NARRATOR:  

Artist Enrique Chagoya explains some of the ideas that led to this drawing, 4 U 2 C.  

ENRIQUE CHAGOYA:  

This drawing began as part of a series of drawings I did back in the mid ’80s. I decided to make a whole series of cartoonish drawings – I was mostly expressing my own outrage towards certain political issues. I didn’t want to make art, necessarily, I didn’t want to make something too precious. So I looked for the cheapest materials, like paper and charcoal. 

The 4 U 2 C drawing is about 2 characters witnessing a blast – a nuclear explosion or a big blow that something is happening in front of them – any kind of blast that went wrong. And both of them to me are representing something unexpected. Especially when I thought of their hats blowing off their heads. I associate this with my own childhood, I saw a lot of American TV and a lot of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. And one of the funniest things I remember was looking at the hats blowing off their heads. And I always hoped to find a way I could do that with my own hats. 

I like to use the heavy masses of black, up to a point that it gets really velvety, and then play with my hands– do a lot of fingerprints all over the paper. The other element that I use, in terms of color, is just a little bit of red. There is a lot of symbology behind the use of red and black: in Nazi swastikas that have backgrounds that are black and red, or the anarchists, in Mexico at least, since the 19th century the anarchist flag is black and red, or in ancient mythology from Meso-America, there is many many groups that made books with black and red. Because the black and red symbolized an interaction of opposites that represents knowledge.