Tlacolulokos The Murals of Jalatlaco Part III

 

Part III.

The Collective at work.

It might be assumed that a group of artists working together would have an endless series of artistic disagreements, that they might be in constant contention. This need not be the case. There are a great many artists trained in the academic or other styles and who have mastered those styles but who have never developed an individual penmanship, a style of their own. Some of those artists make a living painting copies of masterpieces: Matisse made a living his first ten years as an artist doing copies of paintings in Le Louvre. Many successful artists with an abundance of commissions hire those artists as studio assistants. Michelangelo always had at least 5 or 6 men banging away at blocks of marble, as did Rodin. Many classical paintings are labeled...From the Studio of...meaning an assistant likely did the work. Many modern artists have had studio assistants and in the 80’s there was a buzz in the art world asking if perhaps the works of any one of those successful names should not rather be labeled as being from a collective.

There are many artists who work in close proximity and learn from one another...think of the Impressionists, the Black Mountain School or the Bau Haus...Provincetown ...the Ash Can school… Here in Oaxaca we have The Spray Kings.

Probably the most famous team of artists was Picasso and Braque. When they discovered that each was exploring the work of Cezanne and his legacy to them, they agreed to work together and, both having had an academic training, they made works with an academic-like criterion with which each turned out works so alike, Cubism, that most viewers cannot tell which of the two artists did the individual works.

My experience observing the Tlacolulokos Collective in action is that here is a group working in harmony. Watching them over a three day period I became aware of their respect for one another, their love for their work, and their great pleasure in being able to paint, to have the opportunity to be creative… especially in this hard hit pandemic economy.

Here in Part III we see them each working out a part of the design, alone, working side by side, or on two different levels of the one motif simultaneously.