Woodcut Prints from the Talleres of ASARO

Woodcut Prints from the Talleres of
ASAROAsamblea de Artista Revolucionarios de Oaxaca
Libros Latinos
2141 Mission St., Suite 301
San Francisco, CA 94110
www.libroslatinos.com
books@libroslatinos.com
415.503.1800
About ASARO
The workshop for ASARO, Espacio Zapata:
¿QUÉ ES ESPACIO ZAPATA?
Pensamos que todos tenemos el derecho de expresar a través de las diversas manifestaciones artísticas la denuncia de lo inhumano de estes sistema capitalista....
El arte es un potente medio de expresión y pensamos que todos deben de tener la opotunidad de desarrollar su
capacidad creativa. Sea que uno piense en cerámica, teatro, figuras de madera, cocina, pintura o música, se ha
demostrado a través de los siglos en las diversas obras históricas, en Oaxaca del 2006 se vivieron de los hechos
más importantes en la historia contemporánea de México, una colvulsión social que renovó la capacidad creativa y fue “en las calles”, sin olvidar la participación de otros sectores en pintas, grabados y carteles, en canciones de protesta, en monigotes y hasta en figuras de rábanos para mostrar el rostro del pueblo oprimido por
la dictadura burguesa. Ahí nace la Asamblea de Artista Revolucionarios de Oaxaca, o ASARO, que a dos años
de haberse creado, ahora impulsa el Espacio Zapata. Aunque vemos que la calle continua teniendo este papel,
Espacio Zapata surge a partir de varias necesidades, y una problemática que es la “no visibilización” de las
expresiones artísticas que “atentan contra la cultura dominante”, donde la mayoría de los artistas creadores se
subordinan al capital (produciendo arte como mercancía), donde el intelectual bajo su ropaje de creador “libre”
e “individual” sepulta la crítica ante los hechos sociales (¿el por qué de la pobreza, de la explotación, la criminalización de la lucha social, la violación de los derechos humanos, etc, incluso llegando al cinismo de justificar
los hehcho?).
Oaxaca Now
by thea liberty nichols
Oaxaca Now: Young Radical Printmakers
Marwen
833 N. Orleans, Chicago, IL 60610
April 9, 2010 - May 17, 2010
Snaking around Marwen’s glittering glass and steel second floor gallery hangs a staggering array of visceral
black and white woodblock prints on paper created by Asamblea de Artistas Revolucionarios de Oaxaca (Assembly of Revolutionary Artists of Oaxaca).
Best known by their Spanish-language acronym ASARO, the amorphous collective of artists was forged in the
crucible of social and political unrest of Oaxaca, the biggest and one of the poorest, cities of the eponymous
state, located in the south of Mexico, at the foothills of the Sierra Madre’s southern end.
In May 2006, the massive annual teachers’ strike held in Oaxaca City’s zocalo, or central plaza, was met with
unprecedented aggression and arrests. In June, an ad hoc coalition of over 300 hundred organizations joined
forces with the striking teachers, calling themselves the Asamblea Popular del Pueblo de Oaxaca (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca) or APPO. United, they demanded the resignation of Governor Ulisis Ruiz,
who responded by sending a one thousand-strong force of police officers to break up protestors. Months passed,
and the conflict escalated from its previously largely symbolic show, to a violent and deadly clash that left 18
people dead.
Wednesday November 1, 2006, Noon, Corner of Reforma y Independencia. Photograph courtesy Hank Tusinski.
Oaxaca Now: Young Radical Printmakers, Marwen’s version of this relatively well traveled grouping of works
(having hung in various iterations at Front Gallery in Oakland, California, Common Wealth Gallery in Madison,
Wisconsin, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania and Espacio Zapata in Oaxaca) opens with an equally
moving photograph of the handful of artists who would come to form ASARO constructing their first collective
work, a tapete, or sand painting, at the steel-toed boot tips of the aforementioned police officers, seen above.
A customary Day of the Dead memorial tradition, this particular tapete, made from sand and marigold petals,
featured a portrait of Governor Ruiz in black (being stenciled by the person in red in the photograph) with the
word asescino (murderer) below it.
ASARO’s overwhelming industriousness has resulted in scores of prints over their four year existence, many of
which have also appropriated and re-imaged other customary or popular Mexican graphic iconography, such as
the silk screened APPO lottery cards, seen at left.
The silk screens however, are somewhat of an outlier; ASARO chiefly prints using woodblocks cut from cheap
three-ply sub-flooring. Sometimes cut using wood cutting printers tools, and sometimes with exacto knives and
razor blades, the images are printed on inexpensive chalk white blotter paper, with the resulting images pressed
in a bold black contrast that emphasizes the gouges, grooves and grain of the woodblocks themselves. Most
prints are pulled from an antiquated steel roller printing press, but some smaller images impressions are pulled
from hand-burnished blocks.
ASARO’s strong collective spirit manifests itself in the unsigned, unattributed works in the show. The anonymity of the artists is also a necessity; before they graced the walls of galleries these underground guerrilla works
were being wheat pasted to the walls and buildings of occupied Oaxaca. In their present elegant and ordered locale on Marwen’s walls, ASARO’s prints also still remain largely untitled. They have become alienated through
their elevation to high art from their stickered and spray paint-stenciled siblings, images of which can be found
online, such as the agitprop portrait of 1910 Mexican Revolution hero Emiliano Zapata as a Mohawked, pierced
ear punk.
Just as Governor Ruiz is literally demonized, historical icons, such as Zapata and Benito Juárez, are idolized
Conventional subject matter, such as calavera, or skulls, appear in a whole host of ASARO prints on view, in
part influenced by the work of another famous Mexican printmaker, José Guadalupe Posada. The symbolically
charged image of corn also crops up in many works on view, such as the spectacularly concise No Pais Sin
Maiz, or No Country Without Corn, seen below. The simple slogan, dramatic and varied mark making, and bold
larger then life imagery drives the pointed rallying cry home with firm sincerity.
Some junior members of the collective, under the tutelage of more advanced and skilled printers, employ
equally emblematic calls to arms. This was demonstrated by the well-designed composition of La Tierra Es De
Quien La Trabaja OPPA (The earth belongs to those who work it), despite disfiguring amateur oversights like
the reverse type of APPO at the bottom, a result of neglecting to account for the mirror image created by the
printing process.
The full range of ASARO’s creative process on view reveals the development of their artistic achievements and
is well suited to the educational environment that Marwen contextualizes the exhibition within.
As their individual and institutional collectors grow in number (The Fowler Museum and the Center for the
Study of Political Graphics, both in Los Angeles, along with the Voices and Choices Gallery at Kutztown
University’s Rohrbach library have folios of their prints in their permanent collections) ASARO’s international
reputation also grows. How their move from city plaza to white cube impacts their practice is still unfolding,
but their commitment to an accessible, activist art is built into their very mission statement, which mandates that
change is necessary and that artists should feel compelled to contribute to that change using the tools of their
trade.
-Thea Liberty Nichols
The press in Espacio Zapata
Las Protestas de 2006
Sea que uno piense en cerámica,
teatro, figuras de madera, cocina,
pintura o música, se ha demostrado
a través de los siglos en las diversas
obras históricas,
Protestas 1
en Oaxaca del 2006 se
vivieron de los hechos
más importantes en la
historia contemporánea
de México, una colvulsión social que renovó la
capacidad creativa y fue
“en las calles”
Protestas 2
sin olvidar la participación de
otros sectores en pintas, grabados y carteles, en canciones de
protesta, en monigotes y hasta en
figuras de rábanos para mostrar
el rostro del pueblo oprimido por
la dictadura burguesa.
Protestas 3
Protestas 4
Protestas 5
Protestas 6
Protestas 7
Protestas 8
Protestas 9
Protestas 10
Protestas 11
Protestas 12
Protestas 13
Protestas 14
Protestas 15
Protestas 16
“We seek to initiate an artistic movement where the
final goal is direct contact with people in the streets
and in public spaces.”
–This quote and those to follow from Bilingual Interview with ASARO:
Revolutionary Artists From Oaxaca by HIMC Radio Collective Saturday, Jun.
07, 2008
Presos Políticos
Presos 1
Confronted with the irrationality of government and its oppresive forms of sustaining itself in power, ASARO looks to create
images that synthesize the critical force that is born in the periphery, in the barrios, the pueblos, and in youth.
Presos 2
Presos 3
Presos 3
Presos 4
Presos 5
Maíz Trangénico
Maíz 1
Maíz 2
Maíz 3
Maíz 4
Maíz 5
Maíz 6
Maíz 7
Maíz 8
Maíz 9
“ASARO manifests itself in favor of inclusion and of the fight to generate new rules of social participation and a profound change in the conscience of Oaxacans. We are an artistic movement and a movement for
the remaking of the rules of the political game.”
Maíz 10
Maíz 11
Maíz 12
Maíz 13
Zapata
Zapata 1
Zapata 2
Zapata 3
Zapata 4 (/Protestas 17)
Zapata 5
Zapata 6
Zapata 7
Petróleo
Petroleo 1
Petroleo 2
Petroleo 3
Petroleo 4
Petroleo.5
Petroleo 6
Petroleo 7
Las muertas de Juárez
Muertas 1
Muertas 2
Muertas 3
Muertas 4
Muertas 5
Muertas 6
Muertas 7
Muertas 8
Muertas 9
Muertas 10
“ASARO seeks to create consciousness and to generate
ideas which help to consolidate a contemporary ideology,
one which has as its core humanistic values, in order to
break the schemes imposed by the system and to generate a society free of alienation and a revolutionary art”
Muertas 11
Muertas 12
Muertas 13
Migración
This latest series from ASARO was released in February 2011.
Migración 2
Migración 3
Migración 4
“We believe that public art (in all its diverse artistic disciplines) is a form
of communication that allows a dialogue with all sectors of society and
which makes possible the visualization of the real conditions of
existence—the norms and contradictions of the society which we all inhabit.”
Migración 5
Migración 6
Migración 7
Migración 8
Migración 9
Migración 10
Migración 11
Migración 12
Migración 13
Migración 14
Migración 15
Migración 16
Migración 1
Two-tone Fighter
Two-tone Hammer
Mexican Roots
Cultura Afro-Mexicana
Afro 1
*Other prints related to Afro-Mexican Culture available
Afro 2
Afro 3
Afro 4
Afro 5
Afro 6
APPO 1
Benito Juarez
Calavera Helicoptero
La Huelga
*Two large posters
Assorted Posters*
*From events, openings, galleries, etc.
Pricing:
Full Libros Latinos Collection: $4,500
The collection in SF includes all of the sets, including the Temas Mixtos, with the exception of Migración of which Migración 1 and 12 are included.
(63 pints are: 14 lg. white, 5 sm. white, 19 lg. grey, 22 sm. grey and 3 lg two-tone)
Paper:
Prints may be delivered on a white art paper or a medium weight grey rag paper. The librarians who we have
shown the paper to so far have strongly favored the white paper for its durability and greater contrast for exhibit
and copying.
Individual Prints:
Large White Prints: $175 ea.
Medium White Prints $140 ea.
Small White Prints: $100 ea.
Large Grey Prints: $75
Small Grey Prints: $50
Large Two-Tone Prints (Afro 1, Zapata 2, Benito Juarez 1): $200
Medium Two-Tone Prints (Migración 15): $150
Small Two-Tone prints (Fighter/Hammer): $100
La Huelga (2 Lg. Prints): $350
Posters: $50 ea. (Assorted)
Collections (White/Grey):
Migración:
$1500/$750 (16 Prints)
Muertas:
$1850/$975 (13 Prints)
Maíz:
$1850/$975 (13 Prints)
Protesas:
$2,050/$1,025 (16 Prints)
Petróleo:
$950/$475 (7 Prints)
Presos:
$550/$275 (5 Prints)
Zapata:
$575/$275 (5 Prints)
There are more afro-mexican culture prints available. If interested please contact us.
Discounts:
Order 5-10 Prints, 10% Discount
11+ Prints, 20% Discount
Sizing:
The large size is approx: 39x29 in. though many of the “small” prints are printed on the full size paper. Small