol- ically stressing the rejection of bourgeois individualism and identifying with anonymous collective labor. The few articles that credited their authors did so with initials and abbrevia- tions that varied from issue to issue. Siqueiros made the humorous comment that this was a way of giving "the impres- sion that the journal had many more collaborators and mak- ing it seem more important."'5

The SOTPE aesthetic advocated that art be didactic and combative. The result was a figurative narrative style appropriate for conveying political messages to achieve the goals of creating a social consciousness among people and of making the masses aware of their historical reality and of their rights. The manifesto also stressed the importance of indigenous artistic values, represented by a popular art that preserved the Indian tradition. SOTPE artists reasoned that since such art by definition belonged to the people, using a similar style would make their own art a clear and effective form of communication. With this in mind, they took advan-

tage of the graphic work of Jean Charlot (1898-1979), a Frenchman who had arrived in Mexico in 1922. Charlot had a deep appreciation of the Mexican popular graphic tradition of the nineteenth century, spendidly exemplified by Jos6 Gua- dalupe Posada (1862-1913), and he introduced the woodcut technique to Guerrero and Siqueiros, who became so enthu- siastic about its potential for mass communication that they introduced it to El Machete.

Both the woodcut technique and the social and histori- cal subject matter were innovative, with popular interests represented in a popular style that prevented images from falling into the heavily overstated academic style evident in Soviet socialist realism. El Machete artists working in wood- cut faced technical limitations; as a result, two colors, red and black, were used only on the masthead (fig. 1). Further, the artists' strong objections to nonobjective art probably prevented them from employing typography as a design element.

Among the images typical of El Machete's early period is a woodcut by Siqueiros entitled La Unidad del Campesino el Soldado y el Obrero [The unity of farmers, soldiers, and workers], which illustrated a ballad by Graciela Amador, "La Caida de los Ricos y la Construcci6n de un Nuevo Orden" [The fall of the rich and the construction of a new order] (fig. 2), which appeared in the issue of April 1-15, 1924. The image combines the aesthetic values of murals with the formal qualities of the woodcut. Strong, bold contours outline generalized symbolic figures, whose massive volume recalls Siqueiros's previous work in murals. Further, there is an iconographic reference to popular art in the presentation of the "trilogy" of the worker, farm laborer, and soldier, whose forms closely resemble straw figurines made by artisans in the state of Puebla. The frontally positioned foreground fig- ures have almost identical features; only their dress specifies distinct roles and classes. The massed faces behind are similarly repetitive, with those in the background barely distinguishable among the many hats. The image was accom- panied by two messages: on the right, "Los tres somos victimas" (We three are victims); on the left, "Los tres somos hermanos" (We three are brothers). The woodcut is typical of many of the illustrations appearing in El Machete before the publication became an organ of the Communist Party. Al- though recalling the ateneista goal of producing murals that stimulated great virtues, the images in El Machete not only sought to encourage noble behavior but also to present a social message to awaken class consciousness.

Unlike other El Machete artists who were muralists, Jos6 Clement Orozco was also an experienced cartoonist. His cartoons, which first appeared in the ninth issue of August 21-28, 1924, when the Ministry of Education interrupted payment for the murals at the National Preparatory School, lightened the tone of the magazine by conveying a moment or personality with a few strokes of India ink. Esperan Sonrientes a los Nuevos Diputados [Smiling, they wait for the new depu-

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ties] (fig. 3) illustrates Orozco's acid critique of politicians. Both the style and theme recall his series of watercolors of prostitutes entitled Casa de Lagrimas [House of tears] (1912- 13) and his ink drawings of perverse girls entitled Las Mu- chachas [The girls] (1914-15).

El Machete's vicious critique of the government in- creased as did the artists' disagreement with measures taken by President Obreg6n at the end of his term. Their indigna- tion became open disapproval when the government failed to send police to defend the Orozco and Siqueiros murals at the National Preparatory School against vandalization by a group of students who claimed that the murals were immoral, subversive, and grotesque-inappropriate for an academic institution. Shortly after this incident, the new Education Minister, Manuel Puig Cassauranc, warned artists to stop their attacks on the government and threatened to cancel their mural contracts. The unionized artists split: some followed Siqueiros's stand for freedom of artistic expression; others, led by Rivera, were willing to compromise, sacrificing their artistic freedom to retain their jobs. In this fashion, Rivera secured his position as the official artist of the Plutarco Eliais Calles administration (1924-28). The firm stand of Siqueiros and his followers reflected a radicalization of the union and exposed the group's internal conflicts. This standoff led both to the demise of SOTPE and to the cancellation of the mural- ists' contracts in December 1924.

After the dissolution of SOTPE, the Communist Party adopted El Machete as its official organ. A new editorial policy modified the format and masthead, emphasized politi- cal analysis, and replaced original art work with photo- graphs. El Machete voiced artists' growing discontent with the new administration's labor, agricultural, cultural, and

foreign policies. Suffering unemployment and political re- pression, many opposition artists found work in Guadalajara, emigrated to the United States, or abandoned their artistic endeavors. President Calles intensified his repressive tactics during the 1928 presidential campaign, which peaked in 1929 with the persecution of his opponents, Jose Vasconcelos of the Antireelectionist Party and Manuel Rodriquez Triana of the Communist Party. Vasconcelos fled to the United States, the victim of electoral fraud, and in July 1929 both the Communist Party and its organ were forced underground until the Calles period of veiled dictatorship ended in 1934. Re- named El Machete Clandestino [The underground machete], the journal suffered from lack of funds and from the absence of its most important contributors. Although it published in 1935, the original high-quality graphics were not equaled except for occasional contributions from LEAR artists.

In 1934, Laizaro Cairdenas was elected as a candidate of the Calles-controlled PNR, the Partido Nacional Revolu- cionario (National Revolutionary Party). Once in office, Cair- denas made significant reforms, initiating an era of renewed political freedom. Although the Mexican Communist Party had rejected his Six-Year Plan, it was gradually won over by Cairdenas's economic, political, and educational measures, which restored the rights of workers to organize and strike. Cairdenas's policies were consistent with the Popular Front adopted by the Communist Party in June 1933; as a result, the Party could publish openly, and cooperation between artists and intellectuals and the government ensued.

In early 1934, Leopoldo MWndez, Pablo O'Higgins, Juan de la Cabada, and Luis Arenal founded the League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists (LEAR) in response to the resolutions adopted at the Communist International. Closely associated with the Communist Party, LEAR defined itself as a proletarian organization. Its mission was to "restore diplo- matic relations between Mexico and Soviet Russia [sus- pended in 1930], the international bastion of true culture for the productive masses . . . [and to] legalize the Communist

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FIG. 3 Jos6 Clemente Orozco, Esperan Sonrientes a los Nuevos Diputados [Smiling, they wait for the new deputies], El Machete [The machete] (August 21-28,1924): 4.

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FIG. 4 Josd Chavez Morado, La Piiiata or Diciembre [December], Frente a Frente [Front to front] (April 1936): 18.

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Party and raise the class consciousness of the revolutionary proletariat."6 LEAR advocated the use of culture as a weapon against fascism, Nazism, imperialism, and Mexican authorities, referred to as "social fascists." The sectarian tone of this platform responded to the increasing threat of international fascism. On October 22, 1935, the league issued a "Call for the Unity of Intellectual and Cultural Organizations of the Country" that opened its doors to all political ideologies opposed to fascism. Shortly thereafter, in 1936, LEAR became formally independent of the Mexican Communist Party, without breaking with the institution or its ideology, and openly supported Cairdenas.

LEAR reformulated its principles as a Popular-Front organization. In February 1936, Judin de la Cabada, LEAR's president, described the league as "a broad-based cultural front organization of intellectual workers focused on the struggle against fascism, imperialism, and war."7 In August 1936, the league declared that its goal was to unite all artists, writers, and intellectuals in discussing "the attitudes that should be adopted regarding the problems of Mexico and the world brought on by fascism... [in order] to make culture available to the working masses, study their problems, help them in their struggle for better living conditions, capitalize on the governments' progressive tendencies, and make their [LEAR's] principles widely known."8 Despite its nonpartisan goals, LEAR maintained that "the basic social function of a revolutionary intellectual is to be an active militant, a skillful guide capable of pointing out the dangers that culture con- fronts at this time."'9

The publication that voiced the political ideology of LEAR was Frente a Frente. Planned as a monthly, it ap- peared irregularly from November 1934 to early 1938. Each issue was published in an average edition of 2,000 copies, increasing to as many as 10,000 at its peak. Unlike El Machete, Frente a Frente was distributed to other countries where similar political groups were active, such as the United States and Panama. The journal's name, "Front to Front," or "Head to Head," was a play on words alluding to the slogan

"Class against Class," adopted by the Sixth International Communist Congress in 1928.10 It reflected the league's commitment to pursue open class confrontation and its initial combative relationship with the Cairdenas administration.

The contents of Frente a Frente were diverse. They included sections on current events, proletarian literature, books, music, architecture, science, and education. Occa- sionally, items from foreign journals, such as Commune (France) and New Masses (United States), were published. The art section featured art theory, critical reviews, an- nouncements, and contemporary issues. It was common for artists who were independent of the league's directive to be harshly criticized.

Illustrations in Frente a Frente reflected LEAR's pref- erence for the "public" arts of graphics, drawings, photogra- phy, photomontage, and mural painting focused on prole- tarian issues and protest. While the same aesthetic premises were applied in Frente a Frente as in El Machete, visual images in the former assumed a more combative tone in their fight against fascism and their support of the workers' class struggle. The first issues included woodcuts, drawings, lithographs, and photographs; later issues, however, repro- duced only photographs and photomontages. An outstanding photomontage appeared on the cover of the May 1936 issue (pl. 7, p. 15). It included a photograph by Manuel Alvarez Bravo entitled Obrero en Huelga Asesinado [Striking worker assassinated]. A portion of the photograph, showing the dead man's head and torso, is juxtaposed with images of Calles, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler, associating the powerful Mexican politican with European fascists.

Stylistically, illustrations in Frente a Frente often showed a mixture of elements from German Expressionism, Mexican graphics, and, to a lesser extent, Soviet graphics. Mexican artists were particularly influenced by the work of Max Beckman, George Grosz, John Heartfield, and Emil Nolde, most of whom had been exhibited in Mexico." LEAR artists were especially sensitive to the manner in which the Germans used the woodcut technique to heighten the expres-

SPRING 1993

sive possibilities of strong lines and highly pronounced fea- tures. The Mexicans used the dramatic potential in woodcuts to emphasize social injustice rather than the mental anguish of human psychology. In one example by Jose Chaivez Morado (fig. 4), a worker is shown as a pifiata in December, being struck by a priest while men, women, and children applaud. The features of the fat, bourgeois man on the right recall Nolde's grotesque and malevolent faces, while the simplified forms and bold features of the other figures and the use of parallel lines and cross-hatchings are devices typical of the German Expressionists. Among the artists who successfully combined Mexican and foreign influences without resorting to melodramatic folkloric representations were O'Higgins, Gabriel Fernaindez Ledesma, MWndez, ChAvez Morado, Orozco, and Siqueiros. In one print appearing in the April 1936 issue of Frente a Frente, ChAvez Morado depicts the attack made by a fascist group known as the "Golden Shirts" on a demonstration of Communist students, workers, and farmers that occurred on November 20, 1935 (fig. 5). ChAvez Morado shows the armed and mounted aggressors charging the crowd and killing several people. The assailants are dressed in military attire, thereby condemning both the military for sympathizing with the fascists and the govern- ment for not preventing the attack. Chevez Morado suc- cessfully combined the naive quality of Posada's early repre- sentations of combat and street fights (especially Posada's El Niquel o Manifestacion Publica Antireeleccionista [Public demonstration against reelection]) with the strong linear tech- nique and tonal contrast of contemporary German graphics.

The leading figures of LEAR, who were members of the Communist Party, pressured the group to follow the Party directives. Although the league attempted to open its ranks to radicals and liberals alike, the rigidity of the Party mem- bers defeated the effort. The Stalinists maintained that repre- sentationalism was the only acceptable style and the worker the only subject of art. Conflict arose between Stalinists and the followers of Trotsky, who asserted that creativity required freedom. Although the journal of the Trotskyists, Clave [Key], seldom covered art, it was a forum of opposition to the Stalinist faction. Clave published the 1938 manifesto "Por un arte revolucionario independiente" [Towards a free revolu- tionary art], which was signed by Andrd Breton and Rivera although Breton and Trotsky were considered its intellectual authors (both were in Mexico in 1938). Attacking the position that the state or a political party had the right to impose criteria on art form and content, the manifesto declared:

True art, art that is not molded into stereotyped models but attempts to express the internal needs of man and contempo- rary humanity, cannot fail to be revolutionary. This means that it cannot fail to strive for a complete and radical recon- struction of society, even if only to liberate intellectual cre- ativity from its chains and to allow humanity to reach the heights that only isolated geniuses have achieved in the past.'2

Trotskyists considered the attempt to enclose art within pre- established guidelines to be a threat to the very essence of art and, consequently, to its revolutionary potential. Their attack on the Communist definition of art was a veiled attack on Stalin. Many artists and intellectuals who shared this view withdrew from LEAR.

Another faction of LEAR, including Raul Anguiano, JuAn O'Gorman, O'Higgins, and ChAvez Morado, refused to use the league as a means of securing work regardless of the employer's political convictions. Although these members believed in the original doctrine of LEAR and were not opposed to President CArdenas's policies, they resigned from the league at the end of 1938 because they considered it vital to act independently in order to preserve their ideological integrity. This faction subsequently founded the Taller de la Graifica Popular (Popular Graphics Workshop), which pro- vided top-quality art instruction and production. These con- flicts within the league led to administrative chaos and bureaucracy, and ultimately to the demise of LEAR and Frente a Frente in early 1938.

El Machete and Frente a Frente were only two of the many Mexican publications concerned with art during the twenties and thirties. They document the persistent presence of cultural issues and debate in public life during these years. Both are a testimony to artists' conviction that their work should be at the service of society.4 Notes I wish to thank Virginia Marquardt, Clara Bargellini, Juan Puig, Maria O'Higgins, Pilar Garcia, Karen Cordero, and Fausto Ramirez for their generous assistance and to acknowledge Susannah Glusker for her translation. 1. SOTPE, "Manifesto del Sindicato de Obreros Tdcnicos, Pintores y Escultores," El Machete [The machete], no. 7 (June 1924): 4. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. 4. David Alfar Siqueiros, Me Ilamaban El Coronelazo [1 was called the Colonel] (Mexico City: Editorial Grijalvo, 1977): 217. 5. Ibid. 6. "Cuatro demandas de la Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios ante el presidente de la Rep6blica" [Four demands by the League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists to the president of the Republic], cited in Elizabeth Fuentes, "La Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios: Una producci6n artistica compremetida" [The League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists: A committed artistic production], Ph.D. diss. (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de M6xico, 1991), 38. 7. Judn de la Cabada, letter to the editor of El Universal Gr6fica [Universal graphics], February 1, 1936, Leopoldo M6ndez Archives. 8. LEAR Executive Committee, "Notas y actividades de la LEAR" [Notes and activities of LEARI, Frente a Frente [Front to front] (August 1936): 23. 9. Ibid. 10. See Reyes Palma Francisco, "Radicalismo artistico en el M6xico de los afios 30, un repuesta colectiva a la crisis" [Artistic radicalism in Mexico in the 1930s: Collective responses to the crisis], Artes Pldsticas [Plastic arts] 2 (December 1988- February 1989): 7. 11. An exhibition of contemporary graphics was organized by Gabriel Fernandez Ledesma in 1931 at the Salon del Arte in Mexico City. For an illustration of the poster announcing the exhibition, see Judith Alanis Figueroa, Gabriel Ferndndez Ledesma (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de M6xico, 1985), 163. 12. Andr6 Breton and Diego de Rivera, "Por un arte revolucionario independiente" [Towards a free revolutionary art], Clave [Key] (October 1938): 10.

A L I C I A AZ U E L A, of the Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas, Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de Mixico, is preparing a bilingual book titled The Presence of Mexican Art in the United States, 1929-1945.

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Article Contentsp. 82p. 83p. [84]p. 85p. 86p. 87

Issue Table of ContentsArt Journal, Vol. 52, No. 1, Political Journals and Art, 1910-40 (Spring, 1993), pp. 1-120Front Matter [pp. 1-118]Covers of Political Journals, 1910-40 [pp. 8-17]Editor's StatementThe Nexus of Art and Politics Seen through Political Journals, 1910-40 [pp. 20-21]

Art of the Commune: Politics and Art in Soviet Journals, 1917-20 [pp. 24-33]From the Avant-Garde to "Proletarian Art": The Emigr Hungarian Journals Egysg and Akasztott Ember, 1922-23 [pp. 34-45]War, Revolution, and the Transformation of the German Humor Magazine, 1914-27 [pp. 46-54]Art and Politics in Spain, 1928-36 [pp. 55-60]Surrealists, Stalinists, and Trotskyists: Theories of Art and Revolution in France between the Wars [pp. 61-68]Concerning Art and Politics in Yugoslavia during the 1930s [pp. 69-71]Art on the Political Front in America: From The Liberator to Art Front [pp. 72-81]El Machete and Frente a Frente: Art Committed to Social Justice in Mexico [pp. 82-87]Exhibition ReviewReview: Jusepe de Ribera [pp. 90-92]

Book ReviewsReview: Art and Political Agendas [pp. 94-95+97+99]Review: Cultural Moments [pp. 99-101]Review: Cultural Property [pp. 103-107]Review: Theory of the Avant-Garde [pp. 107+109-111]

Books and Catalogues Received [pp. 114-115+117+119-120]Back Matter