In a pink, glowing Rococo setting, Yvette Mayorga‘s first solo exhibition in Mexico delves into nostalgia, teenage dreams and how sometimes a sugary layer can hide crucial truths.
For La Jaula de Oro—The Golden Cage-bee Zapopan Art Museumthe Chicago-based artist has (previously) created four acrylic pipe paintings on canvas and a series of mixed-media sculptures. These include a 1974 Datsun covered in crocheted, plush and plastic toys, acrylic nails, faux fur, rosaries and other ephemera. The song ‘Dreaming of You’ by pop singer Selena plays from the car radio.
At first glance, Mayorga’s compositions look like delicate, matte confections, glistening with nail charms and made mainly in various shades of pink. But upon closer inspection, memories of a slightly more disturbing reality begin to emerge, such as scorpions, clocks or mirrors – nods to our relationship with time, others and our mortality.
The artist draws on the tradition of vanitas painting, a style popularized during the Golden Age, often in the form of still lifes packed with visual cues that power and glory mean nothing when faced with the inevitability of death.
For Mayorga, the fluid forms of bows, rosettes and borders belie important messages around border control, immigrant labor, unbridled capitalism and pop culture.
Similar to the way cookies or cakes are made to be literally consumed, the artist plays with the idea of transience. “La Princesa (Ride or Die),” for example, conveys a sense of transience and impermanence: “here today and gone tomorrow,” says curator Maya Renée Escárcega.
The artist invites viewers into a seemingly carefree, sweet space reminiscent of the opulence of the late 18th century—the era of Marie Antoinette and her famous—albeit mythical—quote, “Let them eat cake.” Considered the ‘Rococo Queen’, she is associated with luxury and frivolity, and she symbolized the excesses of the wealthy during a period when many people could not afford bread, let alone the delicacies of cake.
Mayorga’s primary medium is acrylic, applied using a piping bag. She refers to women workers – especially women of color – from whom colonial discourse stripped the notions of femininity assigned to white women. She extends the Rococo framework to analyze 21st century issues while reminding us of the sacrifices and toil required to produce what capitalist society consumes.
La Jaula de Oro and continues in Zapopan until January 5. Find more on Mayorga’s website And Instagram.
