McMuerto’s
A deadly satirical installation, McMuerto’s, critiques the commercialization of Día de los Muertos traditions within late-capitalist consumer culture. Conceived by a group of (Re)Generation artists from the Galería de la Raza including Raul Aguilar, Olivia Armas, Yesenia Cardona, Robert Garcia, Robert Karimi, John Jota Leaños, Noelia Mendoza, and Seline Szupinski- Quiroga the project first launched in 1998 and was exhibited in major Bay Area institutions including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Oakland Museum, and the Mexican Museum. Through a fictional fast-food corporation—McMuerto’s™—and its branded theme park, McTland™, the installation parodies the corporate co-optation of Mexican and Indigenous rituals, transforming sacred remembrance into mass-produced spectacle.
McMuerto’s™ claims to offer “a quick, hassle-free celebration of death” through altar item variety packs, Dead Meal™ Combos, and a magical theme park experience for children. McTland™ is a fictional space that promises a sanitized and entertaining encounter with death, inspired by Aztec cosmology but stripped of historical complexity and spiritual depth.
Visitors encounter cartoonish mascots like Ronnie Calaca and are invited to consume death as product—efficient, affordable, and better-than-authentic. Every detail in the installation mirrors the language, design, and tone of fast-food marketing, mocking the way rituals of mourning and cultural memory are simplified for easy consumption.
Cultural and Historical Context
McMuerto’s™ draws from a long tradition of Mexican satirical art, particularly the work of José Guadalupe Posada and the calavera engravings of the early 20th century, which used humor and irony to confront death and critique power. In the U.S. context, the installation also addresses how Día de los Muertos has been absorbed into mainstream commercial culture, often reduced to decorative motifs and folkloric imagery devoid of historical or political significance.
The project emerged during a time of growing visibility for Latinx culture in the public sphere, especially in California, and critically engages the contradictions of cultural representation. While Día de los Muertos gained institutional recognition and corporate appeal, artists were asking: at what cost? What gets erased when ancestral practices are packaged for mass audiences?
Installation and Experience
The installation mimics the interior branding of a franchise chain, complete with promotional posters, merchandise displays, and interactive marketing. Visitors are positioned as both consumers and participants, implicating them in the machinery of commodification. The tone is biting, yet playful—drawing audiences in through familiarity only to subvert their expectations.
By staging McTland™ in art museums, the project challenges those very institutions to reflect on their own role in shaping narratives of cultural authenticity, commodification, and public memory. The installation sits at the intersection of ethnic studies, visual culture, and performance, offering a powerful critique of how capitalism repackages cultural loss into palatable form.
Artistic and Curatorial Significance
McMuerto’s™ Inc. is an example of decolonial satire in contemporary installation art. It fuses performance, visual spectacle, and institutional critique to question how we remember—and how we consume—cultural memory. It offers a trenchant commentary on the ways sacred traditions are transformed into consumer products, particularly in contexts where Latinx and Indigenous voices have been historically marginalized.
At its core, the installation asks: what happens to cultural knowledge when it is turned into entertainment? And how do we reclaim rituals of remembrance from systems that turn death into product and ancestry into brand?
McMuerto’s Inc. was exhibited at the following venues:
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (1998)
Oakland Museum, Oakland (1999)
Mexican Museum, San Francisco (2000)
