Holy Reproductions: Resurgence of Sacred Art Debates in 21st Century Mexico

• In Event: Reading Coloniality in Mexico through a Transhistoric, Transgeographic Lens

Abstract

The dichotomy between secularism and religion, as conceived by twentieth-century philosophy/postcolonial theory, demands a critical reconsideration once we consider the imperial structures present. As Manuel Maldonado-Torres argues in Coloniality at Large, secular approaches to postcolonial theory often boasts a ‘critical’ or ‘empirical’ methodology but may in fact silence the very peoples, narratives, and subjugated cultures such theory aims to bring to the forefront. He recognizes that cultures and religions are "repositories of knowledge and sources of theory”; if postcolonial scholars are to pursue an “epistemic decolonization” in their scholarship, it must begin by embracing – or at the very least, not silencing – those subaltern groups/epistemologies that incorporate religion as an inherent way of interpreting the world around them (379).
Drawing on this theory, I explore the relationship between sacred images and their (re)production over time, taking into consideration the means of creation, artistic license, and cultural commentary as ever-changing elements of religious engagement in colonial and present-day Mexico. This includes the examination of two recent viral sensations involving religious objects and texts about them (“Pasito Perrón” and San Judás Tadeo). I argue that the interplay between internet memes, videos and texts, their rapid proliferation, and their subsequent condemnation reignites and complicates previous New Spanish debates surrounding sacred art and “appropriate” limits of creation. At the crossroads of digital technologies and depictions of the sacred, how might colonial approximations to sacred objects reimagine issues such as aesthetics, orthodoxy, and imperialism in Mexico’s evolving sacred commentary?

Author

• Beth Boyd