A Touch of Color

Goya and Mickey Mouse

2008-04-29T06:32:00.000-07:00

The Center for Creative Photography has hosted many famous and critically acclaimed photographs, but Thursday it was host to an established artist as well. Enrique Chagoya, the Mexican-American political painter known for putting images of Mickey Mouse onto Goya, talked about his art and what motivated him.

In a soft-spoken and contemplative voice, he told the story of growing up in Mexico city, visiting his father's office at the Bank of Mexico where they had a room with pictures of interesting forgeries. One of the best forgeries was by a French man, who eventually met his father and told him that he had gone into crime because he was a painter, but all the painters in France were decent so it was impossible to make any money.

In a quirky way, Chagoya said that this inspired him, and that he has always been interested in art copies. Much of this over-three-decade career has been dedicated to reproducing classical art with a twist, from adding cartoon characters to drawing indigenous Aztec warriors on top of old portraits.

In his Goya series,"Correspondance in Relation to Goya," Chagoya took Goya's prints and spun them in his own humorous and political contemporary context. In the "Disasters of War" series, there was a painting called "Contra el bien general" which featured a demon character sitting in a chair and reading a book. Chagoya replaced this figure with a the face of Ronald Reagan, to draw attention to the Iran-Contra scandal. In another painting from the "Caprichos" series, Chagoya replaces an illustration of a woman pulling out a tooth from a hanged man. He turns them into Snow White pulling the giant tongue of a Mexican Rat Fink. Chagoya uses images of Disney characters, Mickey Mouse in particular, throughout many of his works to symbolize corporate greed and American materialism.

Many of Chagoya's paintings are political, from the more obvious manifestations of Reagan with a Pinnochio nose in "Nose Job" to the use of partial views of the flag and a bloody oil pump on top of a skull in "Holy Order", to more subtle messages such as his reverse anthropology idea. Chagoya maintains the fact that indigenous nations have been bulldozed by the "original illegal aliens," non-native Americans, and their culture compressed. Artists such as Picasso have attempted to bring back many of these indigenous elements by adding things like African masks onto his own cubist style like in "Demoiselles d'Avignon." Chagoya does the opposite: he takes western paintings and alters them into his own indigenous style, by painting characters on top of them. Chagoya takes Courbet's "Origin of the World" (a woman's crotch) and paints the three colors of the Aztec world, in addition to an indigenous character.

Many of Chagoya's works do not mimic other paintings, but still carry the same themes and messages. In the cover of his book "Borderlandia," you see an indigenous figure of a diety, standing robustly in front of a UFO, to draw the connection with illegal aliens and real aliens. He also went through an intense figurative political series in the '80s characterized by dominating Disney characters, Presidential profiles, and blurry chalk smears. Throughout his long career, Chagoya has been recognized by many professional outlets, and has been exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney, The Museum of Modern Art and more. He is currently assistant professor of art at Stanford University.

Old Main hosts ancient ceremony

2008-04-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

Slogging across the University of Arizona Mall after coming home from the eye opening but exhausting Saint Andrew's Clinic, I hardly expected anymore surprises in the day to come. But when I came across an old woman in a neon blue ceremonial gown instructing a group of shirtless dancers to jump around in a circle according to the beat of a hand drum, I knew there was something else in store.

Right next to Old Main, on the grassy mound between the fountain and the flag pole, an ancient Nahuatl ceremony was in the midst, led by a Nahuatl elder Angelbertha Cobb. People were gathering round -surprised, interested, moved -to watch a group of men chant and dance while another beat a large drum. This lasted for a number of minutes until the elder stopped the ceremony and addressed the group.

She spoke in hushed tones, so it was hard to make out what she was saying, but then she instructed us all to get in a circle and hold hands. "We are all one," she said. And then we shook hands with the strangers we had previously been gripping. Then we spread out and did some kind of ritual where we faced each direction of the earth and bowed down, while a Nahuatl woman was spreading copali (an Nahuatl incense) out of a small jar and into the calm air.

The ritual was part of a larger UA conference, titled "Centeotzintli: Sacred Maíz – A 7,000-year Ceremonial Discourse," which is centered on how corn has played a part in the Aztec life. According to Aztec tradition, corn has been a central part of their society and culture, and connects humans with a common identity and struggle to protect the natural resources of the earth.

I could see this through the symbolism of the rituals. The elder was wearing a bright gown with all the symbols of the earth, with a glaring sun right in the middle of her chest. On her wrists were natural seeds sown into bracelets, and she held a stick of bright feathers.

I talked to the elder afterwards (while we walked to the Modern Languages building together) and she told me that the ceremony was to celebrate their heritage and the fact that humans are united through a common existence no matter what foods they eat or what color skin they have.

Although the elder is no longer on campus, the exhibit lasts until May, 9, and includes an exhibit of pre-Columbian codices and artifacts. There is also a sister exhibit of maps from the 1500-1800's.

St. Andrew's Preview

2008-04-07T13:04:00.000-07:00

In addition to stirring the spirits, visiting St. Andrew's Clinic also raised a lot of questions about the role of art in religion. The clinic is held at an episcopal church, which is the modern American version of the Anglican church of England. What I had remembered from history class, was that the Anglican church split from the Catholics for a number of reasons, including their use of art in the church. Many Anglicans considered religious art iconography, and sinful. Any false god taken above Jesus was blasphemous, and Anglicans were extremely wary of praying to images rather than Christ.

But today, St. Andrews is not ashamed of their art, and collects many exceptional pieces that show off their wide taste. I talked to a deacon at the church, and he said that as long as the art didn't clash with the theology, it was alright. I find it hard for Christian art to clash with the theology at all, so this is kind of an all-accepting attitude. I'm curious as to where and when from history this began.

St. Andrew's art is also exceptional because it illustrates an important fact about religion on the border: it is mulit-racial. In one room, the deacon showed me two enormous wood carvings symbolizing the Church's English roots, of dragons and knights, and then right next to that a Catholic painting of a saint and then a Virgen de Guadalupe. Although, the church only has a handfull of Mexican families: most are Catholic instead.

I want to do a piece exploring the art's religious and also altruistic implications. In the Garden of Twelve Apostles, where volunteers handed out clothing and toys to the clinic's patients, they also handed out rosaries. I would also like to do a story on the volunteers and how they make a difference in kids' lives by collecting needed items. I took a video of a child who had hurt his ankle in a car crash, going through the line and playing with the toys. The look on his face made everything worth it.

Good Natured Murals

2008-03-31T14:45:00.000-07:00

When you see the sign for Good Natured Futons on 400 N. Fourth Avenue, you'd hardly expect to find a Mexican folk art shop filled with handmade shrines and authentic pottery. But although the shop specializes in putting together furniture to sell, the front area doubles as a folk art store that creates original Day of the Dead shrines every year. Even better, the back wherehouse area is in the process of transforming into a vivid Tucson mural.

Owner Yolanda Jacques said that the mural on the back of her store was vandalized in the past, so they decided to take it down and put up a new one. The artists are friends of employee Randy Reynolds's son, who go by the tag names Psyche 1 and Big Goose. "They're good kids," Reynolds said. "They're not gang members or anything like that. It's keeping them off the streets."

When you look at the mural up close, all you can see is a bunch of colorful blocks, outlined in bright colors and surrounded by a bold single-hued background. But when you back up, you can see that the blocks are actually the taglines of the artists, which are still in progress. In the middle, there is a cartoonish human face with pearl-like teeth, with a thought bubble that says, "W." This stands for one of the artist's names.

The mural was painted over a previous picture of hell and devils surrounding the immense taglines. When it's done, the new mural is expected to have pictures as well as the letters. Although Jacques had hoped it would be finished by the time of the Street Fair, she expects it'll be finished by August at the latest.

The mural has become the envy of the surrounding neighborhood. "Everybody around here wants stuff put on there," Reynolds said. It's not surprising, since the piece is on the back of a store that would normally just sell futons. At least now, the outside art will reflect the vivacious colors and original pieces of the inside.

A colorful history

2008-03-24T12:41:00.000-07:00

The Seri Indian ironwood sculptures may not seem to fit in with the vibrant paintings and shrines of Mexican folk art. Their minimalist form and plain brown color is antithetical to the extravagant hues of the milagros and miniature murals. But the carvings have an interesting history and an authentic origin.

The Seri Indians are a group of native hunter-gatherers in Sonora, Mexico, who have managed to preserve their indigenous ways by living in isolation for most of their history on a small island named Tiburon off the Sea of Cortez. Although, their numbers are dwindling. While in the 1890s they reached a population of 2,000, today they’re down to about 500.

What’s more interesting about the tribe, is that throughout their history, they’ve avoided the practice of farming and cultivation, as well as animal domestication. Until the mid-1900s, they depended solely on fishing. But Mexican policies such as a failed fishing cooperative in the ‘30s and the onslaught of commercial shrimping, which disturbed the economy starting in the ‘50s, forced the Seri to branch out and find other means to make money.

This is where their art comes in. When the ironwood carving industry was born, the Seri took ship and moved off Tiburon to camps such as Desemboque, close to Hermosillo. The Seri create simplistic carvings, as well as woven baskets and necklaces made from shell, stone, seeds, and other inexhaustible resources.

The Seri artist Jose Astorga is mainly credited with developing the genre into what it is today. He began to experiment in the early ‘60s with making utilitarian products such as spoons, bowls, barrettes and paperweights. When an American tourist who was planning to make a desert tortoise doorstep sought out Astorga in 1963, she gave him the idea to carve animal art.

The ironwood carving industry took off in 1968 when UofA students took trips down to the their villages to look at and purchase pieces. Before then, Jose Astorga and his wife Rosa only had a small customer base. Today, the animal pieces have actually grown more primitive, because tourists favor simplistic designs over realism. When carvers began to add nail heads for eyes or carved mouths, the buyers rejected the pieces for more minimalist forms.

Today, the price of Seri carvings have increased fourfold, because the ironwood tree is becoming more and more rare. In May of 1994, Mexico declared it a protected species, making it much harder to find and carve specimens. But the Seri continue to carve for their livelihood, especially since the name is cherished by carvers all over the country, many of whom will put stickers on their works saying “Handmade by Seri” to increase the price for unknowing tourists.

While the animal carvings may not look as colorful as a woven rug or milagro, their history is.

Art for Poster-ity

2008-03-18T07:07:00.000-07:00

When the genres of film and painting collide, another genre of Mexican art splits from the friction. Where there is art, there is poster art, and some of the most startling examples of figure-painting, surrealism and fantasy you can find. The last 40 years of Mexican cinema, unlike in the United States which moved to photographs quickly, were the breeding grounds for professional and amatuer poster artists.

I picked up the book, "Mas! Cine Mexicano: Sensational Movie Posters from 1957-1990" the other day, and was surprised at how many posters there actually were. The collector, Rogelio Agrasanchez Jr., avidly obsessed with this underrated style of art, had 2,500 posters in his house alone, not to mention 12,000 lobby cards and 80,000 film stills. In his book, he showcases some of his favorites in a search to elucidate the intricacies of the movie genre.

Most of these posters are from sensationalist movies like horror films and action flicks, but we also see posters from westerns, comedies, dramas, chick flicks, family films and more. In the introduction, Agrasanchez explains that the large variety was a product of the industry growing into itself in the '60s. It was becoming more established, and the main form of entertainment for the family had not yet moved solely to the television. Therefore, directors were given a lot of money and free reign to create their own films. Besides the main film company in Mexico, Churubusco-Azteca Studios, there were also two other organizations that would churn out movies extremely quickly: Estudios America and Estudios San Angel Inn.

The '60s also showcased the rise of the luchador, which shows up in many of the posters: the masked Mexican wrestler who epitomized good and evil in and out of the ring. The character, Santo, was first based on a comic book, but was brought to life by Rodolpho Guzman Huerta wearing a silver mask.

The Mexican movie genre was very much about celebrities, much like in the United States. Popular stars back then drew huge audiences and kept them coming back for more: singers like Luis Aguilar and "Una Mujer Sin Precio" with a blonde chick that closely resembles Anita Ekberg in "La Dolce Vida." There are tons of action movie posters with fancy cars, guns and men looking staunchly serious. There are goofy caricatures drawn for family comedies. You can find every spectrum of drawing underneath the genre's head. The only problem looking at this book, is that when you're finished, you might like the posters better than the movies themselves.

This is a few minutes from the film "Lola La Trailera" which originally premiered in 1983.

Tucson Arts Incubator is about to Incubate

2008-03-10T11:42:00.000-07:00

Although the gallery format has been criticized and consistently scrutinized for its lack of inclusion in the shaping of modern art, Dinnerware Gallery on Congress is actively trying to combat that image. Owner David Aguirre is opening up a new gallery just down the street, that will accept any submissions as long as they're from UA or Pima Community College students. To be showcased in the Tucson Arts Incubator, you no longer have to have connections or an established name. All you have to do is pay $8 for each piece you showcase, and when it sells you'll get 100 percent of the profit.

When I visited the Incubator Gallery, on Congress St. between The Grill and Vaudeville Cabaret, paintings were strewed about the room, some on top of others, and the place looked rather dusty. Not to mention, the gallery in itself was hard to find, because it was nestled in a tiny alcove between two bars. The formal opening wasn't for another few days (Saturday, March 15), and the task at hand was only to acquire enough pieces, and not to showcase them as of yet. I talked to the gallery attendent UA student Carly Cutrone, and she said that students often find it harder to show off their voice.

"It's going to be a regular gallery, but its focus is college students," she said. Cutrone let me look around, and right away I spotted a few paintings that dealt with the concept of border. "Mimic" by Samantha Angiulo is a grotesquely extravagant mixed media collage, featuring two skeletons facing eachother in a fury of colors. The figure on the left is covered in nuerons and nerves, like a medical diagram. Her hair is another piece of paper, possibly from a magazine, that shows multiple close-ups of flowers. If you look closely at her body, it is actually made of dozens of miniature typewriters.

The second figure is a more traditional Mexican skeleton (found in a lot of border art) and is upside down facing its counterpart. Typeface is behind it, and a string outlines the figure and trails off into the painting.
Besides Angiulos's work, i also found three interesting pieces by Adon Banuelos. [I took pictures of all these, but am awaiting emails from the artists to put them up.] Banuelos also painted traditional Mexican skeletons, but put hipster icons like Nike shoes and sunglasses around them, anthropomorphizising them as well as updated them to a more modern form. Baneulos painted his creations on the back of old skateboards, a medium that would probably get overlooked in a regular gallery setting.

The Tucson Arts Incubator isn't necessarily solely a haven for border art as of yet, but with its wide inclusion and counter-culture attitude, look for it as a political and artistic force on the border for years to come.

The art of charity

2008-03-03T13:11:00.000-08:00

The snotty high-brow attitude can't last forever. Sometimes, the most authentic and inspirational pieces of Mexican art are not art at all; not sold in a gallery or on display at a museum or sitting at an expensive trade shop. Sometimes, they're piled under a wad of sweat shirts and bicycle parts. The crafts and decorations at St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store, on South Sixth Avenue and Stone, prove that it doesn't need to cost a hundred bucks to visually embrace a culture.
St. Vincent the organization has a rich history: It began as a Catholic charity in 1833 when a law student at the Sorbonne (in Paris), Frédéric Ozanam, was challenged during a debate to show what he and his peers were doing to help people in need. Within weeks, the 20-year-old created the "Conference of Charity," which had him and his friends going door-to-door giving out foods and necessities payed for out of their own pocket. Soon after, the charity organization grew 600-strong. Now, the operation has expanded to thrift stores, shelters, outreach programs, employment services and more.
This particular Vincent de Paul store is located on the edge of downtown, where the small shops and local flavor the south side begins. The store is one of the biggest Tucson has to offer, with seperate rooms for clothing, art, stitching materials, bicycles and patio faire, plates and furniture. St. Vincent even has a room where the less-well-off can shop for basically free.
When you search around, you can find countless examples of Mexican arts and crafts. For example, I saw these Mexican puppets; so old that the color was chipping off, with strings tangled together and dusty faces. But that gives them all the more character. Another interesting series of artifacts are the life-like diaramas of miniature saints. While they may seem goofy to us, these are used as religious shrines for many Mexican Catholics.
St. Vincent has a plethora of bizarre, beautiful and original objects. If you just take the time to dig, you might be rewarded.

A touch of concrete

2008-02-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

All too much of the time, sterile city parks mock the spontaneity of nature that they're trying to project. Thinly cut grass, convenient sidewalks and stockroom statues rob the areas of their originality and life. But in Tucson, you never know what to expect. Its Santa Cruz River Park, 839 W. Congress St., not only showcases grassy mounds and rocky ditches, but a moving spiritual monument to the Catholic faith.

The Garden of Gethsemane is a life-sized re-creation of the Last Supper, and also includes Christ laying in a tomb and the Virgin Mary. The figures were created by a Native American Felix Lucero, who made a promise to God while he was lying wounded in a French battlefield during World War I. According to the legend, Lucero told God that if he survived, he would spend the rest of his life making religious art.
When Lucero came back, he erected the figures in the wash of the Santa Cruz River, using trash and debris as well as sand from the river base. When a flood washed away the statues in the 1940s, Lucero, who at a time lived in a shack under a bridge, built them all over again and used concrete to make them more sturdy. The statues have apparently been vandalized over the years, even to the point where a figure at the Last Supper was decapitated. If you look at the statue today, one figure's face is crudely fashioned compared to the original characters. But chances are that this head was created after Lucero's death.

The monument is now protected by fences at the Santa Cruz River Park, and excuse the pun, but thank God. These white statues are absolutely astounding, not only for the story behind them but for the technique as well. Lucero really learned how to express the intricacies of the human body, and sculpt us into eloquent manifestations of life.

In addition to the inspirational and religious aspects, there's also a sociological element to the statues. This man was fighting in a war that only slightly affected him. As a Native American, he was an immigrant even inside the physical borders of the country. Yet he was putting his life on the line for American ideals. That alone says more about his personality and dedication than the figures alone. While the man and his creation remain shrouded in mystery, the remnants of his vision will remain a life-force behind the otherwise ordinary city park.

A gem in the rough

2008-02-18T12:40:00.001-08:00

On the last day of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show this Sunday, I accompanied my mom to help her find a ring she might like. I thought it would be all about jewelry and shiny rocks, but I was pleasantly surprised when I encountered an art sale. Liliya and Igor Yunerman come to the gem show ever year, and bring with them some very fine examples of Russian art. They sell myriads of jewelry, decorative eggs, fancy boxes lined with Russian Orthodox portriature, porcelain Christmas dolls, paintings and more.
Although the couple lives in Phoenix, they are originally from Russia, and they import all of their products from the country. The two have developed an extensive online Web site, where they ship out the former products, as well as exotic furs. Items can range from as cheap as $20 to $550 or more for a painted egg. It's definitely more authentic than the Russian dolls they're selling now at Urban Outfitters, but also more expensive.

Menlo Park Video and Beyond

2008-02-11T11:06:00.000-08:00

Forget downtown. One of Tucson's most interesting and insightful murals is a little removed from the bastion of public arts at the city's heart. The mural is not at the Rondstadt Center or on the side of a city court building: it's on the wall of an abandoned video store on the other side of the I-10 Freeway. This Menlo Park Video mural of the Virgin de Guadalupe revealing herself to a shepherd is one of the most authentic and mysterious works of art that Tucson can claim.

I ventured over to Grande Avenue and Congress Street to take a look for myself, after my boyfriend told me that the largest tree in Tucson was in the same area. The tree was pretty cool, but only prepared me for what was in store. On the southeast side of the intersection, I spotted a colorful array of religious art. We parked our car in a dirt lot next to an empty basketball court, and thus encited the fury of two ecstatic Chihuahuas in the yard next door. With the music of squeeky barking as a background for our experience, we stared at the wall and took it in.

At first, the wall looks like a typical religious mural: it has an apparition in the form of the Virgin, and a person on his knees praying to her. The wall is decked out in sensual blues, and has a simple shrine with religious writing on the bottom right corner. But what strikes me as different, is the Virgin's face. It's serene as usual, but a certain human quality imbues it with life. This Virgin is a person; she has thoughts and feelings and seems to be peering out of the 2-dimensional world searching for a life that this old video store could never provide.

The hidden masterpiece's creator remains a mystery. After looking for a few minutes, my boyfriend and I discovered that the video store was boarded up, but there were still artifacts inside peeking out of the window from behind bars. I would have thought that the store was just closed, but it was the middle of the day and absolutely no one was around. I went home to see if someone had written about it online, but there is nothing that mentions the mural. It's almost like a secret worship center, possibly known only by the people that live nearby, a couple of Chihuahuas and an occasional art afficionado like myself.

I want to go back and ask around some local stores to see if anyone knows about the mystery, but I'm almost scared that discovering the earthly connections will ruin the obscurity of the art that makes it so powerful. It's like this vestiage was sent down by the Virgin herself, absent of human ties and emotions, a divine work devoid of human sin and touch. But of course that's not true, so I most assuredly will attempt the visit at another time when I can interview a person or two. But for now, the artwork will remain as shrouded as the Virgin herself.

The Resurrection of Catholic Art

2008-02-04T10:34:00.000-08:00

In a similar vein to the subject matter he paints, Daniel Martin Diaz is resurrecting a form of art that has absent for centuries upon centuries. But this month at the Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress St., the mysticism and religious devotion of the Middle Ages will be revived. In his exhibition of paintings and drawings, "Misterium Fidei," Diaz explores the mystic symbolism of early Christian artists through the lens of a modern painter.
But Diaz is no stranger to the Catholic faith; his parents were born in Mexico and he calls himself a Catholic, although he is open to ideas from other religions. On Diaz's Myspace, he says, "One of my earliest memories as a child was the way death and religion played an important role in my family's life ... The fact that many of those beliefs seemed to render no logical explanation has also influenced me. These unanswered questions find a home in my work, which evokes the mystery, fear and irony of those vivid memories of my past."
Diaz paints in earthy browns, but dapples in blues and blacks as well to temper the effect. His characters range from dream cartoons to expressive manifestations of Christ. But even the more straightforward works, not seemingly inspired by mythical monsters, contain symbols and Latin words that shroud the meaning.
In "Peccavi," a skeleton with wings kneels down, his palms outstretched and his skull marked up like an ancient map. Stars glitter the background, and an hourglass sits atop the brown earth. The skeleton has a mystic circle halo like the saints in Medieval paintings, and a banner of Latin floats in the air.

Diaz's work has been showcased all over the country, and even abroad. Last year, he was given the honor to be in the Arizona Biennial at the Tucson Museum of Art, an extremely selective statewide contest that features many professors as well as established artists. Diaz has also been featured on the rock band P.O.D.'s album covers, a traditional altar for the San Antonio de Padua Catholic Church in Guaymas, Mexico, and in the PBS documentary "The Forgetting: A Portrait of Amnesia."

Borderlands on the Avenue

2008-01-28T12:21:00.000-08:00

Even though Borderlands Outlet store may seem hidden on one of the side streets off of Fourth Avenue, it draws customers from all over the country. This is because it offers a myriad of imported goods from 13 different states in Mexico as well as Guatamala, says employee Debbie Nultmeyer. The shop is a colorful array of culture south of the border, and contains expensive furniture and tables created in Mexico down to small tinfoil shapes you can tack on a wall. Here are some of the most interesting pieces. Even if you can't afford them, looking is always free...