The exorcist: law's crimes and art's super powers

Abstract

Rafael Cauduro's mural The Seven Crimes of Justice, situated in the Supreme Court of Mexico, speaks to the old problem of the relationship between art, politics and the State. In Mexico City, the birthplace of modern muralism, Rafael Cauduro confronts its ambivalent legacy and offers up new solutions. And at the same time, at the very heart of the legal system, Cauduro presents a critique of law and justice almost unprecedented in its uncompromising determination to lay bare the brutality of contemporary legal phenomena. This chapter examines how Cauduro's aesthetic choices address the history of modern muralism, and how his thematic choices address the history of modern law. This chapter addresses questions of time and memory, and demonstrates how the trope of the ghost has not merely aesthetic power but legal importance.