Passion for destruction is also a passion for creation

Mikhail Bakunin

Foremost, this exhibition describes a mere physical process, that even in its quality as a possibility can generate discursive implications on museological, historical, anthropological, and artistic practice.

Throughout history, the role which museums have been dealt has been preserving the cultural milestones of their communities. Yet this intention has always served as an alibi for tangible acts of archeological scavenging. In most cases it is a domination resource. Even today, unless one chooses to eradicate a series of events that are inconvenient for memory and the spirit of official culture, the museum institution remains an awkward place.

The project echoes two traditions, one that begins with Bakunin’s illustrious proposal, whose explosive overtone precedes innumerable vanguard movements, including futurists, Dadaists, fluxus, Destructivists, punks, etc. On the other hand, the show adds itself to the long series of symbolical raids against museums which brighten the exercise of institutional critique.

If since its foundation one of the purposes of the National Anthropology Museum has been the reassessment of the cultures originated in Mexico, today we see its focus as insufficient and somehow obsolete.

Its architectonic splendor simultaneously praises and masks the desperate situation of the many ethnic groups which barely survive the struggle of geopolitical processes. The institutions magnificence clashes against the poverty and abandonment of the cultural practices the State claims to defend.