Guillermo Santamarina: 'Recodifying a Non-existent Field'
In: Global Visions: Towards a New Internationalism in the Visual Arts. Edited by Jean Fisher. London: Kala Press in association with the Institute of international Visual Arts, 1994, pp. 20-27.
When I was invited to participate in this symposium, a few months ago, I thought the main point of my participation would be to concentrate on what it means for contemporary Mexican visual art to 'go out' and search for answers from receivers different to those who are familiar with Mexican art. I have changed my mind a few times and have ended up with this text, which, although it relates superficially to that subject, in summary, exhibits scepticism and proposes caution when reconsidering a formula by which to approach the world.
[...]
When I refer to 'new' receivers I am assuming the contact with people and forms free from the conventional constants applied and expected from a 'picturesque-exotic-magic-dramatic' country - the official model and the most successful commercially. The receivers would also be free from another image, currently in growing demand, a revolutionary, radical, social transformation which transgresses the institutional frontiers that have prevented such a vast nation from achieving cultural, ecological, social and economic development. My idea starts from the awareness that the incalculable and overwhelming diversity of visual expressions projected today by Mexican art cannot correspond to definitions other than those pointed out by the particularity of the works themselves, and/or possibly by the stamp of the ambiguous value of mobility. Once this position is understood, there would be no doubt that such 'familiarity' would entail a biased communication, relatively legitimate and - fortunately - dynamic, towards all and each of the aesthetic objects that arise from the reality of Mexican visual art. This would also imply adopting a platform for research without the security of 'normal' continuity; or, perhaps, the chance for art to be what it usually sets out to be.
[...]
I was saying that my original though, was set off by my consistent interest in finding other receivers, other 'types' of sensitivities, whose models are different to those promoted officially, to share what we are in a 'non-existent nation'. And I believe I really must explain this point a bit more: the idea of a 'non-existent nation' does not intend to define despotically the faith and reality of millions of people located physically or mentally in the Mexican territory. Undoubtedly this is an enormous non-existent nation.
The problem of non-existence is enclosed within the thickly distorted image of identity of a vast group of human beings with behaviours and philosophies propagated by the official institutions and private Mexican corporations outside - and inside! - my country.
I have no face, then I do not exist.
I have many faces, then I exist
in many different ways.
I have only one face that shows
whatever might be what
my body is,
then I do not exist.
Considering this historical moment of extremes which Mexicans currently experience, suffering from acute boredom about the order imposed by the institutions that rule us, the reasoning outlined above does not need to be explained. In fact, the origins of that severe statement about the 'non-existent' nation is taken from a powerful pronouncement by the leader of the armed opposition (a personage wearing a balaclava, the enigmatic Comandante 'Marcos', head of the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional) who has caused a lot of trouble to the government and the status quo as a symbol of a general discontent throughout the country.
I insist, then, that discrimination and the loss of credibility are crushing us. I do not know for how much longer the power structure can carry on deceiving society with its claims; over a long historical period, it has designed, promoted and tried to legitimate the 'National' without taking into account our plurality, individual rights or international consciousness.
To be honest, I do not want a kind of democratic re-organisation in cultural politics if it is to be presided over by yet another party or channel of national representation which is going to insist on hearing only one single voice: its own; I am convinced that plurality is indispensable for the work of cultural diffusion at a suprastructural level. And that the discrimination of interests as well as partiality can only be modified by provoking a few face-lifts to our singular non-existence. My commitment and unconditional support has been given to independent initiatives which regularly defined their goals through critical experiences, unpredictability and a sharp knife.
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I do not understand yet why only one particular kind of Mexican visual art has consistently 'gone out' to be exhibited. I am sure it has not fed back our multifaceted consciousness. Nor has it reaffirmed the complexity of dealing with and understanding the cultural structure or my country.
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I would like to make obvious my scepticism about the qualitative changes that western art history is possibly undergoing at the moment as a reaction to the dynamics of art from the 'peripheries' attempting to establish themselves in the 'centres'. I am not comfortable with this idea. In fact, I believe this is already a unilateral imposition. As an actor that plays a role in this possible transformation I would rather say yes to both societies and definitions, provided they are open to sound neutrality and to the enjoyment of ambiguity; just as the members of a family set conditions in an attempt to live happily within the crude reality of domestic order.