e-flux Criticism // Hacer Noche 2: Promised Land
Hacer Noche—an independent biennial directed by a former employee of the Mexican diplomatic service, Francisco Berzunza—aims to establish connections between Oaxaca and international contemporary art discourse. The first edition, in 2018, set a high bar. The second, titled “Promised Land” and curated across ten venues by Elvira Dyangani Ose, strives to set the history of global leftist activism in dialog with Mexican art history. Yet sparse curatorial framing, alongside a casual commitment to presenting works with basic information for the visitor, leave the overall throughline too vague to be persuasive.
The main exhibition, at Museo de Las Culturas de Oaxaca in the Santo Domingo convent, features two salons of works by eighteen artists on plywood displays. Among these are several coups in the form of institutional loans of works that would ordinarily be beyond the reach of Oaxaca’s local museums. Among them, paintings by Mexican artists Rufino Tamayo and David Alfaro Siqueiros classified as ‘artistic national monuments’ whose loans require federal approval by the National Institute of Fine Art (INBA) and from UAE based Barjeel Art Foundation including a painting by Dia Al-Azzawi who is considered a pioneer of modern Arab art. Significant care has gone into establishing a dialogue between celebrated and underknown artists. Curiously, however, little contextual information is provided to illuminate the curatorial thought behind the show, and many works are presented without even a wall text to identify the artist. Perhaps the organizers want to avoid appearing paternalistic. But there’s a difference between facilitating access and being overbearing.
Image: Art Labor and Gabby Miller, Hammock Café, 2022. Installation view at La Clínica, Oaxaca, 2022. Hammocks, steel, neon, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artists and Hacer Noche. Photo by Jalil Olmedo.
