MEXICAN VIDEO TODAY.
The first serious attempts at video as art,
began in Mexico in the early 70's.
In this period the work of pioneers like Pola Weiss and Corkidi
created a solid
platformfor a group of artists using
video as a mobile and expressive weapon to build a message typical of
their generation. The boom of young talent emerged five years ago.
Their views are entised by a technological affair and the idea of
fastness. Educated in the original Looney Toons, used to fragmental
views, incoherent grammar, special effects, in
short, the fall of traditional narrative.
The final result is an absolutely heterogeneous group of individuals
with video as the only common language, the heterogeneity
is clearly reflected in the different
approaches, technical and conceptual.
Today, mexican video is flourishing.
Because of few spaces open to this art and the lack of access to
technology, videoartists have organized themselves independently and
with their own initiave have reached a deffinite presence in the
cultural landscape of Mexico.
XP VIM 95 is a selection of the main video makers in Mexico.
Text by Elías Levín y Juan José Díaz
Infante
The different categories in which Elías and I catalogued this
exhibition show video in Mexico beyond a deceiving nationalistic
clasification.
The medium and the sacred
Every individual mexican experiences the cultural inheritance of
their ancestors on a daily basis. The rituals have survived one way
or the other. In many cases they are passed along verbally or by
custom, from one generation to the next in a profound assimilation of
past and present, to create a future that does'nt belong to
either.
Mexico has been conquered several times and has had many rulers and
the mixing of the customs and the rituals is the reality of
today.
Moctezuma, Cortez, Hidalgo, Maximiliano, Porfirio Díaz, Zapata
and the Mexican of today, are dramatically different , therefore they
make a beautiful mixture in which is a constant fountain of motifs.
The elements mixed in many occasions (not necessarily ceremonies)
belong independantly to either prehispanic, hispanic, or posthispanic
cultures, the rituals are able to cohexist even in extreme parallel
realities
Mexico's cathedral is built on top of a pyramid, the pyramid on top
of a salted lake and all because of an eagle ate a serpent on top of
a cactus. The result is that Mexico has catholic shamans (sacred
men)
We are a country that was sent into freedom by a Priest using as his
flag the virgin Mary.
It is so very difficult to understand today´s relationship
between the medium and the sacred, isolating it in a sterile
compartment of the video screen The ritual is in Mexico a natural way
of life
1.- Videondas (Videowaves)
author: Gustavo Vazquez
2.- Corazón sangrante (Bleeding heart)
author: Ximena Cuevas
3.- Cuaderno de Apuntes ( Notebook ) Fragments
author : Ximena Cuevas
4.- A Cuadro ( Framed )
author: Gustavo Dominguez.
5.- Ergo Sum Qui Sum.
author:Alberto Rodriguez.
ANIMATION AND COMPUTERS
Even though new technology is unaccesible in Mexico, some
videoartists have found the way to work with computer equipment, and
experiment with it, in a direct form - with machines- or in a
undirect form - talking about them.
1.-Paisaje doméstico (Domestic landscape)
author: Antonio Albanes
2.--Lokophonia
author: Coitus interuptus
3.- Simplemente atrapados (Simply Trapped)
Author: Tito Lara, Mónica Raya, Juan José Díaz
Infante
4.- Bientos huracanados
author:Carmen Wright.
5.- C++
author: Antonio Arango
WOMEN MAKING VIDEOS
1.-Mi corazón (My heart)
author: Pola Weiss.
2.-En las nubes (In the Clouds)
author: Lisy Montserrat .
3.- Mis otros rostros (My other faces)
author: Lillian Haugen
4.- Telema
author: Lidya Neri
THE WORLD
1.- Vestigios (Remains)
author: Jorge Castillo
2.- Vivos entre oscuros (Alive between the dark)
author: Carlos Salom
3.- Opus (poemas)
author: Javier Moron.
4.- En memoria de los que aún no han muerto (In memoriam of
them, the ones who have not died)
author: Domenico Capelo
The World
Science and misscommunication have distorted the perceived "whole"
and have made the world inextricably complex. This selection is based
on themes of universal importance. We all worry about the same
situations, some of us in Suajili and some of us in Spanish. We have
the same concern, the phenomenon of "being"*.
VIDEOMAGAZINE
1.- Video Front 1 and 2.
author: Eduardo Velez, Angel Cosmos
2.- Tañido de imagenes (Tinted Images)
author: Antonio Noyola
(La Ollestra)
3.- La Caja (The Box)
author:THE BOX
4.- La Caxa
author: La Caxa
BODY AND SENSES
In a culture were matter is the food of the spirit, people speak of
the body and the senses through every perspective. It's not a new
idea, Mullbridge used photography to study human movement, since
then, body and senses are treated again and again.
1.- In Porta Infero
author : Sergio Ulloa.
2.- Estudio para Cuello y Ventana ( Study for neck and window)
author: Miguel Navarro.
3.- Festín en Mictlán ( Party in Mictlan )
author : Jaroslav Lemka.
Trabajo para Instalacion de Sesma
Made for an installation of Sesma
4.- La otra cara de Mullbridge (The other face of Mullbridge).
Andrea di Castro y.
Cecilio Baltazar
CITY
Mexico City is the largest lab of urban experiences in the world. It
is a place where all the water pipes are made of lead and the
"normal" pollution level in the air is above the red alert of any
other city. It is living proof that the urban social ideal is only a
mirage.
1.- Ciudad labor (City Labor )
author : Carlos Salom.
2.- City of Passion
author : Michael Mehl.
3.- La muñeca rota. (The broken doll)
author: Luis Lupone.
EXPERIMENTAL
In the 70's and 80's Pedro Meyer stated that there could be no
experimental photography in Mexico, questioning the ethics of the
proper use of an image...*
"Música de Cámara" was begining to work in experimental
photography in the early 80's moving towards interdisciplinary
theories. Including as part of their process of work photography,
literature, music, happening, multimedia, performance and video
combined in one object d'art.
It marks an early departure of the trend of "overdocumentalism" in
mexican photography.
* Refering to the political content that one image should have in
order to be a valid "piece of art" or a valid photograph as what is
called in Mexico: "personal work".
Omar Gasca presents a highly conceptual work : a storyboard, a video
in crisis in a country in crisis. Since the narrative is about the
economic crisis in Mexico, the video is never done, since there is
not enough money to do it. Actually this work could be a video in
paper.
1.- Música de Cámara (Camera Music)
author: Música de Cámara Group, Angel Cosmos, Juan
José Díaz Infante y Arturo Márquez.
2.- The Mexican Cry(ses)
author: Omar Gasca
3.- Video road
authors: Sara Minter
Gregorio Rocha
Documentary
Mexico is multiple realities occurring at the same time; It is a
country in which the unexperienced voyeour is unable to distinguish
the subject from the background, between the message and the
medium.The narrative of reality surpasses the most creative of
efforts. The video "Manos de colores" records a fabulous, very
productive project in which children of different indian communities
painted very large murals that later were exhibited at the Fine Art
National Institute, INBA under the title "Colorín
colorado".
In the "SEMEFO" video we can appreciate the behind the scenes staging
of the presentation of
the group SEMEFO that uses dead bodies of horses for an installation
at Museo Carrillo Gil.
"Railroad to Utopia" by Gregorio Rocha deals with an amazing story of
an attempt at
creating the ideal community in Topolobampo.
1.- Manos de Colores (Coloring Hands)
author: I.N.I
2.-Semefo
author:Elias Levin
3.- Casa Gilberto
author: Maria Ayme Laborde
4.- Ferrocarril a utopía
author: Gregorio Rocha
THE ISMS
REALISMO MAGICO
MAGIC REALISM
SURREALISMO
SURREALISM
Mexico's reality is a dual perception. One as perceived from within,
and the second as perceived by the foreigner. It is very difficult to
discern when a video is a document and when it belongs to an
«ism» and when something that belongs to an «ism»
is a document .
1.- Reflex.
author:Eduardo Velez.
2.- Pasos.(steps)
author: Andrea di Castro.
3.- Plus valia en Do ( Plus value in Do )
authors : Alberto Robles
y Cesar Lizarraga (Video Dos)
4.-ALBA AÑIL (Blue Sunrise)
author: Fernando Buen Abad
5.-A huevo. (By force)
author:Claudia Barcelo Martinez
EL METRO
THE SUBWAY
1.- Inmobile mobile
author: Ivan Lopez.
2.- 11 piñata Girasol.
author: Elias Jimenez.
3.- Metro y medio. (Meter and a half)
Angélica Rodríguez
4.- Naturaleza virtualmente muerta.
(Death nature or still life) author:Gustavo Lara Equihua
5.- Mex Metr
author: Andrea di Castro
Sara Minter
CHICANO
The Chicano art phenomenon will be very important to watch in the
following years. How the Chicano and the Mexican culture will
interact is a difficult guess. Nafta will become a big cultural
catalizer and actually a compressor of time. There is a risk of the
Chicano artist displacing the Mexican artist as far as contemporary
work goes. Since in many occasions Mexican art requires to be highly
«nationalistic» and «folkloric» to be validated
by the system.
1.- Toreando al demonio en el freeway
(Bullfighting with the devil at the freeway)
author: Michael Mehl
2.- La idea que habitamos
(The idea we inhabit)
author: Pilar Rodríguez
Juan José Díaz Infante quiere agradecer especialmente a
Daniel Dion, Integrarte, Elías Levín, Rocío
Cerón, Sylvia Pandolfi, Daniel Peña, Relaciones
Exteriores y al Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, por su apoyo en la
realización de este proyecto.