PASE UD. HASTA NUESTROS DÍAS

Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City, 2023

Pase Ud. Hasta Nuestros Días takes as its starting point the Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art exhibition presented in 1940 at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, originally planned to be held in Paris but thwarted by the risks of transporting the artworks to France due to World War II. Mejía questions the historical narrative proposed by the Mexican government between the wars about the linear evolution of national art, starting with pre-Hispanic art, continuing with colonial art, folk art, and ending with modern art.

In an archival review exercise, the artist traces press releases and critical texts from the period to analyze the development of the Twenty Centuries... exhibition and imagine unofficial moments that might have occurred during the transportation of the pieces and their placement in the museum's display cases and pedestals. Thus, the artist proposes alternative stories to the official history through frescoes and drawings displayed in the gallery.

Mejía also revisits the criticism surrounding the exhibition in New York through three frescoes that address comments by art historian and writer Manuel Toussaint on the excessive number of pre-Hispanic pieces transported to New York and ultimately stored away, as well as his dissatisfaction with the absence of a 16th-century convent fresco in the show. Mejía’s use of frescoes directly questions the application of this pictorial technique in pre-Hispanic times, the colonial period, and early 20th-century Mexico.