About “Estorbo” by Teresa Margolles
On the occasion of the exhibition “Estorbo” by Mexican artist Teresa Margolles at MAMBO (Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá), on Saturday, April 6, Cuauhtémoc Medina, PhD, presented “Sweat and meaning: The work of Teresa Margolles and the materiality of the crises”.
In the opening to questions I affirmed:
Jose Dario Gutiérrez, art collector: Thank you very much, I hope you understand the positive aspects of my comment. But after this extensive presentation, I did not manage to overcome the initial, naive impression when I visited the exhibition, to feel that it is the application of a demonstrably successful formula to a situation not sufficiently confronted with the local vision, in the sense that instead of see it as a critical or challenging position, I see it as an additional presentation to what the media and governmental and hegemonic intentions are giving as a treatment to the problem with Venezuela. I did not see in ours and in the intention anything that has not already been amplified by the media attending hegemonic governmental and imperialist interests. I was hoping in this presentation to understand a little more but on the contrary it was deepened to me total, then I would like as an answer to that affirmation.
The answer was:
Cuauhtémoc Medina, curator: Well, it seems to me that there are two phrases that you say are very useful: you were brutally deepened, is the kind of thing that one says in the ¿divaniti permit? allow some illumination. The second is this: You are saying there is no interaction with the local discourse. She is a Mexican artist who operates in Europe, and does not have to do that, that is, what he raises is a series of interferences throughout that space. It is not about someone who is operating outside of one, of a geography. To what extent can you take advantage of it? It seems to have to do with the confines of his spirituality and his reception. Naturally seeing the achievement of Margolles is something that is limited because what one has to do is precisely, and that is what I try to do, surrender to the circulation of substances, smells, images and presences that is the expectation that from here should any truth come forth is something that I dismiss in my argument, is a condition that is somehow said, if what you want to find in this work or in any other, I would say, at this moment, is it any indication for practice? I would suggest going back to church, trying to do, accompanying a disqualification with a much simpler one … Of course cultural deception may have the possibility of being stuck in some kind of concrete judgment. But it is also simply the reiteration of disappointment and once the dynamics of sadness are established it is difficult to get out of it.
I insisted:
Jose Dario Gutiérrez, art collector: The underlying problem is that I think that, at least I have seen it in the newspapers and the news, I do not understand the contribution …
Cuauhtémoc Medina, curator: I do not follow the newspapers or the news with enough intensity to be able to make an argument about what you tell me, this, I have the misfortune that I did not have the energy in the year 92 to connect the television antenna and confess publicly that has not reconnected since then, I do not have Netflix, then, this, I admit, I have empirical problem, I’m outside the circuit of circulation, this, argument that you are referring to so directly, I would be surprised, I would seem extraordinary and fabulous that the media in Colombia have metonymic contents, materials and substances, in terms of substances of the Teresa type, I would consider a notion of multimedia that has exceeded my current technological knowledge, then I admit that possibility of superiority, this, if effectively the Colombian media are located in making arguments about how the relations between desire and repulsion occur, I would accept the arg Now, what I would suggest is that you write an article about the very powerful constitution of these media … I can not believe it, that is, it would be very strange to me. Yes, Teresa is not interested in producing an emancipatory discourse. There will be some that we see on the straight to carry out this process, a healthy distrust for Latin American Redemptorism that effectively finds its cultural grammar in which it requires answers and also requires solutions from the cultural field when they can not even demand them from politicians, that is, I reiterate what I have said two or three times, the obsessive demand that in recent years is exercised over the artist so that from solution to the world, could move with a little more utility toward, and less unhappiness, towards the political field, where we no longer know how to make any kind of effective petition. To begin to concentrate on the question of what art is offering itself, if art is not offering you anything, the door space is immense, I am saying it in a very serious way, that is, I would argue that when, if I were in a situation of feeling perfectly dissatisfied with the cultural production of my time, since I would go back to writing history books, I think that would be the option that I would take if I had that disappointment. I feel that an important part of the behavior of the so-called critical of Latin America is the propaganda of skepticism, it is the most direct that I would describe it. There are two types: the one based on the paranoia of cultural ignorance, there are a couple of pseudo-critics in Mexico that exercise that function, and the other that is embedded in deception, and that yes, contemporary culture is not very affirmative , it does not offer solutions, and it is quite outside of being subsumed to the discourse.
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Raised the matter and feeling that either I was not understood or that the response was shied away and that, in any case, my intervention was disqualified, a couple of days later I wrote an email to the speaker seeking his opinion on what could be the place of I read for the criticism and what a way that layman could enter through the aforementioned big door since apparently it is not so big, that on the contrary it is very close because of the tumults that form the snoopers around the entrance, the bouncers of the institutionality and the academy and the bodyguards of the correction of the established and the mandated by the hegemonies.
After fifteen days without an answer, and in view of my inability to raise the issues in doctoral terms, I encourage you to propose that you admit me this time in esferapublica.org to put this concern in the public sphere:
First questions: Is cultural deception valid? Did my request correspond to being sunk in the dynamics of sadness? I affirm that no.
Second questions: Is not a question or opinion formulated in a discussion room sufficient and adequate for the critic? Is it valid to attend the invitation to write doing it this way or was such an invitation to do it at an academic level or equivalent to that day? Was it a discussion or a keynote address? Is this because of such a big door? If the answers are positive, continuous; if negative, I remain outside, technical KO. Fallacy ad hominem? Fallacy ad verecundiam? … Back to church? Propaganda of skepticism? Paranoia of cultural ignorance? Pseudo-criticism, many other fallacies? I affirm that if I believe in the urgent need to rewrite history books.
Third questions: Is not it bold to present a work by an artist, whoever he is, without having contact with the mass media? Is it not equally daring to present that work in a territory without having inquired about the environment and circumstances of time, manner and place? Is it possible to understand the artistic work, and particularly this one by Teresa Margolles, being alien to the environment.
Published at Esfera Pública
http://esferapublica.org/nfblog/a-proposito-de-estorbo-de-teresa-margolles/
