Mexico Transforms into a Great City México se Transforma en una Gran Ciudad

Date

1947

Creator

The transformation of Mexico City was not all positive. México se Transforma en una Gran Ciudad reflects Alfredo Zalce’s experiences in the city, where he spent most of his life. The artist created the linocut as a reaction to an autobiographical event that occurred while he was living in Mexico City’s Santa Maria colony. Zalce recounts that in 1947, trash had been left to pile up on the streets while skyscrapers were being constructed. Late one night, he observed a man trying to find food in a heap of trash. When a dog came to look in the same pile, the man said, "What do you want here? Bones, meat? I don’t even have food and I have to feed a family." In his print, Zalce displays the man prominently, crouched over and picking through the debris with an exaggeratedly large hand, while the emaciated dog, mimicking the man’s gestures, stands in the center of the composition. The artist has created a chaotic image, where the figures—reduced to the struggle for survival—interact between towering buildings and still incomplete skyscrapers. Zalce heightens the grotesqueness by deforming the figures’ physiognomies and distorting the proportion: an emaciated child stands as tall as a building, and an enormous pair of legs cuts across the composition horizontally. In this macabre pathos, Zalce articulates his regret at Mexico City’s transformation into a "great city," a title that, in itself, expresses bitter irony. from Costa, Para la Gente: Art, Politics and Cultural Identity of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (Notre Dame, 2009)