Oct. 25, 2007
Last night we went to a Fulbright-organized guided visit of an exhibition, Brújula de Cuestiones (Compass of Questions), at the OMR Gallery in the Roma neighborhood, an exhibit that seems to me quintessentially Mexican. Read on. The artist, Gabriel de la Mora, led us first into a room with a clear plastic cube that contained the remnants of a smashed life-sized piñata figure of himself; on one wall was a screen showing a video of Gabriel methodically breaking the piñata and then placing the pieces (including the head still attached to shoulders, papier mache organs, long red ribbons, and tiny red confetti - the better to represent blood), while the other wall held a smaller video showing close-up views of the same action. 
In the next room were two portraits of his father, also named Gabriel. At first view and from a distance, they appeared to be charcoal or ink drawings. Closer inspection revealed the first unusual characteristic: they were done entirely with tiny strands of human hair! And the room was filled with a sound emanating from the "cuadros sonoros", a sound we later learned was a computerized analysis of each of the sounds of the words brujula de cuestiones. One portrait was of his father at the age of 25, when he first became a priest; the other at 42 when he got married. Gabriel first learned that his father had been a priest for 13 years at his funeral, a secret revealed that had a profound existential effect on him. His conclusion: a secret is not a lie but rather a hidden truth.
In the next room were two portraits of his father, also named Gabriel. At first view and from a distance, they appeared to be charcoal or ink drawings. Closer inspection revealed the first unusual characteristic: they were done entirely with tiny strands of human hair! And the room was filled with a sound emanating from the "cuadros sonoros", a sound we later learned was a computerized analysis of each of the sounds of the words brujula de cuestiones. One portrait was of his father at the age of 25, when he first became a priest; the other at 42 when he got married. Gabriel first learned that his father had been a priest for 13 years at his funeral, a secret revealed that had a profound existential effect on him. His conclusion: a secret is not a lie but rather a hidden truth.
One other work of art was in this room - a free-form sculpture made of strands of hair tied together and forming a structure. Interestingly, the structure changes form if it is moved at all. All the hairs come from Gabriel and his family, including his deceased father and a stillborn sister. The artist had to get permits to exhume the bodies.
His father had written a book entitled Manumiso, published as a novel and later revealed as autobiography, about a priest who leaves the church. On the ground floor of the gallery, the book is placed on a shelf on one wall, and the center of the room is dominated by 38 tall cubes, each containing alphabet pasta shapes of the letters, numbers, and punctuation marks used in the book - one cube for each symbol, one pasta symbol for each time the letter, number or punctuation was used. The letter "e" was the most often used, with "a" and "i" following. This and the pinata made me wonder if the artist is obsessed with constructing meaning by deconstruction, the reverse of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.
Of greater interest was a wall full of another type of family portraiture; each member of his family, beginning with his 88-year-old grandmother and ending with young nieces and nephews, was represented by three things - skull, signature, and a five-times enlarged fingerprint. All these things were done with hair from the individual represented there. The signature and fingerprint of the stillborn sister were missing; her skull was included. The artist commented that the cranium, devoid of exterior characteristics, is universal as well as individual. Nationality, appearance, race, and sex are not apparent in a skull. On the other hand, DNA, present in the strands of hair, and fingerprints are completely individual.
One room of the exhibit displayed the whole family together on a stage, each family member represented by a fairly large marionette with personality and appearance faithfully represented; the marionettes were controlled by mechanisms mounted on the ceiling. The side and back walls served as screens for showing videos highlighting each marionette individually.
The last room was even more interesting. Exact replicas of the skulls of each member of his family (his own included) were mounted on slender rods at exactly the height of the individual (the deceased baby as if in her mother's arms).
Their shadows formed interesting patterns on the wall and floor. At this point in the exhibit, I couldn't help but think of all the skulls I've seen in Mexican art from very ancient times, the sugar skulls in the bakeries for Dia de los Muertos, the papel picado (cut paper) skull designs that decorate Day of the Dead festivities, the Catrinas, the skeleton caricatures of Guadalupe Posada. None of this strikes me as macabre, just very Mexican.
His father had written a book entitled Manumiso, published as a novel and later revealed as autobiography, about a priest who leaves the church. On the ground floor of the gallery, the book is placed on a shelf on one wall, and the center of the room is dominated by 38 tall cubes, each containing alphabet pasta shapes of the letters, numbers, and punctuation marks used in the book - one cube for each symbol, one pasta symbol for each time the letter, number or punctuation was used. The letter "e" was the most often used, with "a" and "i" following. This and the pinata made me wonder if the artist is obsessed with constructing meaning by deconstruction, the reverse of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.
Of greater interest was a wall full of another type of family portraiture; each member of his family, beginning with his 88-year-old grandmother and ending with young nieces and nephews, was represented by three things - skull, signature, and a five-times enlarged fingerprint. All these things were done with hair from the individual represented there. The signature and fingerprint of the stillborn sister were missing; her skull was included. The artist commented that the cranium, devoid of exterior characteristics, is universal as well as individual. Nationality, appearance, race, and sex are not apparent in a skull. On the other hand, DNA, present in the strands of hair, and fingerprints are completely individual.
One room of the exhibit displayed the whole family together on a stage, each family member represented by a fairly large marionette with personality and appearance faithfully represented; the marionettes were controlled by mechanisms mounted on the ceiling. The side and back walls served as screens for showing videos highlighting each marionette individually.
The last room was even more interesting. Exact replicas of the skulls of each member of his family (his own included) were mounted on slender rods at exactly the height of the individual (the deceased baby as if in her mother's arms).
Their shadows formed interesting patterns on the wall and floor. At this point in the exhibit, I couldn't help but think of all the skulls I've seen in Mexican art from very ancient times, the sugar skulls in the bakeries for Dia de los Muertos, the papel picado (cut paper) skull designs that decorate Day of the Dead festivities, the Catrinas, the skeleton caricatures of Guadalupe Posada. None of this strikes me as macabre, just very Mexican.
