Mónica Mayer: When in Doubt…Ask, a Retrocollective Exhibit

The first retrospective of Mónica Mayer’s work, on show at Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo – MUAC, emphasizes the collaborative nature of the Mexican artist, critic, and activist’s forty-year feminist art practice. Highlighting her engagements with such coconspirators as Victor Lerma and Maris Bustamante, the show will also underscore the importance of Mayer’s dialogue with north-of-the-border associates Suzanne Lacy and the members of Los Angeles’s Feminist Studio Workshop and Woman’s Building.

Mayer made a habit of preserving so-called ephemeraas a political act, a refusal to let minor histories be erased or forgotten, and archival documents will here be exhibited alongside sixty-seven works in a range of media. Ambitiously, the interactive installations “El tendedero” (The Clothesline), 1978/2016, and “Justicia y democracia”, 1995/2016, will be reactivated. A catalogue with contributions by Griselda Pollock and Amelia Jones, among others, promises to shed light on the space Mayer carved out for feminism and art in Mexico.