Cutting is often sent in today’s viewing culture as a distracting devener – something that attracts attention, is full of complaints and hides difficult truths under its surface. Fairy tales and toys like dolls use a similar strategy, acting as visual devices that prepare children for the imbalances and power structures of adult life. This metaphor defines the visual lexicon of yvette Mayorga, a chicago-based artist who has recently changed times in the square with her Times Square Art Commission: The Kinetic Foot-Kinetic Tartier that seems straight out of a Fairytale. Under its colorful facade, decorated with hello backpacks and low gold rims, lies a very complex story that deals with immigration policies, feminism and the broken illusion of the American dream.
The great work marks the end of two years of development, a period during which the actions of the Mayor and the politics of the US have evolved, giving the whole project more power. The artist is first-generation American – his family is from Jalisco, and the commission is not only a milestone in his work but also a moment of visibility for the community he represents. “It feels very important to have a piece like this for another time, a very persecuted site visited by people from all over the world,” he told the viewer before the unveiling.
“When I was invited to imagine a sculpture of that setting, I wanted to play with the idea of symbolic times – the place most people think of when they see New York in America.” Mayga wanted to engage with that visibility and with the dense layers of commercial images that fill the space with values of modern America.
To hide his work of undoing the candy, Mayorga transforms the cut and the mold into visual effects – accessible and inviting, however, to stop with the issues of inequality and observation in which he lives. Beneath the sugary face kill deumas and commentaries on underpaid jobs in Latino communities in the United States.
Drawing from her mother’s work as a baker, Mayorga developed a unique technique: Using pastry nozzles and piping bags to apply acrylic paint. This process allows her to overcome the narrative of her family through her art while, more broadly, speaking about the condition of the Latino working class – often paying extremely hard work and reviving the art of both working mothers and other migrant women.
FairyTale references, especially the carriage, bring out childhood memories and conjure up a more magical world, or through the Mayor, they don’t escape reality. “This is also a metaphor for life – joy and sorrow happening at the same time,” he pointed out. “I’ve always been there, and I’ve learned to accept it as a fact of life. Deviating from it makes us less human, right? These things will always go in tandem.”
Living with the newly anticipated grief, the collective grief, all pushed him to a deeper examination, and to grow a new maturity that is now being done and doing his job now. At the same time, this archetypal and symbolic imagery transcends the present, serving as a reminder that history moves in cycles and that the ghosts of the past can easily return as the demons of the present if we fail to remain vigilant and allow memory to fade.
The image of the chariot holds many layers of meaning, but it first emerged when Mayarga learned that the times of the square served as a rallying point for its early days. Continuous inspiration came from the Mexican spaces of the 19th century of the first Empire, which he encountered in 2018 at the Chapen Lepec Castle in Mexico City, whose interiors are decorated with Louis XVI motifs. Job title, Grasshopper MagicReferences Chappultepec (which means “hill of the Grasshopper”) and draws attention to the area that was once inhabited by the Aztecs and later exterminated. “By combining this history with a carousel of horses carrying backpacks carrying backpacks, I wanted to look at the space of time, heritage, while continuing to investigate and renew at the center of my practice,” he explained.
At the core of Mayorga’s Aesthetic is the concept he wrote, LatinxcoCowhich exploits the Latinx and rococo desires – the beauty inspired by versailles that also wrote about Mexican symbolism and architecture. His first encounter with Baroque and Rococo came from their edges in Mexico during a visit to his family’s hometown of Jalisco. As he recalls, he was mainly remembered by Churrigoeresque, or the Spanish Rococo style that appeared in the late twelfth and 18th years and later revived in Mexico. The style is designed to exceed the viewer with large decorations such as broken toys, cornices and cusps, returned baldetes, balucco shells and clothes. Nevertheless in the hands of Mexico, it re-emerged, its development amplified and localized, transforming the imported language of dominance into a fiery rhetoric of cultural resistance.
This choice carries a reinforcement that has not been compared until now. The Rococo flourished amidst opulence and opulence, just before the fall and the revolution. Similarly, today’s America experienced a dramatic economic expansion, where the disappearance of any middle ground widened the gap between the rich and the poor – now worldwide. History has shown where the trajectory can lead.
To put such a message in the square times – perhaps the last sign of America’s promise of American prosperity through consumerism and media – only weeps on its edge. The car looks ready to conjure up the so-called American Dream: Suits draped over the roof, horses stuffed with Hello kitpacks backpacks, and a flag with a smiley face of absurd optimism. Beneath it, the refined, forged gold wheels slowly turn in worship of the low culture rooted in the Chicago-American communities of Chicago, where Mayorga’s family settled after moving to Jalisco and still lives today. Across the body of the car, poignant scenes of migration take place, weaving the threads of European art through a personal and collective narrative.
But Mayorga deliberately leaves interpretation open, creating an installation that, like fiction or cartoons, shifts meaning depending on who experiences it and how they read the contemporary American landscape.
At this stage in his career, after many public documents and gallery and museum exhibitions, Mayorga is widely known for his work that evokes its border with its pastel palette and its innocent aesthetic. “I’ve already created with that in mind, knowing that there are many different entry points,” she said. “For public work in particular, that’s what excites me the most: not everyone sees the ‘self’ in the history of art, but they can still find it, and I can hope to do something for you.”
In this commission, the scales themselves were important. “The scale is so big it’s almost impossible to remember, whether you’re going to work or visiting New York for the first time.”
