Mexico City, November 27 – December 10, 1997
Artist: Abraham Cruzvillegas
Indio is a huge but discreet installation made from thirty thousand Indio beers, alluding to the social groups that have historically been designated using the term “Indio”, Indian, without referring to particular events. It looks to cause a violent but silent meeting between the spectator and a symbolic sea of Indians; and also to confront the myth and stereotypical image of the Indian you see on a calendar with the stylized idea of the various contemporary hybrids in that racial category. “Of course, this project incorporates a concern for segregation and the extreme poverty of indigenous peoples, and that is why I am drawing attention to where myth and reality meet”, Cruzvillegas states. Haydeé Rovirosa adds, “The installation aims to evoke, through the name and presence of this beer, the more diverse ideas, histories and myths that can be brought together with a single word: ethnic groups, thirst, oral tradition, alcoholism, pre-Hispanic legends, feast days, social inequalities, and even revolutionary movements: a sea of Indians”.
