“MOS Mexico: The most important graffiti event in the
Americas” the Meeting of Styles Mexico website boldly states. Perhaps there is
some truth to the statement insofar as the event attracts participants from
across the globe, with representation from Western and Northern Europe, North
America, Central America, and South America. But important for whom? The
artists? Graffiti communities? Street art communities? The sponsors? The
residents of the cities in which the events are held? The answers to these
questions vary depending on the iteration of the festival and the claim about
importance offers a clue to the shifting coordinates of the event since its
founding in Mexico in the early 2000s: the organizers of this series of events
are deliberately and carefully building a framework for festival production
that straddles multiple spheres: the touristic, the community driven, the
urban, the peri-urban, proximate to institutions of state power and at a distance.
Inhabiting multiple and seemingly conflicting realms is something that graffiti
is uniquely situated to accomplish,
Kraidy has argued, claiming that graffiti’s
function is heterotopic, always a little apart from but also deeply reflective
of dominant cultural tendencies.
In this piece I reflect on my experience at MOS Mexico in two of the three
sites: Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, Jalisco, and Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, to
map the various
topoi that the
festival travels, conceptually and materially.
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| MOS Playa del Carmen. Machine fish. October 22, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
As I’ve written in other posts, MOS Mexico changed
leadership in 2013, and also changed location from Ciudad Nezahualcoyótl,
Estado de México, to the Centro Historico, and also expanded from one annual
festival to three within the month of October. I discuss some of the tensions
and possibilities in this shift in my forthcoming book.
This year, the festival was sited in Tlajomulco de Zuñiga,
Jalisco; the Centro Histórico of Mexico City; and Playa del Carmen, Quintana
Roo. The movement from Tlajomulco to Playa del Carmen can be described as a
migration from the peri-urban to the deeply touristic, the local neighborhood
to the global Disneyland beach-side town crafted in an image so general and so
stylized that it leaves little room for surprise.
Tlajomulco de Zuñiga:
I traveled to Tlajomulco with Orion and Brote from León.
They, along with Bote, were representatives for León at MOS. To get there in
time to take the bus from Tlajomulco to the site we left León at about 2am,
taking a bus to Guadalajara, and then an uber through pouring rain to
Tlajomulco. The trip was surreal, and the men slept little, chatting about what
pieces they would paint, what colors they hoped to have, what MOS is like, and
so forth.
Tlajomulco is about thirty minutes outside of Guadalajara,
one of the “most graffitied” cities in Mexico. There were only two hotels in
the small city center, both called Plaza Hotel Tjaljomulco, though only one in
the plaza. The non-plaza version which was decorated in a vaguely Las
Vegas/1970s style sheen was completely full with the visiting writers. At about
10am everyone gathered in the hotel lobby, filling it to the brim, spilling out
into the streets where writers smoked cigarettes, greeted each other, ate
breakfast or simply sat quietly, some, perhaps, nursing exhaustion from the
travel or a hangover. We were waiting for a bus to take us to the paint site. I
heard mostly Spanish being spoken but also some French, and recognized a group
from previous trips to MOS France in Perpignan: Revs and Berns, from Paris, and
two crewmates from Toulouse. Berns has had an interesting trajectory: born in
Peru he located to New Zealand for a number of years, and now has been living
in Paris for five. He and Revs are energetic and often the group clowns,
cracking jokes, shuttling between French, Spanish, and English at lightening
speed. They tease me for my rusty and broken French, and we shift back into
Spanish to complete a greeting where I explain how I know of them and their
work. When the bus arrives the MOS staff wearing t-shirts and caps that say “X”
on the front and “Mixer” on the back, load posters, banners, and paint into the
belly of the bus.
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| Berns. ODV Crew. MOS Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, October 8, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
I end up sitting next to one of the organizing crew, X83
from Mexico City. He notes of the location that it is an attempt to
“decentralize the festival” since the subsequent iteration (in a week) will be
in the country’s capital. The last one, he notes, “will be in a touristic
site.” The decision to locate to Tlajomulco was not random: Mixer did an art intervention
with the government of Jalisco earlier and so had the ability to do a
presentation hwere they summarized what they had already done, and what they
planned to accomplish.
On the forty minute bus ride to the side I noticed that for
the size of the town there were a number of urban art interventions. Murals
decorated some of the larger buildings, and entryways to fraccionamientos had painted blocks or cartoon-like figures of
dolls, birds, etc.
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| MOS Tlajomulco de Zuñiga site. October 7, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| 360 Paint camper. October 7, 2017. MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
At about 11am we arrived. The site was a large boulevard
that started with a parklet on either side, triangles with some grass and a few
trees breaking up long concrete walls and pavement streets. Across the street
from where we descended from the bus was a large camping vehicle painted “360
Paint” in 3-d on one side, and a large monster on the other side. The walls of
the boulevard were primed blue for about a kilometer on either side with
numbered spaces. The MOS staff unloaded small duffel bags with the 360 logo
into a large pyramidal pile. They set up banners and standing posters with the
festival logo and sponsors on it, and at a folding table piled high with
sandwiches, apples, and jugs of horchata
four women stood behind and handed out breakfasts. We were encouraged to get in
line and grab food, and for about twenty minutes people ate, quietly chatting,
looking around the site. I noticed more familiar faces from the MOS 2011 and
2014 festival: Reak, one of the co-owners of 360 paint was there. He explained
that the factory had moved after a robbery (it used to be near Neza) and now
was in Queretaro. We reminisced about our first meeting where I hung out with
the 1810 mob (a crew that has members in Mexico and Los Angeles) and he told me
that he had been able to visit the guys in California, painting with Skul and
Arte.
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| Laying outlines. October 7, Tlajomulco de Zuñiga. MOS Mexico. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
As I sat alone drinking horchata and observing two kids approached
me. They looked to be about nine or ten. They had many questions, asking where
I was from, if I was an artist, if they could paint too. I tried to explain
that the artists were selected in advance, but that they probably could ask the
artists questions about how they paint, if they wished since it was a public
event. I asked them if they were from Tlajomulco, and what they liked the most
about their town. “The green spaces,” a stockier boy said. I would see them
again throughout the day, and the next, as they fearlessly walked around the
event, asking the artists for autographs and commentary.
By about 11:30 a crowd gathered around the main tent. Gerso,
the lead organizer was giving an opening address. After thanking the sponsors,
and introducing local contacts from the municipality of Tlajomulco, who offered
to provide advice and help, he said: “This is the opening event for MOS, and
this location is an important element of our goal to decentralize the festival.
We are in a residential neighborhood here, and so let us be very respectful to
these people, our neighbors. Now, listen up, I am going to announce each person
by your name. you will pick up your credential (artist’s badge), a t shirt, and
your paint kit. You will be assigned a number, and that corresponds to your
place on the wall.” He explained what range of numbers correspond to what part
of the wall. “There is a chavo who
cannot attend, and this would have been his first MOS. His father died. So, it
would be nice, if you wanted to put his name up. His name is EMES,. E-M-E-S.”
Gerso went through the roll call, “I will not repeat names, guys,” he warned.
The little kids I’d talked to earlier approached the table and asked for
tshirts. “No,” Gerso’s girlfriend seemed to say. They still stuck close.
I accompanied Brote and Orion to their spots, which were
close to each other. “This is plenty of space!” they noted approvingly. Little vertical slashes marked boundaries
between spots. There was little shade (maybe three of 90 or so spots had trees)
which meant that the sun was brutal, but that visibility was good of the pieces
from the street.
Bote was situated in the parklet, closer to shade, the
port-o-potties and the tents where meals were served and where the MOS staff
congregated. I had interviewed Bote years ago when I first went to León. His
style is still letter-based, simple, but very clean and balanced. He was
painting next to a guy from Morelia/Monterrey, Anes, who had more lyrical
letters, not quite wildstyle but not quite readable.
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| Anes painting. MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga. October 8, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
The range of mediums at the festival. In addition to more
traditional aerosol based works artists worked with brush and acrylic paint, as
well as stencils, and there was relative balance between those who did
image-based work, and those who focused on text. One man who wielded a
rudimentary stencil that included holes for eyes, mouth, and lots of little
holes punched to create the details of a face wrote 90Once4, and wore a t-shirt
reading “Galeria Arte Urbano Tlajomulco,” providing a clue into the history of
the site as one that has repeated hosted urban art events. This was one of many
indications about the spread of “arte urbano” and youth institute programming across the Mexican republic that I would
encounter throughout my travels in October. Two men working with large stencils
of women holding spraycans were from Queretaro and named Reybel and Himed. In
an interview they noted of their experience at Tlajomulco that it was unique
because of the number of kids who visited them and asked questions and for
autographs. Their final piece used the stencils to create two women back to
back arms outstretched with aerosol cans, and the arms are tripled, indicating
motion. In an interview Berns, too, noted how remarkable it was that such a
large number of youth came up and asked questions and for autographs. “Its
really cool that they want to learn more about graffiti,” he reflected.
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| 90Once4. Textures. October 8, 2017. MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| Chileno artist. October 8, 2017. MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| Los Calladitos. October 7-8, 2017. MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| Octopus by Pepe from Chile. October 8, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| Los Calladitos. October 7-8, 2017. MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| Snap from Monterrey. October 8, 2017. MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
Another team of street artists was Ari and Jorge, who
collectively make up the group called Los Calladitos from San Miguel de Allende.
Their mural of a large floating man with a bright white light and a hole in his
heart with little angels around him is the second part of a series they are
working on which will ultimately be part of a stop motion film about characters
made up of light called “dons.” Painting next to two Chileno artists, they had
brought their baby kitten, a tiny orange thing that alternately cuddled with
one of the Chileno’s partners, or curled up in a blanket in a cardboard box.
The cat was not the only pet, a man painting a detailed half-mechanical
half-animal crocodile with paint and brush had a little white and brown spotted
dog which snuggled close to the wall under a chair next to speakers that gently
played music.
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| Mechanical/musical alligator. MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga. October 7, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
Other more traditional graffiti artists included Smar, from
Mexico City, who did elegant gothic letters, Reak who did 3-d mechanical
letters, and Beste, one of the Mexican women writers who has been writing the
longest. Storm, a Danish writer, had abstract geometric lietters. Realist
graffiti works included a scene of two dueling dragons, or faces of women.
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| Dragon outlines.MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, October 7. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| Dueling dragons. MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, October 7. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| Reak. MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, October 7. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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Orion. MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, October 8. Photo by Caitlin Bruce.
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| Smar. MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, October 8. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| 3d styles. MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, October 7. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| Self-representation. MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, October 7. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| Trump/Kim Jong Un. MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, October 8. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| Women's faces and jellyfish.MOS Mexico Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, October 8. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
By 1 pm most outlines had been applied and the staff started
to give out posters to passers by. Large packs of youth and families began to
circulate up and down the walls collecting signatures from participating
artists. About ten people every 30-40 minutes would ask each artist for their
autograph on the poster.
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| Los calladitos and fans. October 7, 2017. MOS Mexico, Tlajomulco de Zuñiga. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
I learned that the women giving out food worked for the
Tlajomulco youth institute, and the institute had sponsored the creation of a
street art gallery called Trazo and graffiti workshops, as well as BMX dance
and other kinds of workshops. They organized the lunch as well, which was a
wide range of different guisados for
tacos, with several kinds of salsa and agua
de Jamaica. Feeding the artists was important, Gerso mentioned in an
earlier interview, they need lodging, transit, food, and supplies to be able to
focus on their work and do the best job and have the best experience. At lunch
I met a young Guadalajara writer named REM who said, with pride that Chaz
Bojorquez (a famous Los Angeles writer who pioneered a calligraphic style of
writing based on cholo placas) had
lived in Guadalajara, and that it is “the most graffieid city in the world.” He
expressed simultaneous frustration about MOS for being “elitist” but also his
longing to participate.
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| Lunch time. October 7, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
There were a number of police watching the event. What was
notable were the numbers of seemingly low-intensity interactions between police
and writers: eating near each other, police taking selfies with the works, or
asking questions of writers about process and technique.
On the second day when we wait for the bus the mood is more
relaxed: participants have had the time to share meals and space, and perhaps
having made good progress on their work there is less anticipation or anxiety.
Some writers shyly ask the others for autographs. Again, breakfast is there
when we arrive, and the Youth Institute women tell me to eat, that “it’s just frijoles y queso, no carne.” I am
embarrassed and touched that they remember that I am vegetarian from a passing
comment.
I interviewed Storm on day 2. Before the interview proper we
chat a bit about the relationship between art and gentrification, how it is
tricky to promote international art without eroding sense of place. He, too,
remarked on the number of kids at the Tlajomulco site, and the size of the
festival itself, much larger than the one at Copenhagen. He expressed some
anxiety about changes he saw in graffiti culture from when he stared in 1992 to
now, where people seem “more concerned about fame than being themselves.”
While I ate lunch, I was approached by another group of
youth, four boys, about eight years old. One of the youth institute staff told
them I was from the U.S. They asked me, point blank: “Do all Americans things
Mexicans are bad?” I tried to explain that Trump was not representative of
everyone’s opinion, and that those who are hateful are ignorant. In the same
breath they asked about how much and how long it takes to get to Disneyland, to
do the math of dollars into pesos, where I had traveled, and where my husband
was (the assumption being that I had one). This little exchange pointed to the
festival as a site for international contact, for youth, and writers, to
negotiate with stereotypes and preconceptions. Though it was not as much of a
party as perhaps MOS France is, with live dance and music and beer and wine for
sale, it was a vibrant site for exchange and learning about youth who live
beyond big cities, but still have pressing questions and curiosity about the
world beyond, but also pride and interest in sharing their own perceptions and
experiences.
Brote, Orion and I left around 4pm: they had work the next
day and were eager to get back to León, and I, too, was eager for a bit of rest
before the next trip. Moreover, for many of us, Tlajomulco was just the first
of a set of reunions across the country.
Playa del Carmen
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| MOS Playa del Carmen.October 22, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| "Meeting of Styles." Manuel, MOS Founder, MOS Playa del Carmen. October 22, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
Playa del Carmen is like a giant strip/playground/fantasy
relam for massages, drinks, ice cream, and souvenirs. People are only partly
dressed, many covered in sand, walking with weaving, slow and intermittent steps.
The rhythms of vacation and service industry. Merchants yell about their wares
and target particular passers by: “Señorita! Lady! Guerita!” in the humidity
the thought is also slowed and one can think only of appetitive things: heat,
thirst, hunger. Crepes. The warm ocean water.
There is a much smaller group for this iteration of MOS. It
is around a secundaria (middle
school) about three or four blocks west from Quinta Avenida, the main tourist
drag.
The walls were primed a dark purple again with numbers and
little slash marks designating spots. At about 10:20 writers approached the
spot from the hostel where they were collectively housed, and Gerso waved the
group around a corner where a large van was parked, MOS staff seated inside and
standing around it. He coughed, laughed and said “This is the Meeting of
Styles…blah blah blah,” to laughter since most of the people present had
participated in the prior two festivals. There seemed to be a significant
decrease in urgency and also more informality because unlike DF or Jalisco it
seemed like the audience was only writers and family/friends, not politicians
and media, as well. As in Jalisco, Gerso read the name of the writer, their
spot number, and they went to get their paint, tshirt, and credential (a lanyard
with a cardboard decal with “MOS” on one side and “Artist” on the other).
This time Zhot and Brote were the represenatives for León. They
painted next to each other and in between a Berlin writer, Riots, and another
writer with an equally chaotic style. It was curious to see the graffiti walls
adjacent to the palatial vacation homes and hotels surrounding the school. We
were by another ADO (bus) station so many would see the works on their way out
of the city, and drivers would slow the buses to watch the writers in action.
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| Brote. MOS Playa del Carmen. October 22, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| Brote, detail. MOS Playa del Carmen. October 22, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| Zhot in process. MOS Playa del Carmen. October 22, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| "Stay wild." MOS Playa del Carmen. October 21, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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| Storm from Copenhagen. October 21, 2017. MOS Playa del Carmen. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
I met one of the organizers, Secreto Rebollo from
Guadalajara, and interviewed him about the MOS Mexico festival. He explained
that one of the key groups, Mixer, grew out of frustration that many graffiti
events were not artist-run and were not organized with the experience of
artists in mind. A year ago Mixer was founded, a collection of aritsts from
across the Mexican republic.
Alter Nos from Mexico City is also part of Mixer, and has
participated in legal graffiti programs in Mexico City since the early 2000s. His
whole family came with him to MOS, and all but his son paint, using the practice
to bring them closer.
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| Alternos. MOS Playa del Carmen. October 22, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
I also met Franc Mun, a Chilango writer who does largely
image-based work. For MOS Playa del Carmen he was painting a fish and a fish
skeleton.
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| Franc Mun. MOS Playa del Carmen. October 22, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
Around the corner was Nove Noël from Galicia, who discussed
how he strives, in his work, to make commentary specific to the site, a
particular challenge in the context of events like MOS where one has little understanding
or relationship to community. He ultimately did a big burner with his name and
a confused and anxious looking octopus with the thought bubble: “Carmen?...”
because “it is all foreigners here, hard to find actual Mexicans,” a playful
commentary on the no-place of tourist sites.
Near Franc Mun was Flaco from Cancun, who discussed the
value of MOS for bringing people together, and for giving a “little taste of
culture” to Playa del Carmen “where arts and culture is not accessible to many.”
MOS Mexico also emerges as a key site for evolving one’s style,
particularly for writers from smaller cities or regions with less graffiti
culture. Deas from Veracruz said in his hometown there are few opportunities
for legal graffiti, so events like MOS are crucial sites for building contacts
and developing new skills/getting “tips.”
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| Deas. MOS Playa del Carmen. October 22, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
The second day, in an abandoned lifeguard hut by a
construction wall where some of the guys did some quick pieces on the beach, I interviewed
Riot from Berlin, who also finds MOS to be a key site for building connections
globally. His work is humorous, chaotic, and visually dense.
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Riot.
| MOS Playa del Carmen. October 21, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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I also met Flit, from Yucatan, a 360 sponsored wall with
prehispanic themes. For him, festivals in Merida played a key role in his
artistic development.
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| Collaborative 360 wall by Yucatan writers. MOS Playa del Carmen, October 22, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
Jace, from Aguascalientes but living in Playa del Carmen
talked of the ways in which events like MOS provide “inspiration.”
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Jace.
| MOS Playa del Carmen, October 22, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
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Also visible at the festival are boutique graffiti
economies. A group from Queretaro sold paint and pens out of the back of their
car, another group sold t-shirt’s by their friend’s wall.
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| Shady from Chiapas. MOS Playa del Carmen, October 22, 2017. Photo by Caitlin Bruce. |
At Playa del Carmen, interaction with residents is minimal.
Though some tourists would stop to take photos or even chat, or some of the local
performers would provide commentary on the pieces as they changed into Aztec
warrior costumes, the writers were able to paint with minimal distractions from
humans. It was a much smaller group than in Jalisco, and most finished their
pieces rapidly, perhaps because of the challenging weather (there was lots of
rain), or because of the desire to turistear
by the beach.
Looking at the two festivals provides a sense of the potential
range of audiences and spaces that can be engaged by these events particularly
due to the high level of organizational acumen brought by the planning team,
but also some limitations that the structure provides (limited knowledge of
place, exhaustion from travel, distraction from site). For me, it provided a
wider panorama of the growth of legal graffiti practices across Mexico over the course of the past twenty years.
