Rethinking “sincretismo” in Mexico: between the sacred and the profane

Abstract

Syncretism constantly occupies a standpoint based upon double critique that generates clashes and perplexity between different worlds. On such a basis, I intend to reinterpret some doubts regarding the artwork "Sincretismo" by the Mexican artist Ismael Vargas, using a filter of readings that amalgamates current paradigms and ideologies through its impact in Mexico recently. This piece of art provoked a strong echo of controversy and utterances of repudiation and criticism regarding syncretism as a phenomenon in this mestizo country. With such practices and models of domination, a new socio-cultural and even economic structure emerged via an ontological vision of politics that looks towards a ‘’crisis of identity’’. This sudden change in conception towards “Sincretismo” may contribute to the need to re-signify these cultural elements, which confer ethnic and identity issues in particular. Therefore, it argued to understand the need to organize such elements, especially with a new sociopolitical and philosophical yield of this new nation where the indigenous and the European converge.