Oaxaca's radical street artists won't be muzzled
A typically pointed work by Oaxaca artist Yescka “Oh that’s pretty. What a nice combination of colors.” That is Yescka, a prominent Oaxaca City graffiti artist, dismissing with a mirthless chuckle street art he considers divorced from the political and/or social context in which it’s made. It’s a judgment that neatly sums up the aesthetic stance of this increasingly visible state capital’s cadre of sprayers and stencilers and splatters, one that can be traced back – at least
Diamonds in the rough: Street art in Guadalajara
Work by artists Peque vrs and Pwoz Mac, calle Morelos and Roja Gonzalez In case you hadn’t heard, art imitates life, which is no less true for being a tired old cliche. Oaxaca City’s street art, for instance, so troublingly resembles reality that authorities regularly paint over political murals as part of “civic beautification.” Thus, a visitor to the colonial southern capital who knows something of her history of resistance and conflict might be surprised to see so much un