We're in Rosarito, Mexico
today, not far from Tijuana,
at the studio of
Hugo Crosthwaite.
Hugo is a master draftsman
who makes large scale drawings
the blend figure
and abstraction,
building narratives
through an additive detail
by detail process.
He combines mythical
and historical sources
with imagery drawn from
observation, often reflecting
on the tension and admixture
of cultures of this border city
where he spends
much of his time.
The funny thing, he's not
actually here right now.
When I got in touch with him
to ask him to participate
in the show, he
said he'd love to,
but that he'd be in Chicago for
a residency during our visit.
There he's working on a
new wall drawing called
Heroic Procession,
exploring Homer's Odysseus
who, like many
Mexican immigrants,
chose to travel to a foreign
land for opportunity.
It's not uncommon for
Hugo, and for many artists,
to travel as part
of their practice.
And our assignment
today is actually
going to have to
do with just that.
How when we travel, we
take our narratives with us
and create new communities
wherever we go.
So let's go to Chicago.
I'm Hugo Crosthwaite, and
this is your art assignment.
Usually muralists, in terms
of me being a Mexican artist,
I come with this heavy
tradition of Mexican muralism.
You know, Diego
Rivera, Siqueiros.
But those murals were,
in a way, didactic.
Beautiful pieces of work,
incredible art, but they
were also about teaching
the Mexican public what
we accomplished after
the Mexican Revolution.
They had this
purpose of the idea
that these murals are going
to last as long as a regime.
So then, 1,000 years.
Mexico will last forever and
these murals will last forever.
But in this case,
I wanted to play
with the notion of muralism
as performance, but then also
the idea of the
impermanence of it.
We all die.
Nothing lasts forever.
So then my murals
are not immortal.
So then it's this
very simple narrative
of the city I come
from, Tijuana.
So then I created this
mural precisely as that,
as this improvised story
telling of what people-- of what
I think people think
of the Tijuana,
or what I hear people
think of Tijuana.
So then I improvised
this narrative
as a sort of
religious procession.
So then you have the profane and
the sacred marching together.
You know, there's
cartoon characters.
There's elements of the
narco violence, elements
of the prostitution
that happens in Tijuana,
elements of the migrant
situation of the border.
The sacred and the profane
all coming together
in this kind of brutal kind
of painting composition.
But then, in the end, once I
start working on the mural,
I work on it for only three
weeks, four weeks at the most.
And then once I
finish the mural,
I will start destroying it.
And destroying it by painting
little white squares into it.
I never identified with the
art process of a painter.
But then when I
would talk to poets,
they would say, well, I
just string words along.
And I come up with
one word, and then
I put another word,
and another word,
and then the narrative
starts unfolding.
No?
And I thought, well, that's
exactly the way I work.
You know, it's this idea
of just me doing a detail,
and then adding another detail,
and then creating a narrative.
Coming here to
[INAUDIBLE] contemporary
and seeing this
community of artists,
I thought, well, it would be
great if we could do something
with other artists also.
Like we all bring our stories.
I'm coming from Tijuana and
I'm carrying with me Tijuana.
And it's here in the mural,
and I've brought it with me.
But then there's other artists
from different places here
who bring their own stories.
So then I thought, how could
we put all this together?
I thought at first, well,
we could do a mural.
And it's this huge mural.
And I do my section.
And the other guy comes
in and does their section,
and whatever.
And we all try to connect
all these narratives.
But I thought, well,
that would be boring.
And it's not really a game.
So then thinking about
the concept of game,
well I thought about,
you know, the thing that
popped into my mind was
the surrealist game,
The Exquisite Corpse.
For your art assignment, I want
you to find a drawing surface.
It could be a piece of paper.
It could be a wall.
And then I want you to
decide on a group of friends
that will come together
and join you in this.
One of you guys
start the drawing,
but then cover it and only leave
a clue for the next person.
Then the next person continues
the drawing in sequence,
and does their own thing.
And then they cover
it, but they only
leave a clue for
the next artist.
So then in the end, you
guys will come together
in this narrative and
have this huge unveiling
where this whole collective
narrative will come together.
And you guys will see
this exquisite corpse.
So, John, the surrealist came
up with this exquisite corpse
game, which we actually
talked about in one
of our very first episodes.
Yeah.
It always makes me think
about how much improvisation
is involved in art
and in making things.
Like Neil Gaiman once
said that writing a novel
is like driving home at night
with only the headlights
to guide you.
Like you can't see very
far in front of you,
but you can still get home.
It also makes me think about
how in any kind of art making,
there's a portion of
it that you do alone.
And there's a
portion of it that's
inherently collaborative,
where you're responding
to the work of other
artists or writers,
where you're working in
collaboration with the viewers
or with other artists.
But at the same time,
there's part of art
that has to be done kind
of inside your head.
And the exquisite
corpse for me really
captures both those things.
Right.
Because you're working with only
a sliver of knowledge of what
other people are doing.
And isn't that all
of art history?
Where artists sort of
know some other artists
and know what other people are
doing, but to a certain extent
you're off on your own.
And art history and history
make sense of it later.
And sort of places you as part
of a time period or movement.
And this assignment
actually really
made me think about the
work of one particular group
of German
expressionist painters,
and how they had a
common goal but they
were all sort of working
separately and doing
their own thing.
In 1911 in Munich, Germany,
Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc,
and Gabriele Munter
founded a group
they called Der Blaue
Reiter, The Blue Rider,
after a common
motif in their work.
For Kandinsky, the
horse and rider
was a symbol for moving beyond
realistic representation
and toward a new kind of
art, namely abstraction.
They put on exhibitions
and published an almanac,
which laid out their goal of
giving form to the spiritual,
embracing a wide range of
styles to advance the idea
of an inner necessity of art.
While the other famous German
expressionist group Die Brucke,
or The Bridge, lived
together and came up
with a very unified
figurative style,
Der Blaue Reiter was a
loosely associated group
as embracing of abstract art
as music, Egyptian shadow play
figures, art by children, and
figures from South Borneo.
The group coupled together
many different styles and types
of art under one mantle.
And like the
exquisite corpse game,
synthesizes diverse
efforts in search
for new forms and expressions.
Now we're going to have this
huge wall, 12 feet by 18 feet.
And I'm going to start.
I'll start my section.
And then I'm going to cover
it and just leave a clue.
And then the next
artist is going to come
and they'll add to that.
I picked artists that
do different things.
There's a graffiti artist.
There's artists that
do illustration.
There's formal painters.
There's a draftsman also.
I wanted all these
different disciplines
to come together on a wall.
We all bring our
narrative, but we
don't get to see it completely.
We only see traces of
where we come from.
And then from there, you grab
those traces, those clues,
and then you create your own
narrative and you add to it.
And you add to the story.
So then I thought the
exquisite corpse was precisely
this-- different
narratives coming together
but you're always thinking of
the person who left the clue,
of the previous artist.
So then, everybody
is forced to think
about your partner's
story, your friend's story,
and you're adding to it.
And to me, that's community.
You know?
It's not just you
bringing your own thing,
but you're adding to the
story of somebody else.
And then you do your own thing.
And then the next artist
is going to come in
and they're going to
continue on whatever you do.
Well, this being an
exquisite corpse,
I'd like to start with a head.
But then also, I told the other
artists, don't think of a body
either.
Like if they want to
do their own head,
it could just be a collective
of heads coming together.
So it's not about thinking
about making a human body
or making a corpse, but about
bringing your own narrative
of whatever you want to do.
By doing it in
community, you get
to see what the
other person does.
Because also, we're all
creating collectively one image
there won't be that
harsh judgment of saying,
well, you know, your piece
sucks or my piece is better.
Because in the end, it's all
one collective image that we all
created and different narratives
that are coming together.
So then I think it's
a great game where
there can be no judgment.
Usually, I always feel
like the biggest motivation
to create anything is
either you love something
so much that you
want to paint it,
or you hate something
so much that you just
need to make a record of it.
