This chapter focuses on the watershed curatorial project Mexperimental: 60 Years of Avant-Garde Media Arts from Mexico. Curated in 1998 by Jesse Lerner and Rita Gonzalez as a visual and conceptual probe into the post-Mexican condition, Mexperimental has had an enduring impact on the ethics of curation and pedagogy of moving images. One of the incurable-images of Mexican modernity and visual culture is the maguey plant, which has left an enduring impression on the anthropological, political, optical, and curatorial unconscious of post-revolutionary Mexico. The chapter examines three contemporary experimental documentaries that propose an alternative montage to nationalist and vanguardista uses of the maguey: Rubén Gámez's Magueyes (1962), Olivier Debroise's Un Banquete En Tetlapayac (2000), and Jesse Lerner's Magnavoz (2006).
