Mexican artist Monica Mayer on art and activism

Can you share a bit about your journey as an artist and how you found your passion for feminist art?

I studied art in Mexico City in the early seventies, basically because it was the subject matter I disliked the least in school, and the only area in which I could see myself at university. Then, in 1976, I found out about The Woman’s Building in Los Angeles, California, a place where artists like Judy Chicago and art historians like Arlene Raven were teaching feminist art. I was already interested in feminism, and had organized several women only exhibitions with other young women artists like myself. Therefore, when I heard about this alternative institution, I immediately enrolled for a two-week workshop. It was such a life changing experience that I came back to Mexico, joined the feminist movement and saved up enough money over the next two years in order to return to the Woman’s Building for the longer Feminist Studio Workshop program. During this time, I became passionate about art, and I have been producing feminist art, writing about feminist art and teaching feminist art since then.   

Which artists inspire you (both past and present)?

Many artists have inspired me. I remember being so impressed in the seventies when I first heard about artists from the past, such as Sabina von Steinbach or Judith Leyster, or here in Mexico photographers like Natalia Baquedano. But probably my first influence was Frida Kahlo, whose house opened to the public when I was a child and my mother –who was always very interested in art and herself painted – took me there often. Later on I was very inspired by the work of other artists from my generation in Mexico, like Magali Lara and Maris Bustamante (with whom I formed Polvo de Gallina Negra, the first feminist art group in Mexico). I was also fortunate enough to study at university with Hungarian photographer Kati Horna, and her influence in terms of art ethics was fundamental to my work. However, an artist that really helped form me is Suzanne Lacy, with whom I worked with when I was at the Woman’s Building and was my Master’s Degree advisor. She changed my ideas on what art, particularly feminist art, could be. 

One of your notable works is "El Tendedero/The Clothesline," which invites women to share their experiences of harassment. What inspired this project, and what responses have surprised you the most?

This piece was first exhibited in 1978 in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, showing young artists presenting things like performance, video art and installation. The theme of the show was The City, and as I thought of the city, what came to my mind was the enormous amount of sexual harassment women faced in the streets and public transport every day. I decided to do a piece about this, and started by asking women to fill in small cards saying; As a woman, what I detest the most of the city is: I obtained over 800 answers which were hung on a clothesline like structure.  

‍I read that you said about The Clothesline: “As an art piece, it’s more symbolic, it’s not a sociological survey.” Are you aware of Laura Bates’ Everyday Sexism Project that launched in 2012? Again, this is an example of women sharing their experiences. Do you have any thoughts on the overlap and/or the differences in terms of outcome between an art project such as yours and a ‘social’ project such as Bates’?

As you know, my project El Tendedero (The Clothesline) began in 1978, as an artwork for an exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico. On that occasion, I asked women to share what they disliked most about the city. There were around 800 answers, and some talked about the traffic or the pollution, so I decided to place the ones that spoke about sexual harassment at eye level. An art critic questioned this decision and I answered that this was not a sociological survey. In other words, as an art project, I had the right to place the answers I was interested in where they could be read more easily. In 2007, I started getting requests to reactivate El Tendedero and it has had a very interesting evolution. In 2016, after I reactivated the piece for the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Mónica Benitez from the UAM University asked if she could scan and analyze the answers, which were around eight thousand by that point. She has produced several papers in which she talks about the different words that appear the most in Tendederos in different countries and the type of information one is able to get from this structure, which is different from a scientific survey. On the other hand, when the piece was reactivated in Indiana in 2020, the organizations that invited me took the piece all over their State to get answers and then used them to help change the laws of consent. Also, since 2015, when I presented it in Colombia, Zynaida Quiñones, a highschool teacher, has been using El Tendedero as an educational tool. These are just a few examples of how the piece has been used apart from its original purpose. Over the years, and hundreds of iterations, both which I have guided and those that have spontaneously been used by many different groups of women and over different issues, it has been used as art, as activism and for research and educational purposes.  

I was not aware of Laura Bates project, but I know there have been many examples or art pieces and activist activities that share a similar structure, like the #Metoo movement or #MiPrimerAcoso. There have also been other activities with the same structure. Since the 90’s for example, in Massachusetts they have The Clothesline Project where they write their experiences on t-shirts and hang them on a clothesline. It is not surprising to me because we are all using the format of the CR (consciousness raising) groups, which were so important for early feminism in which women sat around a circle and shared their experiences.  

How do you see your art contributing to the larger feminist movement in Mexico and beyond?

I think art is fundamental to the feminist movement because we are trying to change culture, and art, which does not only rely on absolute truths or slogans, but deals with deep feelings and contradictions, is able to reach us at a more personal level. 

I think my art has contributed in two different ways. On the one hand, my artwork, teaching, archiving and writing have contributed towards transforming the art world in terms of visibilizing sexism and the work of women artists and opening up conversations on different ways of doing art, curating and art history. Today feminist art is much more accepted by the mainstream. In other words, feminist art has changed art itself. Obviously, this has been a huge collective effort. On a personal level, I am always surprised that El Tendedero has become so popular as a feminist activism tool that it has new versions of it every day. Many do not even know it was originally an art piece, but they find it is useful as a political tool. It has gone viral. Having a piece of work become popular culture is very interesting.  

Collaborative art seems to be a recurring theme in your work. What do you find most rewarding about collaborating with other artists and communities?

Working with other people brings together different ideas, points of view, ways of doing things, experiences and types of knowledge, which is particularly useful in social practice projects, and I find it's also a lot of fun. However, even when I am showing drawings or some other type of work I did in my studio, it takes a team to present it. 

In your opinion, how can art be a catalyst for social change, particularly in addressing gender inequality?

Not all art is interested in being a catalyst for social change and not all art that wants to bring social change is successful. But, at certain points, art can do just that. I have seen it in pieces like El Tendedero, or the song by Las Tesis, which went viral a few years ago, or Zapatos Rojos (Red Shoes) by Elina Chauvel, an installation that has also gone viral. These pieces help people come together around certain issues in many different communities. 

Can you tell us about a particular moment or encounter with an audience member that reaffirmed the importance of your feminist art?

I can share two of the many responses I have had from El Tendedero, specifically the one at the MUAC. The first one was of a young man who stayed a very long time reading the answers and came up to me very upset, telling me that he had been brought up to insist with women, never to take no for an answer. He seemed truly concerned. He suddenly realized what his actions meant for women. So I simply told him: “you’ve been bamboozled, things have changed and you really have to listen to women”. I am sure he will not forget. I also remember a friend of mine coming up to me after participating in a clothesline and telling me she had not shared that information about violence in her youth with anybody, and she felt relieved. Also there is a young artist, Issa Tellez, who dressed herself in the answers from El Tendedero and shared that the most important thing for her was that she had felt accompanied as she read all the answers. But I’ve had wonderful responses for many of my works. There is one, which is simply the phrase I DON’T CELEBRATE OR COMMEMORATE WARS, which began in 2008 and has been a performance, an installation, a silkscreen print, a text placed on the structures where people wait for the bus, etc. People still repeat the phrase every year on Facebook whenever the date of our Independence comes up. 

Your installations and performances often invite audience participation. How do you see the audience's role in completing your artwork?

As a feminist artist, one of my goals is to open up the spaces where art can be shown, so apart from showing in museums and galleries, I have also presented my work on television, radio, social media, schools, stores and independent art spaces. On the other hand, I am interested in changing the relationship between the artists and the audience, so I try forms of having a constant conversation with the audience, whether by having them answer questions like in El Tendedero, or the piece itself is a conversation with the audience such as my performance Si tiene dudas, pregunte, where I stand next to other people doing performance with a sign that says: if you have doubts, feel free to ask. Today my whole method of working is in dialogue with the audience, because I share the process of many pieces through Facebook, and have interesting conversations on the way, which are often included in the piece. In that sense, the audience is very important to my work. And I love talking to the audience. I have been known to lead over 50 guided tours to one of my exhibitions and to sit outside with a sign inviting them to sit down and talk to me.   

‍Intersectionality is a key aspect of feminist discourse today. How do you ensure your artwork is inclusive and addresses the experiences of diverse women?

Feminism in Mexico has always been intersectional, even before the term existed. This is true particularly around certain issues such as the class struggle and awareness of colonialism. Part of my work is about my own personal experience, on issues such as motherhood, old age, death, etc., so it does not necessarily address the specific experiences of other women. And I would never dare to speak for anyone else. However, some of my works, like El Tendedero or Maternidades Secuestradas, are structured for women to share their own experiences, which are very varied, in terms of class, gender, age, health, geography, racialization and religion. However, I did not start doing these works because it was a key aspect of feminist discourse. I started doing them in the seventies because I believe all our experiences are important and it is very necessary to share them so we can learn from one another.  

The art world has historically been male-dominated. Have you faced any challenges or resistance as a feminist artist, and how have you navigated them?

Sure, all of them, particularly because even though I come from a privileged background, I am a woman artist, doing feminist art, and using mediums such as performance and installation in a conservative, highly religious country where more than 60% of the population live in poverty or extreme poverty. In other words, from the very beginning I knew I was not going to make a living from my artwork, so I supported my work and myself by doing translations and teaching. I also knew nobody was going to write about my type of work, so I wrote. I published the first book on feminist performance art in Mexico in 2004. It is called Rosa chillante: mujeres y performance en México. I also wrote a column for a major newspaper for 20 years, where I could deal with issues such as feminist art and performance. At a certain point, with Victor Lerma, who has been my life and art companion since art school, we opened an artist-run gallery where these types of works could be presented. 

Your work encompasses various mediums, from performance art to installations. How do you decide which medium best conveys your message for each project?

Sometimes it depends on what audience I want to reach or the channel I want to research. For example, right now I am doing a project that deals with the archive, in which I review the slide presentations I gave in the early seventies and eighties about feminist art, women’s art and political art in Mexico. I am specifically working on a slide presentation about women artists from the past. Since I am dealing with image and voice, I decided the best thing to do were short videos. They will be transmitted individually as small reels on TikTok and will all be together on an Instagram page that looks like the sheets in which we used to keep the slides. And it also changes as the piece goes along. I have a piece called “I am so, so old” which started as a conversation on Facebook where I share different aspects about being old which have to do with how the public space has changed, or how my body has changed, or the ageism I face. Then it also became a performance, a page in Instagram which houses over 500 phrases, and recently a selection on my views of the family were turned into a graphic work for a solo exhibition about my work and the family.  

Looking ahead, what future projects or collaborations are you excited about, and how do you envision your art evolving in the context of contemporary feminism?

My exhibition Hija de su madre: una exposición de Mónica Mayer (Her mother’s daughter: an exhibition by Mónica Mayer) has just started and will be traveling. It is wonderful because I am working with two young curators, Marisol García Walls and Yuruen Lerma Mayer, who is my daughter. We will still take it to other places and work on a catalog, so I am excited about this work. I am also always very keen to work on more Tendederos. I am currently working with groups of women in different places in Mexico, Europe and Japan. However, there is one that intrigues me very much that will deal with violence faced by women with leprosy. I am sure I will learn a lot.

I have no idea how my art will evolve in the context of contemporary feminism. I do know that it took the wider, international feminism about 40 years to catch up with what Latin American feminist artists have been doing for many decades and accept it, and I know the road was not easy. I also know that there is a very young generation of feminists who are more globally oriented, aware of intersectionality and used to social media, who will find it easier to integrate feminist art into their activism, and I hope my work finds a little space there.