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.