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| Enrique Chagoya creates works of art that purposefully confuse fact with fiction & ancient with contemporary. He explains, “My artwork is a conceptual fusion of opposite cultural realities that I have experienced in my lifetime. I integrate diverse elements from pre-Columbian mythology, Western religious iconography, and American popular culture.” Chagoya draws upon the imagery used in pre-Columbian texts to create paintings, drawings, and prints that tell stories of cultural hybrids and universal consequences.
In Adventures of the Matrixial Cannibals, the artist appropriates the accordion-fold format of the Mesoamerican codex, one of the first forms used to record texts and images. Chagoya uses the folds in the amate, a bark paper, to make visual connections between imagery derived from different times and places. Like the codex that reverses the direction and pace of Western storytelling, moving from right to left, Chagoya upsets the methods of modernist artists who once used “primitive” imagery as the inspiration for their art. He records an alternate history of modern art by inserting Western cultural imagery—Mickey Mouse, the Virgin Mary, Superman—into a pre colonial format.  (For Grades 4-6) Take a close look at this piece. Do you see any images that you might recognize from television or comic books? Why do you think the artist chose to use images of Mickey Mouse and Superman in his artwork? Why do you think Chagoya presents this piece in one long horizontal line on the wall? Do you think you are supposed to look at this piece from left to right or right to left? Why? How is this artwork similar to reading a book? What story is being told? Is the story real, or did the artist make it up? |
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Enrique Chagoya United States, born in Mexico, 1953 Adventures of the Matrixial Cannibals Acrylic and water-based oil on amate paper, 2002 Museum purchase, International and Contemporary Collectors Funds 2003.10 © Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego |
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