Abstract

Rafael Cauduro’s mural The Seven Crimes of Justice, situated in the Supreme Court of Mexico, speaks to the old problem of the relationship between art, politics and the State. In Mexico City, the birthplace of modern muralism, Rafael Cauduro confronts its ambivalent legacy and offers up new solutions. And at the same time, at the very heart of the legal system, Cauduro presents a critique of law and justice almost unprecedented in its uncompromising determination to lay bare the brutality of contemporary legal phenomena, not just in Mexico but around the world. This essay examines how Cauduro’s aesthetic choices address the history of modern muralism, and how his thematic choices address the history of modern law. But above all, how do these two modes of representation, the visual and the legal, actually relate to one another? Murals and law have something in common—a belief in the force of walls. The Seven Crimes of Justice binds this common thematic together in a remarkable work that has to date attracted little critical attention. This essay gives it the attention it deserves, focusing on questions of time and memory, and of the relationship between the force of law and the force of art.

摘要

位于墨西哥最高法院的拉斐尔·考杜罗 (Rafael Cauduro) 的壁画《正义的七种罪行》讲述了艺术、政治和国家之间关系的老问题。在现代壁画的发源地墨西哥城，拉斐尔·考杜罗（Rafael Cauduro）直面其矛盾的遗产，并提出了新的解决方案。与此同时，在法律体系的核心，考杜罗以毫不妥协的决心揭露当代法律现象的残酷性，不仅在墨西哥，而且在世界各地，对法律和正义的批判几乎是前所未有的。本文探讨了考杜罗的美学选择如何处理现代壁画的历史，以及他的主题选择如何处理现代法律的历史。但最重要的是，这两种表现方式，视觉和法律，实际上如何？相互关联？壁画和法律有一个共同点——相信墙的力量。《正义的七种罪行》将这一共同主题结合在一部杰出的作品中，迄今为止几乎没有引起任何批评。这篇文章给予它应有的关注，关注时间和记忆的问题，以及法律的力量和艺术的力量之间的关系。