Chavis Mármol

Your work engages deeply with elements of popular culture and mass consumption. Why are you so drawn to collective meaning or to things that appeal to everyone? What is your relationship with these icons?

CM: My relationship with the iconic and with popular culture is fundamental, but it’s fundamental because, for me, it was essential to understand art before I could make it.

Understanding the art of the last 50 years means understanding that, after the 1960s and Warhol, what has been happening is that art becomes pop art. In other words, mass culture becomes mainstream and becomes what is, at this moment, the norm, the rule.

You can see it in music, you can see it in art, you can see it in fashion. It points toward what people understand culturally and can read as something recognizable, not necessarily the masses or the market.

And that is often crossed by elements of nostalgia, by ideas about how we perceive the future might become, and also by a present that, although sometimes ambiguous, we can decipher through certain elements of pop culture, that is, mass culture.

However, you have to know how to read those products. For example, I might use an element like an Olmec head, which you would think of as a pre-Hispanic object belonging to the past. But at the same time, its popularity and its ability to be recognized as something that is still relevant in the present, and that continues to affect us in many ways, turn it into an iconic object that also belongs to the world of pop culture.

So when I take that element, I’m not doing it without thinking. I know it’s going to work.

Mexico has a long tradition of artists who address national identity through visual language. Do you consider your work part of that tradition, resistant to it, or a rewriting of it?

CM: Personally, I want to rewrite it.

The construction of a Mexican identity comes from the post-Revolutionary period. There was a process of modernization in the country where Mexican identity, the pre-Hispanic and the modern, came together and became complicit in constructing an idea of what it meant to be Mexican.

Diego Rivera is fundamental to understanding that construction, along with many others. However, we can’t remain stuck in that place because nationalism also has its problems. It doesn’t tend to look toward the future, and it can become too populist and too deeply rooted in the past.

What we also seek in art is to break through and transcend, to generate new narratives.

Many of your pieces feel simultaneously playful and confrontational. What role do you think discomfort plays in generating awareness in the viewer?

CM: My pieces are composed through three fundamental lines. They can have more, but there are three elements that I demand from the work.

One of them is the material they are constructed from, which is not insignificant. I work with materials such as wood, stone, and textiles. That material has to have a meaning and a reason for existing in relation to the second line, which is the subject matter.

The subjects speak about the present. They speak about the problems that are happening to us and affecting us now, things that alter our reality. I’m not interested in talking about things that have already happened or things that haven’t happened yet. I’m interested in what is happening at this moment and what, in some way, changes how we understand the world.

Obviously, there has to be a critical distance, so I’m not simply jumping onto a subject because it happens to be fashionable. I want to ask whether that subject is actually worth addressing, because subjects also age. If you don’t choose the subject carefully, the work can age very badly.

And the third line, which is more directly related to your question, is that the piece has to have a sense of humor. It has to be satirical. It has to have something that is a very Mexican, at least Latin American, trait: turning tragedy into a kind of powerful passage through life.

There’s a phrase in Mexico that summarizes it very well: “The best jokes are told at wakes.”

What that means is that, in moments of tragedy, ambiguity, and difficulty, humor has the capacity to move us forward. Laughter, the jiribilla, that playful, mischievous spirit, helps us get through things.

It also helps the viewer connect with the work. They laugh, they feel empathy, and that is something that interests me tremendously.

These three elements come together to form the piece and create a connection with the viewer that otherwise might not be possible. The piece begins to speak to the viewer in a language they understand, and that connection is incredibly important today if the work is going to remain relevant and age well within the present.

Your practice moves fluidly between painting, sculpture, and installation. How does the medium change the message? Or does the idea always come before the form?

CM: Sometimes the idea comes first, and sometimes it arrives accompanied by the form. Sometimes it comes accompanied by the material.

As an example, sometimes I have an idea because something is happening in the country. Right now, it seems to me that we’re seeing a very radical change throughout Latin America, where the military presence in our countries is becoming increasingly strong, even in North America. That increasing military presence is a problem.

So what is the element I might want to work with? Maybe a pattern associated with the military, specifically to talk about that. I might say, okay, this pattern is going to help me talk about this. Now, how do I bring it into a Mexican context?

Maybe I would like to make tortillas with a military pattern in order to talk about how militarization is reaching into the deepest layers of our everyday lives. What I’m describing is just a random idea. It might become a piece tomorrow. But that’s how I solve things. The idea has to be supported by the materials.

But I’m not an artist who says, “Well, I paint, so all my ideas have to be paintings.” No. I generate ideas. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t, and I look for the best solution. If the best solution is stone, we make it in stone. But if I want to make it in stone and my budget only allows me to make it in wood or concrete, then I have to weigh that as well.

If I make a piece in stone simply out of a whim and that stone ends up weighing three tons, I’ve created a lot of problems for myself. It also becomes difficult to travel with that piece or move it somewhere else. So the negotiation between the material and the subject also involves a kind of logistics, making sure the work is functional and that I can eventually send pieces abroad or move them locally without having to create an entire logistical operation just to move a three-ton sculpture.

Sometimes other materials, like 3D printing, provide more appropriate solutions. In the end, you can give the piece a finish that achieves exactly what you’re looking for. But ultimately, the material always has to help communicate the message you’re trying to convey.

In an era saturated with images, what makes an image worthy of being repeated or recontextualized today?

CM: The public.

What will really make something endure over time, allowing it to be revisited and recontextualized, is the public. People themselves are the ones who will treasure an image and make it transcendental, iconic, and part of pop culture.

No matter how much an artist decides that they’re going to produce an iconic image, that is ultimately beyond their control and beyond their possibilities.

Obviously, they can manipulate the forms, the colors, and do a little to encourage that to happen. But in reality, if the work doesn’t connect with the public, it’s very difficult for it to transcend its own time.

There is a tension in your work between the authentic and the simulated. Are you interested in revealing that illusion, or in constructing new realities?

CM: No. Precisely by constructing new realities, you have to erase all kinds of illusions.

Americans have this phrase, “Print the legend,” right? You have to generate an aura around the work in order to communicate a message with greater impact.

The same thing happens with political discourse, with a political speech. There is an aura around the person transmitting the message.

The musician is the same. When a musician is onstage, they communicate a particular way of being, behaving, and dressing that is very different from when they’re at home making breakfast in the morning.

There is an aura that you have to create and ultimately transfer to the work so that the work has that kind of power and becomes a phenomenon—something that people want to stop and look at, something that feels important.

How does living and working in Mexico City influence your visual vocabulary, and how does that vocabulary engage with global conversations in contemporary art?

CM: I think living in Mexico is fundamental to so much of what I do. For example, some of the pieces I’ve made come directly from living in the city, but from experiencing it through something like a bicycle. I ride my bike every day. The bicycle is fundamental to how I get around, how I discover the city, how I move through it, and how I experience it. So I’ve used the bicycle to create some of my pieces.

It wouldn’t be the same if I were somewhere else.

And then there’s the character of the city, this combination of joy, madness, and exhilaration that few cities have.

I’m not saying it’s unique, of course. New York, for example, and Los Angeles can have similar energy, and certain neighborhoods definitely have those kinds of vibes. But Mexico City can be many different cities within Mexico. It’s not the same if your studio is in Coyoacán, in the Centro, or here in San Rafael. Each place has its own qualities.

Mexico has that diversity. And if you add to that the fact that, when you suddenly need a material, you can go downtown and find almost anything you need, it becomes an incredible place to work. Then you encounter elements of Mexican popular culture in the neighborhoods. You don’t have to go very far or very deep to find things that are completely inspiring.

I don’t know, just for any creative person, it’s incredible.

That’s why people are coming to Mexico City from everywhere. Foreign creatives arrive and say, “What is this place?” It’s a place where creatives want to develop themselves because there is constantly so much information around you.

The aesthetics of consumption appear frequently in your work. How do you approach consumption in your practice? Is it a subject, a material, a language, a code?

CM: If we think about consumption as a byproduct of capitalism, then everything is affected by it. Our world is shaped by consumption and capitalism. I think all the time I’m ordering or buying tools or some kind of product, and many of them are delivered directly to the studio. Consumption has shaped our present, the way we inhabit the world, and the way we relate to one another.

We’ve even learned to relate to consumption through our own relationships, with our partners, with our families. Sometimes we send someone a message and say, “Can I call you?” as if the other person were an agent or a colleague from an office or workplace. It’s as if every aspect of life has become crossed by these overly formal structures that originally belonged to professional or consumer relationships.

And then there’s the idea that, today, your ability to consume, to buy things, is somehow connected to how important you can be to society. Those who cannot consume end up being pushed aside or isolated. So, for me, it’s a subject that is always present for some reason. A lot of what I do can sometimes be a critique of capitalism, but not because I hate capitalism. I belong to it. I live within it. I’m completely shaped by that world. It’s the economic system that we live with.

But I also think that, in order to have a full, critical, and creative life, you need to have an awareness, an awareness of class. You need to know where you come from, where you stand, who you are within that pyramid. Where do you stand as a creative person? You have to understand that so you don’t become someone who thinks they’re middle class when, in reality, they’re a worker.

Personally, I consider myself a worker in terms of art. I’m always working with materials. I’m always making things that belong to a class that, in a sense, doesn’t dominate. I’m still a producer.

Your pieces often feel immediately recognizable, yet conceptually remain open-ended. How important is ambiguity to maintaining the longevity of the work?

CM: To maintain the longevity of a work, you have to keep your eyes very open, because the characteristic you’re describing is extremely important. It determines how long a piece can sustain itself over time. One year, five years, a decade, five decades, a century.

That’s incredibly important because cultural products can often expire very quickly. They’re trying to survive rapidly within a market, generate as much income as possible, and then it doesn’t matter because we simply move on to the next trend.

What interests me is constructing pieces that can sustain themselves for much longer.

So there are subjects I address where I know those issues will still be problems in the future, because they are problems in the present and were probably problems in the past.

One example is the delivery backpack.

When I made that piece, I was thinking about how, 400 years ago, tamemes were precarious workers who had to carry products on their backs. There was no transportation or pack animals, so these people were used to transport whatever goods were needed over great distances.

That isn’t very different from delivery work today.

And, most likely, 20 years from now, we’ll still see precarious workers doing jobs that put them under pressure, jobs that affect their physical lives, their economic lives, and that force them to continue doing similar, or perhaps identical, work. Technology and the current economy haven’t solved certain problems. Art can use that fact to address them.

That’s what allows certain subjects to continue functioning over time and allows the work to age well. It’s not easy, and not all of my work will age well. There are many pieces that will probably end up in the trash. But there are a couple of pieces where I already feel like I’m seeing them function very well over time.

What responsibility, if any, do you think an artist has when working with images that the public associates with power, commerce, or ideology?

CM: An artist has to be very careful in that sense because power has many tentacles today. When we talk about power, we’re talking about the classes that control the economy and the media, people who remain there generation after generation through relationships of power.

What is the function of power?
To remain in power.

So the artist has to be very careful that their work doesn’t end up becoming political propaganda. I make work that is critical, but if a political party came to me and said, “Hey, we’ll pay you this amount of money to help us create an image for a campaign,” I would say, “No, thank you.”

Because those things would almost certainly end badly. You would be working to create an image that helps manipulate people or benefits a sector that already holds power. I think art has to remain outside of that. But that’s something I believe, and it doesn’t necessarily work for everyone.

In Mexico, we have examples of art that served political groups for many years, PRI governments at the time. You can find monumental geometric sculptures, often full of color, throughout public spaces that don’t necessarily make much sense there.

If you scratch beneath the surface a little, sometimes all you find are ways of laundering money or consuming public budgets under the guise of an artistic concern. So for me, it’s very important to be clear about that and to know who I work for. The person I work for is me.

I’m not a perfect person. I make mistakes.

Though I try to be as ethical and as coherent as possible with what I believe.

My way of understanding and reading the world is also based on the idea that art is a place where people can transcend themselves from another perspective. In that sense, I’m a little romantic. I do believe that art is still a small place where we can find resistance to things that can be incredibly dramatic and powerful, such as political propaganda, or propaganda in general.

It can even exist in something like a film. You can go to the theater innocently to watch Top Gun, but what you’re actually watching is a film containing military propaganda promoted through Hollywood, presenting a global enemy and ultimately helping justify a war.

I think that is a real danger.

Do you consider a work finished once the idea is completely articulated, or do you prefer to leave questions open?

CM: Art is never finished because, ultimately, the reading of a work belongs to the public, not to a curator, not to a museum director. It belongs to an audience that understands it, accepts it, rejects it, but gives it a reading within its own moment. Then that same piece can be read completely differently ten years later by a different audience.

Audiences are generational.

Maybe I make art to speak with my own generation, with artists and friends who are in their thirties, forties, or fifties. But I’m also getting older, and suddenly I love that artists in their twenties are beginning to approach me, asking about my work and offering their interpretations.

And I think, of course, that’s incredible.

My work can now speak to another generation, one that I might sometimes have difficulty speaking with directly. If that can happen over the course of 50 years, then in another 50 years a generation that hasn’t even been born yet will be able to look at these objects from a completely different perspective.

Just as I walk down the street and encounter public art from the 1970s, and it bothers me because I can’t connect with it, we’ll see what happens with all the art being produced today, this very “2000s” art that has also had such a strong commercial orientation and has been influenced by and shaped by neoliberalism.

How will that art be read 30 years from now?

Maybe future generations will say...

“This artist was terrible because they sold out and only cared about the market.”

or

“This artist was just a cliché of everything related to the pre-Hispanic world. All they did was over-aestheticize what they had already seen in the past in order to serve a market.”

All of that is going to happen constantly. I think that reading will become much harsher once there is enough temporal distance for people to confront this work from another place.

We already have generations that were born into the world of the Internet. Imagine the generations that will be born into a world where AI has already gone through its development and has become institutionalized.

It’s crazy to think about how this art will survive over time and how it will ultimately be read.

Looking forward, what questions are you trying to answer through your work rather than through your words?

CM: I think that’s a concern shared by every artist who tries to speak about their own present.

We are shaped by a present that can sometimes overwhelm us. It can seem incomprehensible. We don’t know where we’re going. And now we’re adding a historical moment in which the information we used to understand as real isn’t necessarily real anymore.

We have fake news, denialism, and suddenly everything feels incredibly confusing. If you add to that the enormous economic uncertainty and insecurity about what is going to happen to us in the future, we become increasingly hungry for the present.

So, within all of this ambiguity, what’s happening is that many artists and creatives across different fields are looking backward with an enormous amount of nostalgia.

And I think that can also be dangerous.

There are certainly interesting elements in the past that can help us confront this moment. But becoming too deeply immersed in the past and overexploiting nostalgia also means moving backward. It doesn’t allow you to move forward.

As difficult as the present may be, we have to embrace it and say, “Okay, this is what we have. This is the struggle. This is who we are.”

Because in the future, when the people who grow up or are born now look back and ask, “What was happening in Mexico in the 2020s? What was happening in Mexico in the 2030s? What were people doing with art?”

If everything was simply a revival of the pre-Hispanic past, they might ask, “What happened? Were they stuck in a past that was more than 500 years old?”

And that’s an important question.

Because in 50 years, when people look back at the 2020s and ask what was happening in Mexico, or in the world, they’ll also recognize this as the decade when artificial intelligence emerged as a global phenomenon and when there was a geopolitical reorganization taking place.

That may be what is happening during this decade. But because we’re living in a constant present, we can’t necessarily recognize it yet. We need that critical distance to understand what is actually happening.

But it’s important to know that we, as creatives, are part of what will eventually be read as the art of this moment. Whether it’s good or bad, we are this present.

We are part of the history that people will eventually look back on and say, “This is what was being made. These were the publications. This was what the people they were interviewing were thinking. This is how these artists were thinking.”

And that is not insignificant to me.

When I’m working, I am thinking about wanting to speak about this moment, no matter how chaotic it may be.

After the viral momentum surrounding your Tesla piece, all eyes were suddenly on you. How did you navigate that moment of attention while maintaining the momentum?

CM: It wasn’t easy because, in the art world, we’re not necessarily accustomed to that kind of attention. Maybe in music, when someone suddenly becomes very popular, or in acting, people are more accustomed to it. But in art, artists who become media figures aren’t usually appearing across that many outlets.

It was very strange.

Even the piece I made that went viral, the Tesla crushing the car, was such an unusual phenomenon, especially for Mexico. For this object, this piece, to suddenly appear within a single week in media outlets all over the world, in Mexico, but also Japan, India, Australia, literally everywhere, and for it to be by an unknown artist, was incredibly strange.

It means that the work has something. The piece is actually still circulating out there. People are still using it, photographing it, and writing about it. It’s still very present.

Not at the same level as when it first went viral, but it’s still there. People continue to write about it and cite it. That’s why I think it will remain present for a while longer. But what I mean is that it was a phenomenon because this doesn’t usually happen to people like me.

It happens when someone like Banksy does something. Or when Cattelan does something at an art fair and it becomes extremely media-driven and turns into a news story. But that doesn’t usually happen to a mid-career Mexican artist because the media doesn’t tend to look in this direction.

So the fact that it happened is wonderful.

It creates a precedent—that these kinds of things can happen in Mexico too. And that’s incredible. I feel very grateful for it because it was the public that put the piece in that position. And for me, understanding that was important. Of course. We make art for the public.

At another point in my education, I thought about art in a very different way. Sometimes naively, but that’s also part of the learning process. I thought you made art for curators, gallery directors, or museums.

Now I understand it differently.

You make art for your peers and for the public. And they’re the ones who push you forward and carry you toward whatever comes next.

Everything else follows.

Speaking of your peers, your work is built through many different trades and techniques, many of which you’ve learned yourself and now practice with members of your own workshop. What does this collectivity of trades mean to you in the process of making?

CM: Both the trades, the techniques, and the ideas become collective, at least within the workshop. When I have an idea, I go to the people who work with me and tell them about it.

Sometimes they’ll say:

“No, I don’t think that works. It’s terrible,”

or

“You know what? That would be really cool, but maybe it should be done in this material or with this technique.”

They add something. They bring in some of their own humor. Then I’ll share the idea with other friends, some of whom aren’t artists, and they give me another perspective. So ideas, when I have them, are rarely monolithic. I like them to be touched by other people, to receive feedback and then come back to me, sometimes completely transformed. Technically, the same thing happens.

I learned carpentry and metalwork because I needed to solve problems and make things. I know the trades. I have the hand for them. I know masonry. What we do in this workshop is disrespect all of those techniques a little bit.

We’re not interested in making the perfect wooden joint, for example. We’re more interested in making sure the idea is properly resolved through the materials. It isn’t the perfection of the material that I’m looking for. It’s another kind of human relationship. If we need to introduce steel, or another element, or something unexpected to make the piece work, we do it. We disrespect the ideas. We disrespect the techniques.

We become transgressive and playful in our craft so that we can break out of the box and actually enjoy what we’re doing. Without constantly feeling restricted. If you work with wood, it has to be done this way. If you work with leather, it has to be done this way.

No...

We have an enormous amount of freedom in what we do, and that allows us to continually take the work to the next level.