STONE / Coatlicue

Coatlicue

Gerardo Suter's work has given a contemporary semblance to ancient Pre-Columbian myths and mythical figures. "Xochicalco" (1985) an early image from his series The Photographic Archive of Professor Retus ("Suter" spelled backwards), purports to be an image of a stone wall of an ancient Pre-Columbian site. The main feature of this site is the leveled platforms which stood for hierarchies of sacredness. This early series of Suter provides a ground for questioning historiographies and bringing out their fictional dimension. Two 1991 images from the Codices series &endash;"Coatlicue" and "Tlaloc"&emdash;represent a later stage of Suter's work when staging and impersonation play a major role. In Suter's representation Coatlicue, the ancient Aztec deity of the earth and mother of all gods, holds a stone slab with a human face sketched on it in order to cover her own head, which &emdash;according to legend&emdash; was cut off. The cult of this ancient goddess evolved into modern day Mexico as the adoration of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Suter's Tlaloc, on the other hand, wears a fearsome mask and holds on to a stone column in which a stalk of maize has been inscribed. Tlaloc, the Aztec god of rain, is the giver of maize to humans. However, this benign aspect of his divinity is in marked contrast with the cruel human ritual sacrifices of children on his behalf. The louder the children cried during their sacrifice, the more fertile they would make the earth. Suter's works strike at core dualities about life and death that are a subtext in modern Mexican culture whose roots are neither in Christianity nor in the rationality of the Enlightenment.