The self-fulfilling curse you describe — call the cultural class fifí, then defund them until only the fifí can afford to participate — that’s the mechanism that keeps repeating across Latin America. I’m Brazilian, and the Lula contrast you mention is real but more complicated on the ground than it looks from outside. The Ministry of Culture got restored, yes, but the gap Bolsonaro opened didn’t close with a signature. What filled it was exactly what you’re describing in Mexico — private money, professionalization, risk managed out of the work. The structural damage outlasts the policy. What stays with me from this piece is the younger artists performing professionalism over instinct. That anxiety isn’t Mexican — it’s what happens anywhere the floor disappears and nobody trusts it’s coming back.
It's sad to see that those who on paper should be the ones to support public arts and cultural institutions, instead leave them out to dry for private money to come in and shape culture in their image. Politics and its effects are always tied to the arts, culture, and everyday life.
When we hand over the keys of our cultural institutions to the highest bidder, we allow private oligarchs to dictate what is beautiful, what is permissible, and what is valuable. To counter this, we must champion an eco-leftist political vision that treats art as a vital public utility, funding spaces that cultivate ecological consciousness and class solidarity rather than raw consumerism. If the state remains paralyzed by capitalist interests, then the people must claim this power for themselves, building autonomous, grassroots collectives where culture is shaped by the hands that build society, not the wallets that exploit it.
The cost of failing to do this is on full display in the United States, just as another comment by @johnkrumm where the complete surrender of culture to the free market has hollowed out the creative class. There, artists are reduced to grant-seeking corporate pleasers or hyper-curated social media brand ambassadors. Those who refuse to commodify their souls are left overworked, dependent on wealthy partners, trapped in exhausting day jobs, or quite literally living in their cars.
Yet, the Indonesian situation where I'm in, offers no safe harbor; it is merely a different mutation of the same disease. In Indonesia, public arts funding is notoriously abysmal, leaving cultural institutions starving. But instead of the highly institutionalized corporate grant systems of the West, Indonesian creators are trapped between state-sponsored bureaucratic conservatism and a wealthy political-economic elite who use art patronage for political laundering and lifestyle branding. Caught between an indifferent state and predatory local oligarchs, Indonesia's vibrant ruang alternatif (alternative spaces) are left to survive on pure grit, constantly threatened by censorship and commercial eviction.
If we are to safeguard our collective imagination, we must recognize that a society without publicly protected, democratically controlled art is a society without a soul. We must reclaim our cultural spaces, for there is no true liberation without a liberated imagination.
In the U.S. our artists are either grant seeking corporate pleasers, social media brand "ambassadors," overworked teachers, married to a high paid professional, working jobs they don't want because they have no time for art, or living in cars.
Mientras leia su comentario, me imaginaba como se verian los flashbacks. Para empezar, cine documentalista de 16mm, granoso y con mucho zoom, pasando a video de imagen diafana, terminando con fotos y video de celular, impactante y desechable.
The self-fulfilling curse you describe — call the cultural class fifí, then defund them until only the fifí can afford to participate — that’s the mechanism that keeps repeating across Latin America. I’m Brazilian, and the Lula contrast you mention is real but more complicated on the ground than it looks from outside. The Ministry of Culture got restored, yes, but the gap Bolsonaro opened didn’t close with a signature. What filled it was exactly what you’re describing in Mexico — private money, professionalization, risk managed out of the work. The structural damage outlasts the policy. What stays with me from this piece is the younger artists performing professionalism over instinct. That anxiety isn’t Mexican — it’s what happens anywhere the floor disappears and nobody trusts it’s coming back.
As a chicana I wasn’t aware of so much of this, thanks for sharing
It's sad to see that those who on paper should be the ones to support public arts and cultural institutions, instead leave them out to dry for private money to come in and shape culture in their image. Politics and its effects are always tied to the arts, culture, and everyday life.
When we hand over the keys of our cultural institutions to the highest bidder, we allow private oligarchs to dictate what is beautiful, what is permissible, and what is valuable. To counter this, we must champion an eco-leftist political vision that treats art as a vital public utility, funding spaces that cultivate ecological consciousness and class solidarity rather than raw consumerism. If the state remains paralyzed by capitalist interests, then the people must claim this power for themselves, building autonomous, grassroots collectives where culture is shaped by the hands that build society, not the wallets that exploit it.
The cost of failing to do this is on full display in the United States, just as another comment by @johnkrumm where the complete surrender of culture to the free market has hollowed out the creative class. There, artists are reduced to grant-seeking corporate pleasers or hyper-curated social media brand ambassadors. Those who refuse to commodify their souls are left overworked, dependent on wealthy partners, trapped in exhausting day jobs, or quite literally living in their cars.
Yet, the Indonesian situation where I'm in, offers no safe harbor; it is merely a different mutation of the same disease. In Indonesia, public arts funding is notoriously abysmal, leaving cultural institutions starving. But instead of the highly institutionalized corporate grant systems of the West, Indonesian creators are trapped between state-sponsored bureaucratic conservatism and a wealthy political-economic elite who use art patronage for political laundering and lifestyle branding. Caught between an indifferent state and predatory local oligarchs, Indonesia's vibrant ruang alternatif (alternative spaces) are left to survive on pure grit, constantly threatened by censorship and commercial eviction.
If we are to safeguard our collective imagination, we must recognize that a society without publicly protected, democratically controlled art is a society without a soul. We must reclaim our cultural spaces, for there is no true liberation without a liberated imagination.
Thought-provoking: Looking at the current situation in Mexico though the lens of art. As @Diana van Eyk comments, happening all around
This stuff is happening everywhere. I wasn't aware of the situation in Mexico.
Muy interesante. ¿Existe la versión en español de este artículo?
In the U.S. our artists are either grant seeking corporate pleasers, social media brand "ambassadors," overworked teachers, married to a high paid professional, working jobs they don't want because they have no time for art, or living in cars.
Mientras leia su comentario, me imaginaba como se verian los flashbacks. Para empezar, cine documentalista de 16mm, granoso y con mucho zoom, pasando a video de imagen diafana, terminando con fotos y video de celular, impactante y desechable.