Enrique Guzmán (1952-1986), a painter from Guadalajara, began his artistic career in Aguascalientes and later consolidated it in Mexico City in the 1970s. His work is characterized by a constant stylistic evolution, defying the norms of his time by distancing himself from the work of the ruptura [rupture] movement of the 1950s, which promoted abstraction and the end of historic muralism. Guzmán adopted an eclectic style that ranged from historical surrealism, influenced by René Magritte, to the national post-avant-garde, using unorthodox stylistic solutions. The influence of Magritte in his work is reflected in the use of shared methods, such as the juxtaposition of opposites, the ambiguity between the real image and its representation, and the alteration of order and scale. These elements create a visual universe that oscillates between the dreamlike and the absurd.

Anticipating the neo-Mexicanist movement of the 1980s, which revalued national culture and challenged notions of contemporary identity, Guzmán criticized the authoritarian impositions of Catholic culture and religion. The artist’s repressive past, stemming from the conservatism of his place of origin, the imposition of a predetermined life path, and the absence of a father figure, profoundly influenced the themes of his work. These experiences shaped his dissident perspective on the reality of his time. In this context, Guzmán emerges as a bridge between modernity and contemporaneity, articulating critical concerns that would be echoed in later decades.

This exhibition brings together thirteen representative works by Enrique Guzmán, ranging from his early surrealist experiments in the 1970s to his reflections on national identity in the 1980s. His output culminated in a period of intense autoethnography in the years leading up to his untimely death in 1986. Guzmán’s paintings are presented alongside a selection of twelve works by other artists, demonstrating the connections and resonances of his practice with the contemporary artistic landscape.

Enrique Guzmán’s work is more than an anticipation of the resignification of symbols; it addresses fundamental themes in contemporary narratives, from individual mythologies to unconventional political proposals. With a mixture of irony and representations that evoke absurdity and chaos, the artist challenges the hegemony of traditional symbols. As highlighted in Enrique Guzmán: Transformador y Víctima de su Tiempo, his paintings are in dialogue with the explorations presented at documenta 5 in 1972, which dealt with psychopathological art and personal narratives.

Guzmán’s work reflects a close relationship between his personal life and his mental health, expressed through a recurrent iconography that includes elements such as blades, the absent father figure, and other elements such as toilets or airplanes.

The structure of the exhibition space is organized around these thematic axes: the show begins with works that reinterpret hegemonic symbologies and explore unorthodox political solutions; it continues with works that address fragmentation and psychopathology; and it culminates with those that explore the artists’ individual mythologies. This curatorial proposal interweaves Guzmán’s works with contemporary works in a thematic and relational web, revealing connections that transcend conventional stylistic and chronological boundaries and underscoring the relevance of his artistic concerns in today’s landscape.

The relationship between Enrique Guzmán’s works and those of other artists in the collection is articulated as a thematic and formal dialogue that underscores the relevance of his artistic proposal. This exhibition testifies to his direct influence on figures such as Nahum B. Zenil, whose explorations of the oneiric and the redefinition of national identities are framed within the neo-Mexicanist precepts that Guzmán anticipated. Similarly, he draws significant parallels with contemporary works such as Francis Alÿs’s Untitled (Diptych), where the reinterpretation of identity through shared symbols and the strategic use of repetition resonates deeply with Guzmán’s thematic concerns.

Similarly, the autoethnographic mythologies that recur in the Mexican painter’s work find resonance in contemporary explorations of self-representation and the artist’s psyche, as in Monica Castillo’s Proyección y Corte Central. This dialogue between works transcends a simple line of historical influence and is enriched by fluid and complex connections that offer a dynamic perspective on the evolution and relevance of Enrique Guzmán in the contemporary artistic context.

The works that accompany Guzmán’s paintings include Georgina Quintana with Mundo con binoculares café(1989), Abraham Cruzvillegas with Autorretrato ciego leyendo ‘El molino de Hamlet’, escuchando cientos de veces ‘No tengo dinero’, después de tostar unos kilos de semillas de cacao para hacerme unos lingotes de chocolate que tengan grabada la leyenda ‘The construction of the universe is certainly much easier to explain than is that of a plant’, deseando echarme unos volados para ver quién paga los merengues, habiendo almorzado un dorado a las brasas, con tirípitis escaldados en el comal, acompañado por sus Colimitas bien muertas (2015), Roberto Turnbull with Escena ranchera (1985), Jonathan Hernández with Vulnerabilia (Visión) (2007), Francis Alÿs with Untitled (Diptych) (2000), Larry Clark with Sin título(1970), Katharina Fritsch with Betende Hände (praying hands) (2004), Nahúm B. Zenil with Mexican-Curios (1993), John Baldessari with Intersection Series: Woman and Switch (with Lamp) (2002), Mónica Castillo with Proyección y corte central (1999), Nahúm B. Zenil with Hay corazón (1992) and Marcel Dzama wit A gift from Winnipeg (2009).

• Curatorship: Irene Alonso Cabezas
• Artists: Enrique Guzmán, Georgina Quintana, Abraham Cruzvillejas, Jonathan Hernández, Francis Alÿs, Roberto Turnbull, Larry Clark, Katharine Fritsch, John Baldessari, Nahúm B. Zenil, Mónica Castillo.
• CIAC Office, 2025