Marcos López
Carnaval criollo (Creole Carnival), Buenos Aires, 1996
Carnaval criollo (Creole Carnival), Buenos Aires, 1996 © Marcos López
I haven’t yet published the work of Latin American artists on Mira because of my own frustrations with the conflation between Latinx art and Latin American art. It is my own stubborn refusal, a means of making space for the art of the Latinx diaspora. The more I look at images, however, and understand what I am searching for, the more I identify a connection to work with a particular class or historical consciousness.
Marcos López is an artist born and raised in Argentina. His style of work is best known as “Latino Pop” it reminds me of Pedro Almodóvar’s 1988 comedy-drama “Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de ‘Nervios.’” Like Almodóvar’s film and telenovelas, López’s work borders on the delirious.
I first came across López’s work at my College’s art library. It was the first time that I had ever seen a reimagining of the Last Supper (of which, of course, there are many iterations). But still, it being my first time seeing it through the lens of a “Latino BBQ” replete with carne asada and pop soda was interesting. I was most struck by how López could draw out the religious and conservative synergisms in Latin American and Latinx culture in bright, and at times, disorienting ways.
If you’re familiar with Stefan Ruiz’s work in The Factory of Dreams, where he photographs the sets and actors of popular telenovelas to reveal how race and class are constructed, played out, and reinforced in Latin American soap operas, Marcos López catapults from that stage into a fever dream.
I think López’s work is worth examining, and I quite enjoy all of the heightened references to the elements, for better or for worse, that shape Latinx culture. There’s no room to escape it in his work, so you have no choice but to confront it.
Read this interview on Marcos López’s Creole sub-realism series.
I love these connections, wow ❤️