SeptiembreVol.20228
To die or not to die Under the shadow of Condor Variations AGC The half turn Fernando Salas Fucking Parthenogenesis Ernesto Ocaña Bruno Sánchez Rossanna Huerta 4 6 8 11 13 En portada: Guagnelli, Antonella (2022) Collage Digital de intervenciones a Las Meninas de Velázquez
Eventually, all the fish will die No, no… Listen, listen What I Forgot About Me Victor Rivera Rossanna Huerta M.I. Flores Nachón En índice: Piezas de la muestra Madrid Meninas Gallery 20 24 28 33 37 A chromatic sound Marcos González “Foreman" Xenophilia Ernesto Ocaña
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We could go on talking about the meaning of the painting, but clearly, despite all the information explaining its meaning or even inquiring about the characters, colors, and details that characterize it, the technical explanation and historydonotseemtosatisfythecuriosityofthevariouseyes that admire it, since its features, which even today continue to impress, such as the use of light and the focus on different planes of attention, rather than appeasing the curiosity, incite the public to try to become part of the work and be able to give their version, so it is not surprising that Las Meninas is one of the works with many variations, therefore we can observe and analyze it from different eyes, brushes, andbodies.
VARIATIONS VARIATIONS A.G.C
When looking at the work of renowned artists such as Diego Velázquez (1599 - 1660), it is not strange that more than one person would want insight into the line of thought and inspiration thatledtheartisttocreatesuchwork, wondering about his goals, techniques and even more interesting, his creative process. Therefore, when talking about one of the most visited paintings in the Prado Museum, Las Meninas (1656), probably the artist's most famous work, we can highlight the apparent simplicity of the portrayed scene, the naturality in which the 11 characters interact, and his strategic, but loose brushstrokes can be defined as anything butsimpleelementssincethecompositionoftheworkliesin these elements along with the path towards illusionism, which was one of the goals of European painting in the modernageandwhichVelázquezsucceedsindeveloping.
RancinanG.,(2009),Afterlasmeninas,photography Audouin, P., (1799), Las Meninas: the family the foreground with the Infanta Margarita Velázquez standing painting on the left, Queen reflected in the mirror in the Figgis,engravingG., (2016) Las Meninas After Velázquez, Matisse,canvas. S., (2001) Las Meninas from the Minutes.
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The family portrait of King Philip IV (1605 - 1665) managed to become more than just a painting destined for the king's summer office in the Alcázar Royal Palace in Madrid, mainly because of the determination of Diago Velázquez to prove the value and importance of his work as a painter, showing the capacity of the image to communicate and giving himself a bit ofprominencebyaddinghisportraitwhileferventlypracticing the profession. His ingenuity, creativity, and innovative way of presenting the portrait, as well as his amusing play on perspective, where it seems that the portrayed are observing the public, while the mirror at the back of the painting returns theimageofKingPhilipIVandQueenMariana with us, see the scene from the other end of encouraged artists to recreate and vary its meaning. firstpublicexhibitionofthework,andevenslightly Meninas influenced the work of such figures Goya (1746 - 1828), who was the first person painting in an etching engraving (1785), to the of 44 paintings (Las Meninas, 1957) by Pablo 1973), the sculptures of Manolo Valdés (1942) version by Genieve Figgis (1972), which with can be found, along with various elements by withinthecovercollage.
Velázquez,D.,(1656),Lasmeninas,oiloncanvas, Prado, EquipoMadrid.Crónica, (1970), LAS MENINAS, acrylic FundaciónJuanMarch
The name is the beginning of everything. A moment ago it was a remote possibility and now it is. Now you are, now we are, now you are there. Someone dies when your name dies. Your nickname, as the one who loves you calls you. Something also dies in the one who uses a unique name and suddenly is left with nothing to name, the word in the air, the diminutive, a whisper that escapes from his lips, that rests inasighthatisextinguishedwhenthelightisturnedoff.
I failed once, I failed ten thousand times and I still raise my glass to the sky."
The man who almost met Michi Panero, Nacho Vegas
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Lossistheutopianfindingofthebeginningandtheendofacircle.The lost paradise, which we lose by our will. A future we imagine as prisoners imagine freedom, more in its potential than in its possibilities.Theendseemsalie,refusingtobelieveinit,wetalkabout how absurd it would be. There is no reason for love to end, there is no reason for waking up one day and feeling unhappy, it makes no sense thatitisstillrainingatthishour.Andyet.
To understand failure as potency, as a possibility already lodged in an infinitely distant past, unattainable, incomprehensible even. Failure as a force, an anger, a rage, a powerlessness, a sadness, a delusion, a hope inthemiddleofawasteland.
Fernando Salas
Failure and loneliness are friends that seem like brothers. Whoever applauds failure rejoices in his own, whoever accompanies it wants to leave it in the past, whoever understands it knows that it is better to leave. Loneliness is the truest companion, and its absence is a consolationofafewhours.Theyareanditisandweare.
Fromafar,istheonlycatalyst forchange,theonlyproofthat,ifthereis another place, we were there once. The only evidence that we once loved are the wounds that remain, the holes, the left side of the bed where the other slept, finding oneself upset without knowing why. Hurrying to dress the nakedness. Getting used to having to see to be seenlater.Insteadyou.
T H E H A L F T U R N
life as a door that opens and closes, that the air whips, a door that is knocked not to open but to see if there is someone inside to open, to understandadoorevenasitsabsence,anon-doorbut,animaginarybuttrue limit. Only with the heart can one see well. The essential is invisible to the eyes. Boris.
Schmitz,
(2014) Gazes. @borisschmitz 7
Thereisalotofbraveryinthe“new”.Notmanycancopewithit,theylookfor something to compare it with, a story where it is talked about, an acquaintance who has already lived it, relying on something more than their own faith, which has already been defrauded so many times. Other times there is no choice but enthusiasm, a false emotion. So few have passion, so much and so quickly we lose it; what was a refuge becomes just a shadow madeofsticksinfrontofthesea.
Itwillalwaysbeeasiertobeoutsidethaninside.Thereismoreforyouinthe waiting than in the encounter, in the heat that we imagine of desire than in thefirethatistobeconsummated.Morethereisforyouintheemptinessand its possibility, things can always change and soon they will, sooner than you think.Butyouhavetobegoodatit:youhavetobelieve.
The one who believes returns to solid ground. Needs to feel the sand under his feet, to look at his bank account, to look at himself in the mirror, to know that he is still who he believes. It hurts a lot to lose, it hurts to lose oneself, to lose the other, to be thrown into the lost depths, it hurts that others can see what you lost but not you loss, that no one ever can or should or wants to be you, to look with your eyes, to love with your heart and to believe with your faith.Tounderstand
You build it up for others to tear it to pieces. You put a stone where another stone has already been put, because ideas cannot be overlapped. It is built, it is raised, it is inaugurated, it is applauded, it is opened every day until it shatters. Until the thing that was raised, inaugurated, applauded and believed in is gone. The one who does not believe is shipwrecked and invites to be shipwrecked, to sail aimlessly, to look at the sun, the birds, to feel the wind,toforgettheport,tothrowtherudderoverboardifeverythingisunity.
Ernesto Ocaña
Retired whores, says Caronte, are dead whores, they are the forgotten old women of the streets. Berta leaves and retreats to her room with her little mute, offspring of inexperience. The wordlessgirlisverybeautiful;small,tender,and lush that even her muffled screams release a sweet voice, a serene howling. His father died eons ago but perhaps he is still long-lived, perhaps he lies successful or poor and filthy becauseonlyhisadulteryiscertainatthispoint. One more of Berta’s clients or maybe her first pimp, nothing more and no one less. Berta tenderly embraces her mute progeny because her eyes recently laden with cataracts can’t see anything else with affection, but the young womanofceaselesshoarsenessignoresher.
PARTHENO GENESIS FUCKING
Alberta is huge, greasy; slowly she crawls across the spongy floor. Her massive breasts, once the sole vice of man, appear now disgusting to anyone who’s not sightless. Her wide hips carry the sadness of more than one lifetime, her deformed crimson lips have kissed even Lucifer himself. Alberta is an old whore, for the same reason she is a cheap whore and cheap whores bend over backwards looking for their daily bread. Berta, my tenderly poisonous Berta says old Alejandro — How much did you make today? And Berta, unable to speak and with her knees about to burst open, extends her fingers above her head. Only five Berta? Maybe it's time youretire,mydepravedlittleoldgrandma.
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The mute is a young whore and young whores, especially when they are beautiful, are valuable and quite expensive. The mute has only been practicing this trade for two years, but she was born to be a harlot, she always has been, she carriesinherfleshthebreathofRahab,thegreat whore of Babylon. That night, the cracked brick walls covered in cheap plaster infuse themselves with lewd condensation. It makes the wooden floor a spongy board as if it were made of cork. The soft cork hides like a tender ally Berta's heavy footsteps and those of the silent woman who yearns to free herself from her mother's beating bust. Not even the night herself notices themleavingtheprecariousbrothel.
Berta wanted to be something more than a dirty old hooker, the throatless inner girl held in her wretched bosom still keeps hope. But with her docile ignorance of any other context, she found refuge only as a matriarch in a different brothel, akindofmotherforthemostrecentMagdalenes. My dear Alberta — says Álvaro with what seems genuine affection — You should have come years ago, that ancient lout never understood how to trulyappreciateyou—saysÁlvarowithrecorded desire — You were always a woman of such class, a jewel trapped between gravel and street corners. Álvaro, — murmurs Berta with her endemic weariness — I have but one condition, grant this and I shall be yours, I'm not going to allow Helena to follow this path of shameless begging That's how it will be Alberta, I hadn't thought otherwise he says while possessed by Hephaestushecaressesthosedisgustingbreasts.
What is it that men see in the little mute that fills them with morbid adrenaline, with deathseeking ecstasy? — Tartarus wonders. As if at that moment they shift their hips in unison, Hades could take them with a smile on their face. Said a nun, herself full of irony, it's the misanthropy in her eyes; Christ save me, for I would take her too. The hushed one, carrying inside the soul of an old whore, walks on this new concrete floor, light and quiet as on cork, conferringonherfeetthegiftofhersilence.AndsheentersÁlvaro'sroom,wheretheinfernal succubus who gave her disgusting life still sleeps. But this cute little creature is not a murderer, it is the teddy bear who smothers her mother in dreams at the same time that Helena suffers from pleasure that’s almost carnal, followed by sweet melancholy. Hecate and Persephone have welcomed the bear into their kingdom. In her enchantment and fury, the mute runs with her bear to her room and shatters the hot lightbulb between her gentle fist, theworldinstillswithdarkness,itlooksnowclosertoheroldabode.AndGodwhispersashe oglesherbreastswithomniscience—Youmaycrynowmydamned,littlemute.
10 Inspired by Electra's Myth
The voiceless woman pulls out her hair in her innocuous pink prison, without heels or garters, without crimson lipstick because it is a room for young girls who still possess innocence. She knows that the place where a creature sleeps must be the color of their soul. She does not sleep, she does not speak, she thinks of the dark night when she cannot say "I love you" or shout, "I hate you" and that is why she has sex filled with anguish and turns her backonhermother.Alejandrolovedherdeeply,almostthreetimesaweek;helovedherwith thesweetsincerityofsomeonewhoonlydesiresone’sbody.Hewastheonewhogaveherthat oldstuffedteddybear.Anditisthatcuddlyandfeltcubheronlyfamily,herson,herbrother, andevenlover.
that is the question Rossana Huerta
Todieor nottodie
Isitbecau itisconsidered insulttoartistswhodedicatehoursandhourstomakingtheirwork?
Ican'thelpbutlaughatthesecomments,I'msorry.Apparentlypaintingandartwilldieatthehands of artificial intelligence. The image made by Jason Allen called “Space Opera Theater” has won the prize of the Annual Colorado State Competition and the public is extremely offended that he used anartificialintelligenceprogramtocreatetheimagewesee.
Thepaintingisdead!Theartistisdead!Artisnotart!
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Let's be honest, the tool you used (Midjourney) could be classified in the same group as Photoshop, Illustrator or even Canvas, tools that many artists use for all kinds of pieces. At the end of the day, themachinedoesn'tgenerateanyimagesunlesstheuserfollowscertainsteps,soitseemstomelike using a more sophisticated brush. In addition, it is not the first time that we observe this type of comments. Let's go back to the creation of the photographic camera, critics pointed to the complete deathofart,wewillnolongerneedpainterssincewewillhaveusersofphotography—inthiscaseI refusetousethewordphotographerbecausethecamerawasstillconsideredascientificapparatus, notanartisticone.Conservativecriticsdon'tlikeanything,ifapaintingishyper-realistictheycallit excessive,ifit'snon-mimetictheycallithamparte,andifit'smadewithdigitaltools,it'snotart.And surely they will ask me: So what is art? It is everything and nothing at the same time. We will never be able to define the art that is created today with the same criteria that were used 20 years ago, muchlesswiththoseof200yearsago.Thebeautyofartisthatwegiveeachofusourowndefinition basedonoursubjectivity.
There will be people who will continue to be obsessed with the "purity" of art, and we will have no wayofchangingtheiropinion.Whatwecandoisquestionwhatweunderstandaboutart,attheend ofthedayitislikeagamethathumanbeingshaveusedforthousandsofyearsfordifferentreasons. The discussion is absurd, painting has not died and will not die as long as there is still a public that observesit.Letusleaveourprejudicesandconceptions aboutthefineartswheretheyshouldbe,in the19thcentury,inthehereandnowtheyareofnousetous.
12 Roose,K.(2022)AnAIGeneratedPictureWonanArtPrize.ArtistsAren’tHappy.NY https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/technology/ai-artificial-intelligence-artists.htmlTimes
At first glance, and considering the circumstances, it is a captivating image that takes us into a fictional world. However, the amount of detail that can be seen on the edges of the portal is so intricate that I don't think a novice hand could have achieved it without outside help. Was it a mistake to use a tool/device such as artificial intelligence? In my opinion, the answer would be “no, it was not a mistake”. The NY Times interviewed the artist and at no time did he hide the means by whichthepiecewasmade,thejudgescouldobserveanddetermineifhisentrywasvalid.Andno,he didn't take the award away from someone with a "real painting" since it entered the digital art category(Roose,2022).
NowifwelookatitfromthepointofviewofNewMediaArt,Allenhasbecomenotonlyanartistbut a programmer and a writer. Not only has he designed a series of instructions to follow so that the software could capture theimage hehadplanned, buthehas managed tounite two arts, letters and plastic arts. The way Midjourney works is by entering words so that the artificial intelligence generates the image based on the information provided. It is one more step towards transmediality, Allen has commented that he had to make several attempts to make the image produced be as we see it. Several attempts of different texts, that is, to enter the world of letters that can best describe hisvision.Prose,verse,haiku,anyofthesewillhaveanewspaceinthistrend.
BrunoSánchez
efore exploring the metaphor of the title, it would be useful to know its literalness. The Condor; better known as <<vulture>>, it is a scavenger bird, that is, it feeds on the meat of its prey, generally still alive. The main one that characterizes its popular disdain, unlike other carrion birds such as the eagle (historically represented as a national symbol) or the raven (used as literary inspiration), is the crude reason for the attack on its prey, which is not surprising giventhenatureofhisneeds,
UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE CONDOR
but if he stands out in bad zeal for his impudent inclemency when attacking. In a flock they ambush their prey; Generally newborns, some futilely confront the mother to neglect her calf, who is the one who suffers the attack as such, being pierced multiple timesbyravenousbeaks,tearingoutherliving flesh until long after she dies. They are not tame like eagles or hawks, nor adaptable to foreign environments like ravens, they are organized and intelligent like their peers, but they use their skills with greedy savages, waiting for the bloody opportunity to satisfy themselvesandwithoutmore.
B
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The purpose of the plan was to destabilize and even decimate all democratic identity in Latin America, imposing, through coups and economic isolation, military dictatorships bordering on fascism, which carried out state terrorism, leaving countless dead, disappeared and exiled. Submitting these disrupted countries as living experiments of the first germinating ideas of neoliberalism in exchange for benefiting from the excessive privatization of basic needs as services of merit and thus facilitating the appropriation and exploitation of natural resources in the region for their uncontrolled production for, almost exclusively, the North American market, that that plan to dismember almost an entire continent alive was called "Plan Condor".
Although the discreet political interference of the United States in Latin America long precedes the creationoftheplanitself,itformalized,alreadyin an indiscreet way, the present characteristic US interventionism as a state policy with purely and merely economic interests to satiate itself. same and nothing else. Wrongly, but just as conveniently, he claims responsibility for the coup d'état in Chile on September 11, 1973, which, with British fighter planes and CIA personnel on the spot, stormed major cities with US-trained military and paramilitary forces. USA, to then bomb the presidential palace where the democratically elected president Salvador Allende, a socialist, died and allowed the imposition of the authoritarian military dictator AugustoPinochet,
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CONDOR PLAN
It was appropriate that the plan US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger devised and coordinated in cooperation withtheintelligenceservices(official and unofficial) of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, ParaguayandUruguayinordertopersecuteand“ eradicate" any individual, group or symbol associated with the left, affiliated or not to the USSR, to everything that appeared to have red tints of socialism and communism...or rather, in reality, everyone and that affected by means of a greater political and economic independence not unanimously aligned with US economic interests, even as vain and inconsequential as said “consequences”wouldhavebeenforAmericans.
from the extreme right, as the most wellknown and emblematic event of the Condor plan, although in reality the The plan was officially implemented in 1975, two years after the coup. However, Chile's modus operandi was used in a similar way in the other countries where it was exercised, so it was in that context, witnessing first-hand the currentimpotenceofthepopulationbeforea power foreign in every aspect to that of the majority. and with an uncertain and undermined future looming in the region, thispaintingemerged.
OSWALDO GUAYASAMÍN
Los niños muertos, de Oswaldo Guayasamín, 1941
One of the most important names when referring to the voice of indigenism, class struggle and interventionism in Latin America during the 20th century, politically intimate struggles that were expressed in the art world as he was part of the guild; part of the system, although mutually uncomfortable due to their active protest and popular participation in mobilizations of the proletarian left; at a time when those movements still had a pulse. This, along with several renowned intellectuals of the guild such as the poet Pablo Neruda, the composer Víctor Jara, the musician Ángel Parra and the painters Rufino Tamayo and José ClementeOrozcowhowashismentor.
He was the 1st of ten children of the marriage between his indigenous Kichwa father and his mestizo mother, he grew up in the urban rurality ofthecityofQuito,Ecuador,in1919.Asachild,hediscoveredhisartistic interest by drawing caricatures of his friends and teachers and by paintinglandscapesonanycanvasavailabletohiminordertosellthem in the main square of the city. He manages to enter the Quito School of Fine Arts to study painting and architecture. Along with his studies, the "four-day war" took place, a civil uprising between the liberal government and the opposition conservative side, a confrontation that caused thousands of deaths in the capital, including his best friend in frontofhim,resultinginhisfirstgreatwork“Thedeadchildren”.
Lágrimas de Sangre, de Oswaldo Guayasamín, 1973.
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IN
Pabloexpressionism.Neruda
and Oswaldo Guayasamín met in 1943, in Mexico, throughDiegoRivera.EverytimeGuayasamínwenttoChile,hevisited Neruda, and vice versa. In one of his exhibitions, in 1970, after Allende's electoral victory, Neruda read the speech "Entrance to Guayasamín",presentingitattheendsaying:
At the age of 23, he held his first exhibition in Quito, which caused great scandal due to its marked character of social denunciation. The criticism of the moment denounced it as a confrontationwiththedogmastaughtbytheSchoolofFineArts atsuchalevelthatitcouldhaverestrictedhiscareer,however,it was because of that first fateful exhibition that he was discovered by who would be his sponsor for years, Nelson. Rockefeller. With this support, he traveled to the United States tolaterliveinMexicoasClementeOrozco'sassistant. This is how Guayasamín managed to concretize the critical intentions embodied in his works as a discourse that combined the strength of the indigenous theme, of the proletarian movements and the realities of injustices that would increasingly worsen along with his work. This paralleled his interpretation of the modernist avant-gardes of the turn of the century,especiallycubismand
1942 16
“Ipresent,anditisagreathonorforme,thisgerminalandessential painter,surethathisuniversecanbesustained,evenifitthreatens uslikeacosmiccollapse.Let'sthinkbeforeenteringhispainting, becauseitwillnotbeeasyforustogoback…”.
Víctor Jara was tortured and shot by the army in the first weeks ofthedictatorship.
The examples of his contemporaries above are all Chilean with an intention, his most famous painting “Tears of blood”; created inhisartisticperiodappropriatelycalled"Theeraoffury",itwas not only created as an outburst of frustration after the coup, but alsoasamourningprocessforAllende,NerudaandJara,threeof his great friends who They died a few days after the coup and because of the "ideological correctness" that the new regime imposed.
PabloNerudawasawardedtheNobelPrizeforLiteraturein1971 for"apoetrythat,withtheactionofanelementalforce,giveslife to the destiny and dreams of a continent." In 1973, days after the coup, Neruda died suddenly, presumably poisoned by agents of the dictatorship. The very night of his death, the army entered hishouseontheBlackIslandandburnedallhisbooks.
Pablo Neruda recibiendo el Premio Nobel de Literatura, 1971.
Ángel Parra was arrested in the following days, but managed to be released a year later, he lived in exile in France continuing withhisrecordingwork.
Retrato de Neruda, 1962
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Mural a la Patria, Oswaldo Guayasamín, 1988
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IT WAS DURING THE "ERA OF FURY"
That Guayasamín dedicated his work to portraits of a social nature, usually illustrating the weight of poverty, injustice, authoritarianism and racism on the destruction of the individual. The works of that era could be interpreted as illustrations of protest showing the reality that the view of political responsibility fails to observe or decides to ignore. It emphasized those themes prioritizing the hands as a representation of the proletariat, the innocent or simply hysteria or anonymous desperation, placing the alleged gestures in the foreground as if the subject were asking, begging or protesting at the moment the viewer is present, beggingformercy.
The nuances used, cold and monochromatically dark with straight lines that highlight the gestures of desperation, contribute to this atmosphere. The exposure of the emotional rawness of those faces is Guayasamín's way of demonstrating how man has been thrown into madness or pain due to anincreasinglydehumanizedsociety.
The condor operation ceased to be a state secret a long time ago, but that means that it cannot continue to be carried out, much less continue to experience its consequences. The uchrony of Latin America is uncertain, with or without US interference, but despite the fact that, in a hypothetical case, if the Latin Americansocialistexperimenthadfollowedits planned path and failed, the only consolation then would be to know that its fate was in the hands of the crowds in our streets and not in the hands of a small group at a desk so many countriesaway.
Just as remarkable as the context is the painting itself. The philosopher Cicero said that the face is an image of the mind with the eyes as an interpreteranddespitethefactthatthesubjectin the work covers most of his face, it is his eyes that express what cannot be conjugated, the gaze of impotence, unlike the other works of this same era, "Lágrimas de sangre" stands out because it is the only one that is not asking, begging or protesting, it is a reaction that there is nothing I can do but look, observe unable; perhaps to the September sky, while his decisions not yet made andhisdestinynotyetwritten, lostallvalidityfor the one who never gave him a look, that's what he looks at, his fearful defeat. Fear is the essence of the work, from the crooked fingers in disbelief leading up to the staring stunned eyes and the black background, without any clarity of what is coming.
The operation as such and the US interference in the region is public knowledge and popular culture, despite going unnoticed, or rather avoided, by the mainstream Hollywood industry. It is for this reason, and with necessary reason, that it is up to Latin Americans to place the main emphasis on direct and abstract memory, not of an event, but of a series of decisions beyond the will and needs of the popular majority. in order to balance a war of ego destined to culminate "triumphant" but at a great cost that, in the long term, the consequences of their actions will end up consuming the one who caused the causes, like the urovoros eating itself until the endofitsownparadox.
The US's imposed dependence symmetrical. Returning a little to ornithology, the condor, after his life of dictating death in his own judgment, his ends up presumably "committing suicide" then; Like humans, theyareanimals thatdependonsocialization. Itcould beananticlimactic and unfairending,butthepoeticresolutionofthisispresentedbyunderstandingtheaction that defeats such a predator: the condor ends its own life when it is too old to continue huntingorisabandonedintotalsolitude.
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OneofthelastworksofOswaldoGuayasamínwastomakethegreatmulti-historical and cultural mural in the renewed Ecuadorian congress, where he did not overlook the opportunity and historical convenience, to evoke a last remembrance to the constantspectatorsofeachsession.
Agente de la CIA, 1988 Presidential Palace Chile
you listen to those records after almost 40 years, you may not feel anything. The first song will be, if anything, very good, but by the fourth you will want to stop listening. And it's not that they're bad songs, but it's also the moment that is capable of defining moments in yourlife.
I especially remember the pleasure it gave me to hear the distortion on the guitars, the overdrivethatalsobroughtmeclosertobands likeDefLeppard,Warrant,Poison,Whitesnake, Van Halen and many others. However, it was the pianist, David Bryan, who unknowingly taught me how to play the piano. I took a few classes during those years, but my immaturity kept me from appreciating them. Later, when I was close to 18, I fell in love with the rock and rollthat'Wildinthestreets'professed.,Ibegan to watch videos, tutorials, and pay for private lessons sporadically. I also listened a lot to whatotherssaidandthenrepliedback.
At some point, the car stopped at the Niños Héroesstation,andthecasegraduallybegantobe related to everything. And it is that he had been partofwhatwasmyfavoritebandforalongtime, and anyone can imagine the relevance of this. I suddenly felt nostalgic remembering the first time I saw a live video of the band. I had heard some songs on the radio and I would have seen the video for 'Bad Medicine' for sure on VH1, but I never watched anything like that. It was a 1985 concert, where the band played songs from their first and second albums, like 'Tokyo road', 'Only lonely', 'In and out of love', 'Get ready', but withoutadoubtnothingandnobodypreparedfor Really,'Runaway'.when
That was my moment, seeing Richie Sambora, performing 'Dry county', being the only guitarist in the band, at a time when “making noise” was the most important thing. When I was 16 I knew some of his riffs, and I even downloaded tablature and sheet music creation programs hoping to be able to understandmusictheorywithglammetal:the intervals, the progressions, the harmonies, everything else, without ever having even takenclasses..
However, when I took the road test, everything changed. 12-year-olds wore the same pieces buttheyinterpretedthemperfectly.They at sight, and I could barely follow readings exercises. Of course I didn't stay, and I againeither.Iknewthenwhereitreallywaslocated.
I put my collection of Bon Jovi records in the under my bed, and my desk began to be decked with sheet music by Scarlatti and Bach. little I entered Mozart, Haydn and when, to me, I had already understood him, I transition to Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt. disrespectful way, I began to learn everything, way I understood it, without a teacher, scores, without technique. Of course, my workedatanacceleratedrate.
When I had already practiced forturned 2 as a pianist, I took music theory classes months, but still without a teacher to practice withoutmyownpiano.Shortlyafter,Itook to enter the Faculty of Music at UNAM. The divided into two parts: theoretical and Some of my friends who had taken the first had been studying even longer than I had, pass.SinceIdidpassit,IthoughtIwaskindofgifted: without a teacher, without prior knowledge, extramerit:doingityoungandinsuchashorttime.
I took the same line that I use to get to work and for a few months it was enough for me to learn simple progressions of songs like 'Always' and 'Bed of roses'. But I still didn't reach my goal. At university I felt strange, because while everyone discussed again and again about the great adventure of Gilgamesh, the Argonauts, the abduction of Europe, the conquests of El Cid and chivalric novels, my mind increasingly translated everything into music, in figures, chords and resolutions.Suddenly,notonlywaspopular alsobecamemoreinteresting.
Ittookmeashorttimetorecover,butIabandonedthestudyroutinesofmorethan8hours.Without a clear motivation to continue playing, I began to create my own songs and, stranded in what the new generations call “the crisis of the twenties”; life put the music of Fito Páez in front of me. I identifiedwithhimalot:amusicianprisonerofhistime,whoisnottechnicallygifted,butwhohasa different mind, with ideas that sometimes go beyond him. That's also why I made Argentine rock didn't know how it was, I realized that I as others, he was no longer as smart as thing I want to talk about. I became brave, motivationtolearnmusichadbeenBonJovi,butI can say is that now I can listen to his and I imagine playing it in front of my audience, who are the people who are sitting in and waiting for me to continue moving I feel that music has defined my life, in same way that a subway car moves: sometimes the movement is abrupt and sometimes the path is short, but there are those, few,whereeverythinggoesslowly,andI think, and to enjoy those memories, and ances one station only to stop at the next, the end of the road. Enjoying each of these hard, everyday life is not pleasant for even music can lose its impetus and joy, hat each song gave to each moment of my what I treasure today, those "moments ” Alec was more than just the ex-Bon Jovi
Ernesto Ocaña
Is it possible to feel nostalgic for things you don't know and places you've never been? Recognize what does not live in memories and evoke unknown faces in the soul? Can youmisstheimpenetrableandreconditeor yearn for the loves we lost because we never met them in the first place? Once, a long time ago, I had a philosophy professor who claimed it was possible, and sought to capture it through photography, intending to capture the ethos of déjà-vu through his camera in order to force it into people's leeringgaze.
IndulgentAlterity
The truth is that we always seek to relate to the unknown, but instead of seeking to know it to become intimate with it, we idealize it to possess it. Ancient Rome, upon invading and destroying the Greek world, became so infatuated that its culture disappeared within its obsession and its identity transformed into imitation. There is a rumor that surfs the internet that assures that the faces we see in dreams are always traces of those we’ve seen in the waking world, and that it is impossible to invent faces while sleeping. It's not something that we can actually check with current technology, it will probably never be possible. However, according to our current understanding of neurological behavior, it is most likely that like most things we consider human, faces in dreams are just mixtures of the elements that have already taken refuge in our
Theminds.mystery
That'swhatwedowithextraterrestriallife,they can be like in E.T. (1982) or in Lilo & Stitch 2002) mysterious friends of fantastic biology, they can give life to social anxieties like the post-terroristinvadersofSpielberg'sWarofthe Worlds (2005) or Michael Bay's psychopathic Transformers (2007), or they can inhabit the mechanical space between the erotic and violent like the Xenomorphs designed by HR Giger for Alien (1979). We assign human nature to aliens, spirits and demons, entities that most likely do not exist, at the same time we tend to replace the humanity of cultures and people who very definitely already have one of their ownwithothermorefickleexistences.
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of the foreign and the unknown is synonymous with its multiple possibilities. Alien life takes so many forms in our culture and imagination that possible bacterial life on Jupiter's moons seems dull by comparison. The revelación of a mystery always disappoints our expectations, and for this reason we close ourselves before the majestic possibilities of reality, we prefer our complacent version of things. But like the faces that inhabit our dreams, the foreign in our mind takes the chimerical form of already known desires. The unknown, as long as it remains as such, is usually indulgent with our vices, desires and whims.
I don't think I can feel nostalgia for the unknown or the foreign, unless I reinterpret it through fetish. Orientalism is thetermthatencompassesallthestereotypesoftheEastern worldasacounterparttothesupposedvaluesoftheWest,it represents cultural escapism through the objectification of a distant otherness. Our global culture is riddled with Orientalismandnowhereisthisclearerthanonfilm,Mulan (1998), Raiders oftheLostArk(1981),IsleofDogs(218),The Mummy(1999),orMemoirsofaGeisha(2005)areexamples of the artistic diversity of the stereotype. The orientalist interpretation of the foreign does not allow intimacy, only objectificationandthereforeit’simpossibletofeelnostalgia fortheunknownaslongasitdoesnotceasetobe
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Orientalismunknown.likealien
life is full of possibilities and all of them are at least slightly dehumanizing. Aladdin (1992) perfectly exemplifies the aesthetics of Arab orientalism, the palaces of impossible proportions surrounded by abjectpoverty,theopulencehighlightedbyamiserythat only serves to contextualize luxury on a clearer note. An Orientalistreadingdescribeswithoutanalyzing, itisalso never rigid, it adapts according to its needs. Eastern women can be seductive creatures with silent mouths, naked stomachs and extremities, modesty liberating and freeofdecorum;theycanalsobesubmissive,infantilized, ignorant and ignored beings, in need of salvation. The same duality is present in India and Japan, in the Philippines, in Cairo, in Hong Kong and in Seoul. They are places at once exotic and alienating, magnificent and oppressive, disgusting and humble, apparently real and undeniablyimagined.
It is such a human trait that perhaps it’s inevitable, we fall in love with the unknown because we can reinvent such a thing at our whim.This is how tourists who visit Cancun
Just like faces in dreams, I cannot form new ideas, only reinterpret the ones I already have, theonlywaytoexperiencewhatisforeigntome is by coming into contact with it. A year or two after presenting his first photography exhibition on the nostalgia of the unknown, thatprofessorwentontoliveinJapanashehad always wanted, with a Murakami book under hisarm,amindfullofhope,anddeliriuminhis heart.
and do not leave their hotel fall in love with Mexico, this is how social media falls in love with the humility and kindness of Keanu Reeves, this is how awkward teenagers fall in love with Korean bands or Japanese subcultures, this is how we fall in love of that neighbor that we see sometimes in the gym and that,inordernotcausebreakhearttoourselves, weplannevertomeetforthefirsttime.
Xenophilia is an impossibility, we cannot truly love what we do not know, that we have not accepted and that has not touched our intimacy. The objectification of what is foreign does not necessarily come from malice or manipulation but usually from possibly intentional ignorance. The gentile orientalism of Wes Anderson in Darjeeling Limited (2007) is, for example, innocent rather than perverse. Danny Boyle learned with Slumdog Millionaire (2008) that social critique is easier when you don't even know the society you seek to criticize. We speak of a courteous, gallant and even heroic xenophobia, of a prejudice that makes an exception when it can get something inreturn.
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z“Foreman"
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GilbertoAcevesNavarro
"Topaintyouneedtouseeverythingyouhaveinsideandthrowitawayfrom you. Any idea about your capacity, speed, depth, is pure foolishness. What matters is to surprise yourself with an emotion and find yourself on another planet..."
hMost of the time writing about one's own work is difficult, given the ease with which we begin to ramble about our daily chores. It happens that a single idea jumps to one other, suddenly you want to go back to the beginning and then follow the line of another one... the same thing happens when painting, that stain that was just painted over was apparently very good, however, it unbalances the composition and since it was covered with another stain. Maybe it should not have been covered because that is where the painting was. A lot of my process is like that, back and forth. I start by imaginingsomething,thendrawing,thengluingpapertogether...Willitbeworthdoingitonalarger scale? Will it be pure acrylic... with oil... and also with aerosol? Straight to oil? Let's get back to our paper.
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My work since I finished studying visual arts at the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) has been purely pictorial. I began my exploration of the discursive scope of figurative painting starting from urban landscapes and chromatic scenarios, since in those pieces I denounced through the characters, the fiction of the modern and digital era, the slow progresstowardsthatidyllicfuturefullofwelfare.One that nevertheless, still does not arrive for most of society, as well as the uniformity of individuals from capitalism. Later these landscapes were reduced to mere material and abstract compositions of small format, in which the accumulation of paint on the support generated a personal reflection on the pictorial discipline as an exercise of memory and knowledge, as well as a metaphor about the personal construct that originates from the accumulation of experience the same way painting is shaped by the accumulation of gestures about support. After that process of exploration between "figurative" and "abstract" painting, my process has become a back and forth combining both languages, quoting songs that play while I am either smearing paintings or drawing, usingphotographstakenfrommyarchiveinwhichare portrayed old buildings, demolished and covered with graffiti,thisisbecauseIaminterestedinthatnatureof abandonment in the city, that which stands out before the polished, the chromed and already accepted is whatreallycatchesmyattention.
@foreman_one marcos.fore@gmail.com 32
During the last years I have worked from and throughcumbia,becauseasachildonSaturdaysI listened to the sonidero in the distance, from eight or nine at night until about one in the morning. I did not know that people went to the sonideros to dance, I only heard greetings and good cumbia music. At some point I had the opportunity to see one of those live shows and I remember the excitement brought to me by the color of the lights and the rhythmic dancing, the movement of the light show. How could I hang onto those colors? That was my question as a child. Suddenly when I began to paint, I discovered that there were colors similar to those lightsinacrylic pots.From mymemory Ibeganto explore the neon colors, the undertaking took me several years. It ended with a couple of series of paintings, of medium and large format in which I deposited what I had learned in those years, chromatic rhythms, neon atmospheres that wandered within the space of the painting, compositions that danced within the painting, I titledthem"Thesoundofcumbia".
Currently my work is in the process of reformulation. Ijustrecentlydisplayedaseriesof drawings entitled "Much art, little fun". It was not in a gallery but in a skateboard store. Sometimes youhavetotakeabreakandcreatedistancefrom what you do and see what else can emerge, what new paths can be taken and above all, try not to lose the curiosity and the spark that produced all those years of work. There are always ideas, there are always art pieces in my head that want to come out. Which ones will come out? Which ones won't? Will they be paintings, animations or installations?
Flores, María (2022) Eventualmente, los peces van a morir [Obra digital realizada a partir de Dall E Programa de IA]
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allthefishwilldie Artificial
EVENTUALLY, Intelligence and the road that leads to the death of art
M.I. Flores Nachón
One could already count with the fingers of one hand the number of times I have devoted articles to the discussion of what is art and still, the conversation is far from over. Recently the sphere took a turn with the heatedconfrontationthatarosefromtheworkThéâtre D'opera Spatial (2022) by Jason Allen. Winner of first place at the Colorado State Fair in the digital art category, the work received an unmeasurable amount of negative comments for being described as an ArtificialIntelligenceproduction.
"We are watching the death of art unfold before our eyes "
Allen, Jason (2022) Théâtre D’opera Spatial [ Obra digital realizada a partir de Midjourney Programa de IA]
Direct quote from users on Twitter.
Artistic production has been separated from other traditionally visual fields and is facing what conservative scholars call The Death of Art. From Hegelian understanding, art has been presented instages.ThefirstistheSymbolic,withmanifestationsdirectlylinkedtoaculticandritualreligious sense. A second stage, known as Classic, is understood from an anthropomorphic turn that centers theentireimagefromandthroughtheman.ThethirdstageisknownastheRomantic,inwhichman faces his own finitude. The human being understands his death and becomes aware of his ephemeralstay.
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ExampleslikeOneandThreeChairs(1965)by Joseph Kosuth, the late Hermann Nitsch pioneer of Viennese Actionism, and Jenny Holzner with Men Don't Protect Us Anymore (1990), demonstrate that art goes beyond an image, defying even the canons of beauty, and managing to compose art from the formulation of sentences, concepts. However, wehavebeenshownthatunderstandingisnot alwayscompatiblewithtaste.
The art detaches itself from the image. The image is nothing more than an envelope of rational content, linked to the spirit of the time and the world's thought system. Without recognizing the above, art is not understood and its appreciation and pleasure is decimated. Art becomes not something to see, but something to understand and the balancing of both sides. With the twists, turns, and changes in the stages of artistic production, it is considered that the manifestation that had resembled the concept isnolongerart.
Holzner, Jenny (1990) Men don't protect us anymore
Jason Allen, the producer of Théâtre D'opera Spatial, defends his image as art. And without falling into etymological repetitions, art is technique. I join Allen's defense, and even moresowithhisargumentofthemorethan80 hours, 900 images, and alterations he sought to reach the final result. The work was the result of the union of concepts, phrases, sentences, variations, and editions in PhotoShop made from the inspired mind of Allen in conjunction with an Artificial Intelligenceimagegeneratorprogram.
Kosuth, Joseph (1965) Una y Tres sillas
Nitsch, Hermann Performance
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People talk about a Death of Art when they really should talk about aDeathofArtHistory because itisnotartistic production that has ceased, but rather the way of classifying art that has become obsolete due to the fact that the art object has now got rid of its visible envelope, and is covered with more conceptual
Danto,ArthurC,andElenaNeermanRodríguez.AfterTheEndOfArt.
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There is talk of a lack of creativity on behalf of Allen who has declared himself a non-artist, however, I find fault with the argument after stopping tothinkabout thetimeittakestojust sit down to write a congruent sentence.Much more taking into accounthowcomplicateditistomakethiscongruentsentence aesthetically pleasing and getting it to match the image that I hadinmind. It would be necessary to define art in order to be able to judge if it has died or if it is something else that has come to an end. Art, as Professor Laurence LeBouhellec always said, escapes its definition. If our definition of art is limited to a narrative history painting of a war scene, why would we deny the works of Hermann Nitsch? If we analyze the content and the way of thinking,thereisnodifferencebetweenthetwo.Anothergreat example would be, Jenny Holzer, in essence, produces not something alien to The Rape (1868) by Edgar Degas. Art has adjusted to the spirit of the time and the world's thought system. Part of this transformation of the image has to do with technology, causing an artistic and technological rethinking thatescapesstyle.
content.Finally,
Hegel,GeorgWilhelmFriedrich,andAlfredoBrotónMuñoz.LessonsonAesthetics.Akal,2007.
Degas, Edgar (1868) La Violación [Óleo sobre tela]
I want to close with a hopeful comment and an ironic one; Let us remember that for every end, there is a beginning. FromtheDeathofArtthereisarebirthandthisisnothingmore and nothing less than the definition of the work itself. The producer is the one who decides whether or not his work is artistic production. On the other hand, it seems that Jason Allen's work is fascinating, from its production process to its culmination and its aesthetic veil. It is a beautiful piece to appreciate,evenfrommyscreen.Wecomplainaboutuglyart,we complainaboutbeautifulart.Inshort,nothingpleasesus.
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This is because each song is designed to fit with the beginning of the next song to make it seem like the 2nd song is still part of the first song, thus creating what seems to be an endlessloop.
AlbumEnjoy.availableonSpotifyandYoutube.
No, no… listen, listen
No, no... seriously, listen to this album: Shuffle Drones. It's one of those albums that can make you travel through time, inspire you or bring out the tears you've had stuck in your eyes for thelastcoupleofweeks.
Rossanna Huerta Romero
It is a 13 song album that is easily just 13 minutes or even 13,000 minutes of different combinationsbetweeneachofthesongs.
It'snotclassicalmusic,it'snotwhitesound,the best I could describe it is as ambient orchestra with no end and no beginning. Use in order to disrupt your listening habits and imagine a thousandnewworlds.
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