True, most Latin Americans remain poor. In fact, in 2001 they were almost certainly relatively poorer than in the early 1960s, even if we set aside the ravages of the economic crises of the past twenty years, for not only has inequality within these countries soared, but the continent itself has lost ground internationally. Brazil may be the eighth economy of the world by the size of its GDP, Mexico the sixteenth, but per capita they rank respectively fifty-second and sixtieth. In the world’s league table of social injustice Brazil remains at the top. And yet, if one were to ask the Latin American poor to compare their life at the start of the new millennium with their parents’, let alone their grandparents’, outside a few black spots most would probably say: it is better. But in most countries they might also say: it is more unpredictable and more dangerous.

It is not for me to agree or disagree with them. After all, they are the Latin America that I went to look for, and discovered, forty years ago, the one Pablo Neruda wrote about in the marvelous baroque poem of poems about his continent, the section ‘The heights of Macchu Picchu’ in his Canto General. It ends with the invocation of the unknown builders of that dead green Inca city, through whose dead mouth the poet wants to speak:

Juan Cortapiedras, hijo de Wiracocha
Juan Comefrio, hijo de la estrella verde
Juan Piedescalzos, nieto de la turquesa

Eric Hobsbawm, “Interesting Times. A Twentieth-Century Life.” Abacus, 2003.

In 1968 Mexico City hosted the Summer Olympics. Their branding was conceived by American designer Lance Wyman and Mexican Eduardo Terrazas. Wyman is the designer of the famous Obama 08 poster with similar aesthetics to that of Mexico 68. Typography is almost illegible, covered with lines and geometrical shapes, and it recalls the patterns of the Huichole Indians.

The whole communication and signals system developed for the Olympics gave the definitive touch to what can be considered Modern Mexico. It was the first time the country organized a major international event and a great opportunity to show the world what Mexico was. The lineal typography worked perfectly as a way of identifying places. There was no need to add the word “Olympic” to a sign saying “Village” because the font itself made it evident that that location was Olympic.

When trying to explain the ideas behind his Olympics branding, Terrazas referred to the social and political commitment of a generation of Mexican artists that didn’t create for themselves, but rather for the others. This opposed to those who create under a speculative exercise, those who produce without considering their reality.

Following this concept, Terrazas puts himself as one of the last artists on a path that has Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. The path of the muralists, of those whose work cannot be conceived without reference to the place they are located in and the people they live with.