In Très Mall, Derek G. Larson creates a surreal and philosophically charged satire set within an endless shopping mall, an allegory for consumption and mediated existence in late capitalism. The ongoing animated series features guest voices including Noam Chomsky, David Joselit, Priyamvada Gopal, McKenzie Wark and Boris Groys, situating its characters within conversations on aesthetics, media, and political theory. Through painterly digital animation and absurdist humor, Très Mall examines how systems of validation, ideology, and spectacle circulate through contemporary culture.
Presented alongside Made in Mexico: The Anti-Communist Cartoons of Dibujos Animados S.A. (1952–56), Larson’s research-based project reveals a little-known chapter of Cold War cultural diplomacy. Produced in Mexico under the auspices of the U.S. Information Agency, these animated shorts combined modernist design with anti-Communist messaging to advance American political interests across Latin America. In collaboration with Byron Davies and Carlos Oliva Mendoza, Larson reexamines these works through archival materials, newly digitized excerpts, and critical essays, exposing animation’s dual role as both aesthetic experiment and ideological instrument. Together, the two projects trace animation’s entanglement with power, from Cold War persuasion to the soft coercion of consumer culture, suggesting that cartoons in all their forms continue to mirror the conditions of political life.
New York, NY
Très Mall Full Series on DIS
Santa Lucía del Camino, September 24, 2023, Archivo General del Estado de Oaxaca (The General Archive of the State of Oaxaca AGEO), in collaboration with the Salón de Cines Múltiples (Sacimu), held the screening and discussion "Mexican Animation, Propaganda and the Cold War," about the anti-communist propaganda project carried out in Mexico from 1952 to 1956 with the support of the United States government.
7pm Wednesday, February 11, 2026
