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N U E VA LUZ Vol. 4 No. 2

pboto^raplji c journal Editor Charles Biasiny-Rivera Associate Editor Betty Wilde Production Editor Miriam Romais Designer/Art Director Frank Gimpaya Translator Ronald Torres Distributors Total Circulation Services Ubiquity Distributors, Inc. Bernhard DeBoer, Inc. Printing Expedi Press

Nueva Luz (ISSN 0887-5855) is a photographic journal published by En Foco, Inc, a not-for-profit national visual arts organization, 32 East Kingsbriage Road, Bronx, New York 10468, (718) 584-7718. Single issue price is $5.00; Individual Membership is $2500 and includes four issues of Nueva Luz, subscrip tion to Critical Mass Newsletter and Slide Registry application; Institutional Subscriptions are $40.00; International Memberships are $35.00; Supporting Membership is $150.00 and also includes a free catalog and poster from a major En Foco exhibition. Portfolios of at least 15 unmounted prints or slides may be submitted for viewing. If mailed, the prints may be no larger than ll”xl4”. A self-addressed stamped env elope and appropriate packaging must accompany all mailed portfolios to insure proper return. We do not assume responsibility for unsolicited photographs or manuscripts sent by mail. Photographers wishing to deliver portfolios in person must call our office to make arrangements. For advertising rates ana distribution contact En Foco, Inc.

Copyright © 1993 by En Foco, Inc. All Rights Reserved Nueva Luz is made possible with funding by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer ana the Bronx Delegation of the New York City Council, Bronx Council on the Arts through the Regional Arts Partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts, and The National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. All rights reserved. Nothing may be reproduced or published in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher, En Foco, Inc.

Editorial Pa £ e

irst. I would, like to acknowledge Guest Editor Shifra dlfc Goldman whose selections provide a unique vision of the contributions of three Chicano photographers. I actually wrote this editorial in response to Mexican photographer Pedro Meyer’s request to me regarding my thoughts on the Digital Revolution, for publication in his new book and CD ROM disk accompanying his exhibition “Documentary Fictions/Digital Realities . While in the maternity ward at the hospital, waiting for my daughter Amelia Francesca to make her visible entry into this world, 1 began trying to connect The Digital Revolution to something that's important to me. My newborn daughter comes into a world that's full of technological wonders; an electronic tide of change is washing up on the shores of underdeveloped nations and some that are overdeveloped in the wrong places. Whole encyclopedias are being copied onto pancake sized disks while we watch, live, a Desert Storm war on our home television screens as if it were a new video game. All the holy books throughout history are now recorded in a tape library and can be retrieved at the touch of a blinking button or, if you prefer, you can watch the evening news on the latest in ethnic cleansing that's taking place in eastern Europe. The brave new world I envisioned while growing up during the Second World War was one of justice triumphing over the forces of evil and then we would all return to the task of creating a nation that Buck Rogers would be proud of. We aid that and then realized that Buck Rogers was a WASP, spoke only English and didn’t have an accent. Now we deftly step over the moaning bodies that carry the cardboard siigns identifying themselves as the soulless, taking care not to look into their eyes for fear we may actually experience the depth of that abandonment. I am ashamed of the callouses that have grown around my heart and can only address the malady of the dispirited through my art and work. I once thought that perhaps the best thing that could happen was that we would have an enormous flood that would wash the sorrow of mankind, leaving the world at a new beginning. We would all be the new people and all the wisdom of history would be made available to us so that we could build a new world based on the goodness we could bring to each other. I think I want to spend the rest of my years encouraging Amelia Francesca to be one of the new people.

n primer lugar, quiero expresargran agradecimiento a nuestra redactora invitada, Shifra Goldman, por sus escritos que revelan una vision extraordinaria de los aportes de estos tres fotografos chicanos. En verdad he redactado esta pagina editorial a instancias del fotdgrafo mejicano Pedro Meyer auien solicito mi opinion sobre la Revolucidn Digital, para publicarlo en su nuevo libro y el DC ROM que circularan al mismo tiempo que abra su exposicion “Documentales de Ficcion/Realidades Digitales.” Mientras esperaba en el pabellon de maternidad a que mi hija, Amelia Francesca, hiciera su entrada a este mundo, comenze a relacionar la Revolucidn Digital con algo que es importante para ml Mi hijita llega a un mundo lleno de maravillas tecnoldgicas; una marea de cambios electronicos esta arribando a las playas de las naciones subdesarrolladas y a las de otras que estan en desarrollo en aspectos equivocados. Se comprimen enciclopedias completas en disquitos mientras que podemos mirar al vivo” las tacticas de la guerra del Golforersico en la bantalla chica como si fueran juegos de video. Todas las Sagradas Escrituras que nos ha aado la historia estan ahora disponibles en bibliotecas electronicas y se pueden obtener con solo oprimir un boton o, siprefiere, se pueden observar en las noticias de la noche los mas recientes acontecimientos de la limpieza etnica que esta ocurriendo en Europa occidental. El mundo feliz que yo vislumbraba cuando estaba formandome durante laSegunda Guerra Mundial era el de la justicia triunfando sobre las fuerzas del mal y que todos retornaramos a la tarea de crear una nacion de la que Buck Rogers se sintiera orgulloso. Eso hicimos y luego nos dimos cuenta de que Buck Rogers era un WASP (un bianco anglosajon protestante), que hablaba ingles solamente y que hablaba sin acento. Ahora pisamos muy habilmente los cuerpos gimientes que sostienen los letreros de carton identificandose como aesamparados del alma, cuidandonos de no mirarles a los ojos por temor a no adentrar en la realidad de su abandono. Me avergiienzo del endurecimiento de mi corazon y solo puedo dirigir mis pensamientos a las desgracias de los abatidos por medio de mi arte y labor. Una vez pense que lo mejor que pudiera pasar seria que un gran diluvio eliminara toao el sufrimiento de la humanidad y que el mundo tuviera un nuevo comienzo. Que todos fueramos nuevos seres y que toda la sabiduria del mundo nuevo edificandolo con la bondad que nos brinddramos los unos a los otros. Creo que me gustaria pasar el resto de mis dias motivando a Amelia Francesca para que sea uno de esos nuevos seres.

Charles Biasiny-Rivera Editor

Table of Corjteijtj; Editorial............................................. Kathy Vargas..................................... Robert C. Buitron.............................. Laura Aguilar.................................... Commentary by Shifra M. Goldman. Comentario........................................

........page 1 ..pages 2-11 ..pages 12-21 .pages 22-31 .....page 32 ..... page 33

Cover Photograph: Kathy Vargas, untitled, Oracidn.- Valentine’s Day/Day of the Dead series, 1990-1991 Gelatin silver print, 24”x 20”. 1

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Photographer, curator, and arts consultant Kathy Vargas was born ana raised in San Antonio, Texas and is currently the Visual Arts Director of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio, Texas. She has taught photography at the University of Texas at San Antonio and at the HealyMurphy Learning Center, TX. She also worked as an arts writer and critic and free lance photographer for the San Antonio Light. She received her M.F.A. from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1984. Vargas’ solo exhibitions include a retrospective in Erlangen, Germany; Sala Uno in Rome, Italy; Galeria Juan Martin in Mexico City, Mexico; and the Houston Center for Photography in Houston, TX. Group shows include Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation (CARA), a touring exhibition organized by UCLA’s Weight Gallery; From Media to Metaphor: Art about Aids organized by Independent Curators, Inc; and A Look at Art in Texas, organized by the Aspen Art Museum. She is on the board of Art Matters, Inc; the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression; and the Steering Committee of Arts for Life, a group of artists fundraising for AIDS service organizations in San Antonio, TX. She has also been appointed co-chair of the Studio Art Program for the College Art Associations annual meeting in 1995. Vargas has served on numerous funding panels, including the National Endowment for the Arts’ first bi-national panel. "... there were the very real memories of my childhood: how my grandmother had introduced me to death. These memories impact the experiences of the present: beloved friends dying of AIDS. I felt the need to express not only the topical, the solid and actual, but also the “quicksilver,” non solid moments which could not be made completely concrete but were more about memory, dream and myth. I realized that my culture was about both types of moments.” All photographs are from the Oracion: Valentine’s Day/Day of the Dead series, 1990-1991.

Kalfyy Var£a<;

untitled, 1990-91. Gelatin silver print, 24”x 20”.

Kall>y Var£a<;

untitled, 1990-91. Gelatin silver print, 24”x 20”.

Kalfyy VarÂŁa?

untitled, 1990-91. Gelatin silver print, 24"x 20".

Ratify Var£a?

untitled, 1990-91. Gelatin silver print, 24”x 20”.

untitled, 1990-91. Gelatin silver print, 24"x 20â&#x20AC;?.

Kalfyy Var£a«;

untitled, 1990-91. Gelatin silver print, 24"x 20".

Kalby VarÂŁa<i

untitled, 1990-91. Gelatin silver print, 24"x 20".

Kall>y VarÂŁa<>

untitled, 1990-91. Gelatin silver print, 20"x 24".

untitled, 1990-91. Gelatin silver print, 24â&#x20AC;?x 20".

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Robert C. Builrop

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Robert C. Buitron was born in East Chicago, Indiana in 1953. He received a B.F.A. in Photography from Arizona State University in 1980, and is currently working on his Masters at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Buitron’s exhibitions include The Center for Creative Photography, Tuscon, AZ; University Art Museum at Arizona Mate University; Camerawork, London, UK; Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, San Antonio, TX; The Alternative Museum, NYC; The Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY; the University of Colorado in Boulaer, CQ Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego. CA; an En Foco exhibition at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY; University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN; The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, CA; an En Foco exhibition at The New Museum of Contemporary Art, NYC; the University of Erlangen-Nurnberg in West Germany; El Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City. He received The Photographers Work Grant from the Maine Photographic Workshops in 1986, a 1984 Olympics Photographic Commission Project from the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies and the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, and a Visual Artist Fellowship in Photography from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1982. His work is self published in the 1992, 1991 and 1990 calendars entitled Road to Tenochtitl&n, Ixtacdhuatl y PopocatepetL.The Legend Continues, and The Legend of Ixtacdhuatl y Popocatepetl, respectively. His work has also been published in Afterimage, Artspace, American Photographer, and Ariztlan. “This work represents my experiences and perspective as a Chicano. The work addresses many topical issues of today, such as gender, culture, society, ana politics, combined with history and my vision. In particular it addresses the Chicano community and questions of assimilation and displacement, heritage and invisibility, customs and change. However, beneath all these concerns lies an artesian well of humor to help remove self-imposed limitations, to reveal irony, and to enjoy life.”

All photographs are from the Legend of Ixtacdhuatl y Popocatepetl series.

Robert C. Builroi)

lxtaccihuatl y Popocatepetl... The Legend Continues, 1990. Gelatin silver print, 8 3/4â&#x20AC;?x 111/2â&#x20AC;&#x153;.

Robert C. Builrop

El Camino Real, 1991. Gelatin silver print, 9 l/8”x 111/4”.

Robert C. Builroi)

lxta Dates a Nazi Skinhead, 1989. Gelatin silver print, 9 l/2â&#x20AC;?x 11112".

Robert C. Buitroi)

lxta y Popo Visit Old Friends, 1991. Gelatin silver print, 91/8"x 111/4â&#x20AC;?.

Robert C. Builrop

Road to Tenochtitlan, 1991. Gelatin silver print, 9 l/8â&#x20AC;?x 11 3/8â&#x20AC;?.

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Ixta Ponders Leverage Buyout, 1989. Gelatin silver print, 9 3/8â&#x20AC;?x 12â&#x20AC;?.

Robert C. Buitrop

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Ixta Lavando la Ropa de Popo, 1989. Gelatin silver print, 8 3/4”x 11112".

Robert C. Buitrop

iPinches Cabrones, Me Copiaron la Pirdmide!, 1990. Gelatin silver print, 8 7/8"x 111/2â&#x20AC;?.

Robert C. Builrop

Manifest Destiny, 1991. Gelatin silver print, 6 5/8"x 113/8â&#x20AC;?.

Laura Aguilar : V .. .

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Laura Aguilar was born in 1959 in San Gabriel, California. Aguilar attended the photography program at East Los Angeles Community College ana continued her studies with The Friends of Photography Workshop and Santa Fe Photographic Workshop. Her work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Italy: the Los Angeles City Hall Bridge Gallery, the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles Photography Center, Womens Center Gallery at the University of California in Santa Barbara, Self Help Graphics, all in CA; and the University of Illinois in Chicago, IL. She was an Artist in Residence at Light Works in Syracuse, NY in 1993; received a Brody Grant from the California Community Foundation in 1992; received an Artist in Residence grant from the California Arts Council through the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center of Los Angeles in 1991/92; and an Artist’s Project Grant from LACE in that same year. Her work has been published in Art in America, Visions Art Quarterly, Frame-Work: the Journal of Images and Culture, ana The Photo Review. “My artistic goal is to create photographic images that compassionately render the human experience, revealed through the lives of individuals in the lesbian/gay and/or persons of color communities. My work is a collaboration between the sitters and myself, intended to be viewed by a cross-cultural audience. Hopefully the universal elements in the work can be recognized by other individuals or communities and can initiate the viewer to new experiences about gays, lesbian and people of color."

All photographs are from the Clothed/Unclothed series.

Laura Aguilar

untitled, 1990. Gelatin silver diptych, 20â&#x20AC;? x 32".

Laura Aguilar

untitled, 1993. Gelatin silver diptych, 20" x 32".

Laura Aguilar

untitled, 1992. Gelatin silver diptych, 20" x 32".

Laura Aguilar

untitled, 1993. Gelatin silver diptych, 20â&#x20AC;? x 32".

Laura Aguilar

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untitled,, 1992. Gelatin silver diptych, 20â&#x20AC;? x 32".

Laura Aguilar

untitled, 1992. Gelatin silver diptych, 20â&#x20AC;? x 32".

Laura Aguilar

untitled, 1993. Gelatin silver diptych, 20â&#x20AC;? x 32".

Laura Aguilar

untitled, 1992. Gelatin silver diptych, 20" x 32".

Laura Aguilar

untitled, 1993. Gelatin silver diptych, 20" x 32".

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Between the Shadow and the Light: Toward a Politics of the Human Spirit

hree Chicano photographers present a spectrum of the human concerns and the poetics that have marked the Chicano art movement since its genesis in the 1960s. The first or pionero generation is represented by Kathy Vargas of San Antonio, Texas, and Robert Buitrdn of Phoenix, Arizona; and the second generation by Laura Aguilar of Los Angeles, California. It is notable that all three began their fascination with photography as documentarians; that all three are moving in new directions that bring them closer to their subject matter and diminish the space between the photographic self and the objects or subjects of contemplation. In a sense, all three are autobiographical although their own persona may not appear in the photographs, buitron remains the most outwardly oriented, masking his personal self behind historical personages and constructed panoramas (the male protagonist of his narrative could just as easily be himself); Vargas and Aguilar strike a feminist (or womanist) chord, that of an intimate exploration of the self through metaphor, or the self as extended to others in a very personal way.

Oracidn: Valentines DayIDay of the Dead Kathy Vargas is deeply immersed in a meditation on death. Not necessarily on its morbid aspects which seem characteristic of the Protestant ethos from central and western Europe - especially in the English-speaking countries - but on death as part of a continuum, death as the natural counterpart of life, death as integral to life’s renewal. Rising above the pain of death, transcending by evoking memory, by lifting her image from the darkness into the light, Vargas changes mourning into celebration. In her “Prayer” series, Vargas has linked love and death: a conjunction of Valentine’s Day and the Day of the Dead. Oddly enough, both commemorations are “pagan” (i.e. pre-Christian) in origin: both were syncretized with Catholic rituals after Christianity swept over the Roman and the bre-Cortesian Mexican worlds. with a delicacy so fragile that it verges on the invisible, like that of an X-ray, Vargas presents the skeletal emblem of death, whose chest cavity in life would contain the beating heart. And in fact, along with details of the skeleton, a flaming heart on a cord appears, along with the shadows of gauze, flowers, pins, twigs, thorns, torn paper, lipstick kisses like two breasts, and milagros (tiny silver miracle-working figures of human body parts). We move from the bony chest to the legs, the feet, the hand, all seen in transparent layers. However, the flatness of the image, its photographic nature, is stressed by the rows of arrows derived from photographic products. The kneeling milagro stays with us as the artist shifts from sacred hearts to Valentine hearts bathed in light: as lockets, as decorations, with arrows through them suggesting the ravages of Cupid. Love is also beset with pain: the thorns remain, the heart is pierced, but the kisses are revived. Death may be held in check but it is the reverse side of love. “My photographs.”says the artist, “are about a confrontation with the realness of death, but also about the persistence of memory.” The Legend of Ixtaccihuatl & Popocatepetl Ixtaccihuatl, the “White Woman” or “Sleeping Woman” (Sleeping Beauty?), is a flat-topped, snow-covered volcano on the highest rim of mountains surrounding the Valley of Mexico. Next to her is the vertical “Smoking Mountain,” Popocatepetl, who guard her eternal sleep. Both were early Aztec fertility gods. The romantic story of Ixta and Popo (as they are familiarly called) is one of an Aztec princess and her warrior lover falsely

reported missing in battle. The princess died, and upon his return Popo built two great pyramids for Ixta and himself where he stands holding a torch. This legend of the tragic lovers, however, is doubtless a modern fabrication, glamorized in the 1940s on commercial Mexican calendars. It is fitting that Buitrdn, alive to popular culture, revived the theme for three calendars (1990-1992) in a narrative laced with humor and irony. With great feather headdresses, they enjoy the domestic life, high technology, and high finance of the urban U.S, with an Ixta and Popo “La Fortuna“ calendar appearing as a leit-motif for indoor settings. They even vacation in the Southwest, in border towns, Mexico City/Tenochtitlan (where they find the Teotihuacan rain god Tlaloc in front of the Museum of Anthropology), and Paris (the courtyard of the Louvre where an AsianAmerican architect has constructed a postmodern pyramid). When Ixta (as herself, as Eve garlanded with a great snake, as the bearer of the god Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent) dates a reformed Nazi skinhead (a metaphor not only for Romeo and Juliet, but for the complexities of crossculturalism) we have some idea of the many-layered levels of Buitrdns allegory. The Columbus Quincentenary and European colonialism are invoked when Ixta and Popo on their motorcycle confront their first (horseless) Spanish conquistador. The narrative ends on a surreal Bunuelan note with a parody of the Last Supper and the First Thanksgiving (the Indians’ “last supper”), as a stand-in for Manifest Destiny, symbol of U.S. neocolonialism in the New World, if the concept is comeaic and deconstructive, Buitrdn also demonstrates a sharp compositional eye. Horizontal for the calendar format, his tableaux are carefully staged with a symmetrical one-point perspective, or with pron ronounced diagonals. On the “Camino Real” Popo repeats the stance of Fred Flintstone across the highway. At the Louvre, a complex set of triangles are created by Popo and the pyramid, not missing the possibilities of a crucifixion” stance at the heart of European culture. Clothed/Unclothed series Laura Aguilar treats with great sensitivity and daring another type of contemporary cross-culturalism - that of comparing the clothed personalities of mixed and single race couples, mixed and same gender partners, and single individuals who are strikingly different not only in their stances when clothed or naked, but from each other. Beyond that, she confronts openly, in our youth and diet-oriented society, the denial of humanity and its corresponding sexuality to large, full-bodied, nonmuscular men and women, gay lesbian or straight. The issues of nudity and body size and shape go very deep in our puritanical brainwashed society, saturated with inhibiting and psychologically destructive models of the beautiful and the acceptable human form, color, and behavior. Aguilars portraits strike us by how human they truly are, neither denatured- as in the case of Mabjdethorpe’s models - oy being reduced to men who are primarily bodies in action, nor distorted by becoming vehicles for merchandizing like fashion models who offer us the impossible profile, shape and size, the totally artificial pose. Set against dark backgrounds, each person is directed toward the camera and photographer; these are not wholly casual or relaxed poses. As one observer has commented. “Aguilar wishes to create positive and beautiful representations of people of color in the nude. The softer, more vulnerable side, the side not usually seen in public is evoked by aiptychs in which it is impossible to ignore a sexually charged intensity.” Shifra M. Goldman Guest Editor

Shifra M. Goldman is an art historian with a specialization in modern Latin America, and is a Research Associate with the Latin American Center, UCLA, California. Her collection of essays, Dimensions of the Americas: Art and Social Change in Latin America and the United States, will be published in 1994 (University of Chicago Press) and she is working on Chicano Art: Continuities and Changes, for publication by the National Council for Culture and Art, Mexico City, Mexico.

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Entre la Sombra y la Luz: Hacia una Politica del Espiritu del ser Humano

Esta leyenda tragica de los amantes es indudablemente de fabricacion res fotografos chicanos nos presentan una gran variedad de las ____ preocupaciones humanas y la vision poetica que han caracterizado moderna, a la cual se le dio publicidad en los calendarios comerciales el movimiento del arte chicano desde su gestacion en los anos de la decada mexicanos de los anos 40 con todos sus elementos hechiceros. Era pues de de los 60. La primera generacion de vanguardia esta representada por Kathy esperarse que Buitrdn, fiel a la cultura popular, reviviera este tema para Vargas, de San Antonio, Texas y Robert Buitrdn de Phoenix, Arizona; y la tres calenaarios (1990-1992) con una narrativa entrelazada de humor e segunda por Laura Aguilar de Los Angeles, California. ironia. Con grandes penachos, ellos disfrutan los placeres de la vida Es importante notar que los tres dieron inicio a su fascinacidn con domestica. la alta tecnologia y los cauaales economicos de las zonas la fotografia como documentaristas; los tres se estdn moviendo hacia urbanas ae los Estados Unidos, con Ixta y Popo en el calendario “La nuevas dimensiones que los acerca mas al tema de su predileccidn y Fortuna” como un tema central para decoraciones interiores. Inclusive se aproxima mas aun la camara a sus objetos o sujetos de contemplacidn. En van de vacaciones al suroeste, a los pueblos fronterizos, a Ciudad un sentido, los tres tienen una inclinacidn autobiogrdfica aunque ellos MexicolTenochtitldn (donde se encuentran con Tlaloc, el dios de la lluvia mismos no aparezcan en las fotografias. Buitrdn es el que va mas alia, oriundo de la ciudad de Teotihuacan, frente al Museo de Antropologia), y a disfrazando su persona con personajes historicos(los protagonistas Paris (el patio del Louvre, donde un arquitecto asiatico-americano ha masculinos de su narrativa fotogrdfica muy bien pudieran ser el mismo); construido una piramide post-modernista). Cuando Ixta (representada como Vargas y Aguilar palpan la vena feminista (o “mujerista’), la cual es una ella misma, como Eva con una gran serpiente de guirnalda, como la exploracion del ser por medio de la metafora, o la indagacion del ser que se portadora del dios Quetzalcoatl, la serpiente emplumaaa, tiene una cita con manifiesta hacia los demas de manera muy personal un nazi reformado con la cabeza rapada (una metafora no solamente de Romeo y Julieta, sino de las complejiaades del aculturamiento), nos damos Oracidn: Dia de San Valentin/Dia de los Muertos cuenta ae las muchas vetas que tiene la alegoria de Buitrdn. Kathy Vargas esta completamente embebida en una contemplacidn El quinto centenario de Coldn y del colonialismo europeo se de la muerte, pero no necesariamente en suaspecto morboso - este barece invocan cuando Ixta y Popo en su motocicleta se enfrentan con su primer ser el distintivo de los protestantes de Europa central y occidental, conquistador espanol (sin corcel). La narrativa finaliza con una nota especialmente en los paises angloparlantes - sino la muerte como parte de surrealista de Bunuel con una parodia de La Ultima Cena y el primer Dia una continuidad, la muerte como el equilibrio natural de la vida la muerte de Accion de Gracias (”la ultima cena” India), como suplente del Destino formando parte de la renovacidn de la vida. Al rebasar el dolor de la Manifiesto, simbolo del neo-colonialismo americano en el Nuevo Mundo. muerte, al transcendaria evocando los recuerdos, y al liberar su imagen de Si el concepto sea una de comedia o de desconstruccion, Buitrdn demuestra la oscuridad e iluminaria, Vargas torna el luto en un regociio. En su serie tener un ojo cl'mico para la composicidn. Puestos de forma horizontal para “Oraciones,” Vargas enlaza el amor y la muerte: una fusion del Dia de San cenirse a las dimensiones del calendario, sus cuadros estdn cuidadosamente Valentin y el Dia de los Muertos. Es un tanto extrano, que ambas escenificados con una perspectiva simetrica esbecifica, o con diagonales celebraciones son consideradas de origen “pagano” (eso es, pre-cristianas): bronunciadas. En Camino Real Popo repite fa misma actitud de Fred ambas fueron reconciliadas con ritos catolicos luego que el cristianismo Flintstone (Pedro Picapiedra) al atravesar la carretera. En el Louvre, un arraso con el mundo romano y el mundo mexicano antes de Cortes. juego de triangulos comblejos son creados por Popo y la biramide, sin Con una delicadeza tan fragil que raya en lo invisible, a ignorar las posibilidades ae una escena de “cruxificionen el nucleo a e la semejanza de rayos X, Vargas nos presenta el emblema esqueletico de la cultura europea. muerte, cuya cavidad toraxica contendria en vida un corazon latiendo; y, de hecho, junto con los detalles del esqueleto abarece un corazon en brasas en La serie de Vestidos/Desnudos una cuerda, ademds de sombras de gaza, flores, alfileres, ramitas, espinas, Laura Aguilar trata con gran sensibilidad y audacia otro tipo de papel roto, besos con creyon de labios semejando dos pechos, y milagros aculturacion contemboranea - comparando personalidades vestidas de (pequenas figuras milagrosas de plata de las partes del cuerpo humano). parejas de razas mezcfadas o de igual raza, con parejas de ambos sexos y de Nos trasladamos del pecho huesudo a las biernas, los pies, la mano, todos un mismo sexo, y con individuos que son marcadamente distintos en sus vistos en capas transparentes. Sin embargo, la superficie plana de la imagen, escenarios no solo cuando estdn vestidos o desnudos, sino que tambien son su naturaleza fotogrdfica, se acentua con las hileras de flechas que se diferentes uno del otro. Allende a todo esto, ella enfrenta abiertamente, en derivan de los productos fotograficos. El milagro de hinojos no se nos borra nuestra sociedad encauzada hacia la juventud y hacia los beneficios de un delamentemientrasqueel artistavacambiandodesagradoscorazonesa regimen de dieta, la negacion de la humanidad y su correspondiente corazones de San Valentin banados en luz: como medallones, como sexualidad hacia los hombres y mujeres corpulentos y sin musculos, ya adornos, con flechas atravesadas que sugieren los estragos de Cupido. El sean homosexuales, lesbianas y heterosexuales. Los temas de la desnudez, amor esta tambien acosado por el aolor; quedan las espinas, el corazon esta del tamano del cuerpo y la figura tienen en efecto muy profundo en berforado, pero se reviven los besos. La muerte se mantiene a raya, pero es nuestra sociedad impregnada ae buritanismo, saturados con los cohibidos y la otra cara del amor. “Mis fotografias sugieren un enfrentamiento con la sicoldgicamente destructivos moaelos de la gente hermosa como tambien de realidad de la muerte, pero tambien con la perseverancia de la memoria.” la figura humana. color y comportamiento aceptables. Los retratos de Aguuar nos asombran l por lo verdaderamente humanos aue son, que no La Leyenda de Ixtaccihuatl y Popocatepetl ^ „ estdn desbrovistos de naturaleza - como es el caso de los modelos de Ixtaccihuatl, “la mujer blanca” o “la mujer durmiente” Qla bella Mapplethorpe, que se limitan puramente a hombres que son durmiente?). es un volcan con una cumbre liana coronada de nieve en la primordialmente cuerpos en movimiento - ni tampoco distorcionados al parte mas alta de la cordillera de montafias que rodea el Valle de Mexico, convertirse en vehiculos para el comercio como los modelos de modas que cuyo vecino es la “montana llameante,” Popocatepetl, en vigilia del eterno nos ofrecen el perfil, figura y tamano imposibles, la pose totalmente sueno de Ixta. Desde muy temprano en la historia de los aztecas. ambos artificial. En trasfondos oscuros, cada persona esta dirigida hacia la camara fueron considerados dioses de la fertilidad. La historia romantica de Ixta y y el fotografo; estas no son boses completamente casuales o relajadas. Un Popo (como se les llama carinosamente) se trata de una princesa azteca y de observador ha comentado: “Aguilar desea crear representaciones al desnudo su amante guerrero, quien se creyd equivocadamente que perdid la vida en positivas y hermosas de gente de diferentes origenes. La parte mas fragil y el frente. La princesa murid, y a su regreso Popo construyd dos piramides mds vulnerable, la parte que usualmente no se capta en publico es evocada grandes para Ixta y para el donde el se encuentra sujetando una antorcha. en dipticas en las cuales es notable una intensidad cargada de sexualidad. Shifra M. Goldman Guest Editor

Shifra M. Goldman es una historiadora especializada en arte latinoamericano moderno, y es lnvestigadora Asociada del Latin American Center, UCLA, California. Su coleccion de ensayos, Dimensions of the Americas: Art and Social Change in Latin America and the United States, sera publicada en 1994 (Universit} of Chicago Press), y al presente esta preparando Chicano Art: Continuities and Changes, cuja publicaciori estard a cargo del Consejo Nacional de Cultura y Arte, Ciudade Mexico, Mexico.

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