CHINGÓN CLUB: Cuando la flor se hizo furia

When the Flower Became Fury / Andros Hernández – CHINGÓN CLUB

Multidisciplinary artist Andros Hernández (Oaxaca de Juárez, 1991), known as Chingón Club, has dedicated himself to photography, illustration, sculpture, lithography, and printmaking—disciplines he learned at the Rufino Tamayo Visual Arts Workshop in his hometown, where he began his studies in 2009 and graduated at the top of his class a few years later. He started his professional career as art director for Mezcal El Silencio, where, for several years, he developed the brand’s graphic identity along with multiple projects that positioned it internationally.

Since 2019, he has worked under the artistic identity of Chingón Club, which, with a contemporary vision, combines his deepest roots and culture with international trends. As Chingón Club, Andros has collaborated with artists and Haute Couture houses such as Art Comes First (a London-based collective), American photographer Mark Powell, California-based artist Lucien Shapiro, Mexican fashion designer Carla Fernández, British fashion designer Ozwald Boateng, Mexican singer Julieta Venegas, renowned Mexican photographer Yvonne Venegas, as well as photographers Brett Gundlock and Daniel Arnold, among many others.

From August 14 to 28, Galería Claroscuro in Mexico City presents When the Flower Became Fury, a series of large-format photographs and a pair of textile pieces created with traditional techniques, in which Andros portrays images related to the Costa Chica of Oaxaca—a place where land and sea converge, holding ancient secrets rooted in the history and customs of the region’s Afro-descendant peoples.

The vestiges of these peoples live on in traditional dances, the sounds of drums, and the masks worn during carnival, which the artist presents in unconventional ways. Their African heritage dates back several centuries, when men and women were torn from their continent and enslaved. The new land looked upon them with a mix of fear and a desire to isolate them. Yet, they resisted, contributing songs, myths, and ancestral memories; from that resistance, they transformed into fire.

Over time, men emerged with a thirst for vengeance, for justice, and with fury: the “landowners’ hitmen” who, machete in hand, broke the silence imposed for centuries. This event divided some and brought others closer together, ultimately provoking an encounter that gave birth to something new—a mestizaje forged through dance, celebration, and also blood. A coastal identity blending the Afro, the Oaxacan, and the Guerrerense.

Andros’ works reveal an act of love and justice, an acknowledgment of cultural fusion and origin, of the eternal fire… The artist affirms: “To remember where we come from is not to look back: it is to affirm that we are still here, that we are still alive. Dancing with all that we were, what we are, and what we will yet become.”

With this exhibition—the 17th since its beginnings in September 2024—Galería Claroscuro, under the direction of Jeannette Arévalo Angus, begins a new cycle: a space for photography, housed in Casa Camelia, in Colonia Florida, a construction where concrete, glass, and nature coexist, providing the perfect setting for the works of Andros Hernández.