A HARD SELL
On Mexican Art in the Age of Austerity
Artforum,
2026
SINCE COMING TO POWER IN 2018, Mexico’s “Fourth Transformation” political force has often found itself at odds with the country’s left-leaning arts and culture sectors. The movement—which mixes populism with selective neoliberal austerity—quickly cast contemporary art as an expression aligned with the ideology of the old regime. Individual artists have been publicly denounced by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador as hoarders of state resources. Public art institutions in Mexico have found themselves in dire straits; last year, the nation’s budget for art and culture sank to its lowest level since 2013. Within Mexico’s national arts infrastructure, austerity is routinely framed as a form of redistributive justice while the arts are mischaracterized as a boondoggle for elites.