Searching for Madre Matiana: Prophecy and Popular Culture in Modern Mexico by Edward Wright-Rios

Author:Edward Wright-Rios [Wright-Rios, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, Latin America, Mexico
ISBN: 9780826346599
Google: 2bucoAEACAAJ
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Published: 2014-11-15T00:09:55.960538+00:00

LOLA’S “SANATORIO”

Sifting through the artist’s archive of published images turns up a remarkable quantity that feature statues, effigies, and masks—all common in Mexican culture. Álvarez Bravo clearly pursued the expressive complexities intertwined with simulacra and disguise. She also seemed to enjoy a kind of inside joke that was embedded in the act of self-consciously representing “representations.” At the milder pole of artistic commentary, for example, are depictions of workers making wooden horses to serve as carousel mounts and theatrical props.23 These images depend on a straightforward irony: fake chargers appear to snort and gallop while around them artisans toil to produce these effects, and in some cases put them in motion.24 At least one of these pictures, “Saliendo a la ópera,” eventually emerged in publication.25 In other instances Álvarez Bravo targeted unintended absurdities. She produces this effect by offering glimpses of the jumbled storage or carefree placement of folk simulacra before or after “use.” This dynamic is evident in her images of the traditional Judas effigies produced for Holy Week celebrations on the Saturday before Easter. These outsized figures were destined for a ritualized collective venting of devout anger at the betrayer of Christ, but they also had long offered the masses a potent opportunity for satirical dissent.26 Other artists before her, most notably Diego Rivera, were also drawn to Judas burnings and their reputation as episodes of ludic celebration and mordant popular expression. The famous muralist depicted crowds reveling in festive chaos as Judas effigies representing politicians, capitalists, and priests bobbed above them prior to their destruction and disgorgement of coins, sweets, and sausages.27 Although she also published images of a Judas burning that featured teeming throngs, Álvarez Bravo’s negatives reveal quieter moments outside of the festive spotlight.28 They capture Judas effigies being made and stored hastily along walls in the workplace.29 In one negative a humble individual reads a book while relaxing between the legs of a gigantic cartoon-like figure, while other Judases “pose” stiffly all around him. Alternatively negatives and at least one published photograph reveal individuals carrying Judas figures in the street, juxtaposing the tiny human porter and the outsized caricature of humanity.30 In one unpublished image all that is visible are the diminutive legs and feet of the person transporting the towering star of the day’s celebrations. These pictures summon a distinct whimsical irony because they capture real humans in the company of extravagant dummies, which loom over mundane activities. Most likely Álvarez Bravo also meant to underscore the contradiction between behind-the-scenes labor and the festive excess associated with Judas burnings. Thus an individual accomplishes the intellectual task of reading beneath a huge man-made symbol of human greed; in another instance, the epitome of betrayal is unceremoniously lugged down a public thoroughfare. In both cases, the trick is capturing the humdrum moment, which the viewer knows is only a prelude to the explosion of anarchic scorn.

Similar tensions are in play in Álvarez Bravo’s depictions of the Mexican Catholic statuary, but the context is very different.

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