Intersections

Gender benders: The David LaChapelle opening

There's nothing like the loose and free performance of style and sexuality as it is practiced by the most committed members of Mexico City's new fashion-scenester-glitterati set. Above, Denise Marchebout, EGR, Juanpe Freyre, and Zemmoa, at the David LaChapelle opening party Thursday night at the Antiguo Colegio San Ildefonso, the 16th Century fresco-adorned museum in downtown Mexico City.

And below, after the jump, because every so often a flagrant celebrity-fan shot is more than justified ...

SITAC 2009: South, south, south, south

Below, the introduction to the opening session of the boldly titled SITAC VII, the annual Mexico City conference on contemporary art theory that opens this afternoon. This year it is organized by Cuauhtemoc Medina, the prominent D.F. art theorist who in his role shifts the entire focus of SITAC to Sur, sur, sur, sur -- referring to Latin American postcolonial subalternity, more or less:

In spite of the inequalitites of institutional and symbolic power, the South has acquired a new prominence in the fabric of global imagination. This is shown not only in the expanded geography of cultural activity, but also in the super-positions, tensions and currents of thought, ghosts and shadows that inhabit the South. These changes have not been the product of a generous concession: they are the result of a cultural counter-offensive that since the end of the 1980s has been questioning the geographical division of cultural power and the critique of the effects of colonialism.

An abundance of panels, screenings, cocktails, and events are scheduled at or around SITAC VII. The clinics are headed by Roberto Jacoby, Mariana Botey, Jorge Munguia Matute, and Daniel Garza Usabiaga. * The SITAC program graphic, above, is by Ricardo Basbaum.

* See all posts in Art here.

Moyenei at Foro Alicia

Above, the Mexico City-based Afro-Chilean hip-hop activist-soul singer Moyenei, performing at Foro Alicia, on Saturday, Jan. 24. For her last jam, "Somos Paz," she was joined on-stage by a surprise guest: Roco of Maldita Vecindad. A memorable night.

Read a bit about Moyenei at this article, and you can see her in action here. * Previously, "Manu Chao: 'Hasta Siempre, Mexico!'"

Choose the next D.F. tourism logo

* Above, is this the next ubiquitous Mexico City symbol?

Right now Mexico City's tourism ministry is holding an open online contest to determine its next booster logo. The public gets to add its input on which design is chosen. They also held a contest for an official video and essay. You can see those winners here.

For the logo, five finalists were selected from submissions responding to an open global call for a new brand. According to the website, judges settled on two general motifs for final consideration: brands using the Angel of Independence and brands relating to Pre-Hispanic design. Under each of the five last options you can see the potential winner in relation to other tourism brands from cities and countries worldwide.

"Material 3," shown above, is the only Pre-Hispanic brand that apparently made it to the Top 5. I find it evocative, sharp, and totemic -- but in a tourist-friendly sort of way, of course. I made a pick. Cast yours here.

* The online contest ends February 15.

Kurimanzutto finally gets a home

"Economia de mercado/Market Economy" is the title of the inaugural group show at the new Kurimanzutto, until March 14. Each of the gallery's artists was given a set space -- a shelf -- to present original work. The stone sphere that dominates above is by Monika Sosnowska.

After almost a decade of nomadically roaming the art world, Jose Kuri and Monica Manzutto decided to finally settle, finding a former timber yard in San Miguel Chapultepec to the west of Condesa between metros Constituyentes and Juanacatlan. San Miguel Chapultepec is an ideal residential neighborhood, tucked away, very quiet, and a likely successor to Condesa. Some top young creatives in the local scene have or currently live there.

The new Kurimanzutto space -- integrated with its offices, book shop, and storage facilities -- is very striking. For a delicious scene report on the faces and events during the lavish November opening weekend, please go read Linda Yablonsky's diary at Art Forum. The Contramar-catered gala dinner at the Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico was the definite highlight.

* Previously, "New at LA Daily: The 'Palm Pavilion' in Mexico City."

Tear this heart out: Oscar snubs Mexico

* Talancon and Daniel Gimenez Cacho, recreating 1930s Puebla.

The resurgent Mexican film community was gunning for a 2008 foreign-language Oscar nomination for the period drama "Arráncame la Vida," but it was ultimately left out in Thursday's announcement of the nods. Hopes were up because the movie had made been named one of nine finalists during the selection process, the only final contender from Latin America.

"Waltz with Bashir," an Israeli anti-war "animated documentary," is now the leading picture in this category. Austria, Japan, France, and Germany also received nominations. Reacting to the snub in Mexico, the president of the film academy called "Arráncame la Vida" a "dignified representation of Mexican film." Director Roberto Sneider said his movie achieved its goals, and that the U.S. film academy simply 'opted for a different theme' in its choices -- mainly, contemporary issues of war and immigration.

"Arráncame la Vida," the most expensive production in Mexican history and a box office success, really is a fine film. Based on the novel by Angeles Mastretta, it has been hailed for its lush recreation of 1930s, 1940s Mexico and its faithful interpretation of Mastretta's characters. As the beautiful and quick-witted provincial girl turned general's trophy wife, Ana Claudia Talancon gives an outstanding performance. See the trailer here.

* Of course, in Mexico City, you can get a pirated DVD copy of the film on just about any hoody street corner.

Daniel Alarcon's alternative histories

* Alarcon in Ghana, 1998.

Author Daniel Alarcon has started posting snippets of a sort of real, sort of fake personal history, in Spanish, at Etiqueta Negra. Alarcon, a Peruvian American global hepcat who has lived in Alabama, New York, West Africa, and Lima, collaborates with the Peru-based magazine from his current base in Oakland.

* Here again is my 2007 interview with Alarcon for LA Weekly, and here's homie's Wiki. Alarcon's upcoming second novel is said to be about an undiscovered ocean.

Excavations: The Edgar Winter Group

For your sustained viewing pleasure, above, pure 1970s American rock-n-roll. It's the Edgar Winter Group, doing "Frankenstein," filtered brilliantly through acid-eye. Watch closely: What you're hearing here is being played live. The 'no way' highlight begins at 6:00.

See also Edgar's official site. * Thanks, Ryan W.

In Mexico City, mariachis for Obama

Far from Washington, D.C., performance artist and writer Gabrielle Civil created her own homage to new U.S. President Barack Obama in Mexico City on Tuesday, gathering mariachis to perform renditions of iconic African American songs both for Obama and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

The art action titled "In and Out of Place (MLK y Obama)" happened just steps from the U.S. Embassy on Paseo de la Reforma and lasted less than half an hour. Mariachi Mexico Internacional, led by Señor Fernando Hernandez (a commuting immigrant to Atlanta) and his 26-year-old son Fernando, seen above leading vocals, sang four songs chosen by Civil. These were "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," the Negro National Anthem, "Happy Birthday" by Stevie Wonder, "Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)" by James Brown, and "Feeling Good," by Nina Simone.

Civil is a Fulbright fellow in Mexico City. She tells me: "The piece speaks to my feeling of being both 'in place' in Mexico, but 'out of place' here at a moment when an extraordinary thing is happening in my own country. [...] It has been a little bittersweet to miss such a historic election and inauguration. I grew up with generous, open optimistic parents who frankly told me there would never be a Black President in the United States ever. This art action is my way of being a part of the celebration, of sharing a little of who I am and how I feel with folks here."

Obama, in the eye of the storm

* Above, the eye-wall of Hurricane Katrina. Source: NOAA.

That tropical cool-cat Barack Obama is inaugurated today as the 44th President of the United States. Un-journalistically, let me give you some thoughts about this. While Mexico by my reading remains generally indifferent or outright suspicious, personally I can't say I feel anything more than relief. As a planet we have suffered for the last eight years tremendous amounts of willful destruction and psychic injury. So, relief for today, but we can't begin forgetting yesterday.

This is why I'd like to mark this occasion by recalling the victims of Hurricane Katrina. To say nothing of the war in Iraq, the thousands of dead at the U.S.-Mexico border, the ruined economy, the stripping of Constitutional rights, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, etc. and etc., let's think back to September 2005, when all of the incompetence and ideological hostility of the Bush administration and its political machine emerged as directly or indirectly responsible for a still unknown number of deaths and the leveling of New Orleans. I remember so clearly the sapping agony, the anger, the sense of helplessness that enveloped the mood of every-day life as knowledge of the awesome devastation and human toll trickled out of the Gulf Coast. It was an event that shamed not only the federal government but every living American and any world citizen with a sense of dignity and duty to one's fellow man.

Obama's election marks a repudiation of that form of government -- irresponsible, impetuous, hijacked -- and its fatal consequences. Now this Hawaiian head of state will stand in the eye of the storm he's inherited. The man can't and won't "save" the world, but he will at least try to mend some of the damage and official dementia that haunts us. Can't do much else, really.

Today, celebrate, but also remember. In doing so, I invite you to listen to "Dry Drunk Emperor," the free track the band TV on the Radio released in remembrance of the victims of Katrina, still back in those dark days. The song is an artifact, a witness, an indicment, a prayer. You can download it here.

A beautiful friendship: Slim and The Times

The New York Times Company is in talks with Carlos Slim Helu, the Mexican mega-mogul and one of the richest men in the world, to give itself a desperately needed cash infusion, reports the Wall Street Journal. You can bet this is only the beginning of Slim's growing involvement in the U.S. market. He already owns 6% of the NYT Co., some of Saks Inc., and 1% of Ireland's Independent, notes Business Week. Here's coverage in Mexico by El Financiero, La Jornada, and El Universal.

* In its current issue The Atlantic boldly envisions a world without the NYT -- as soon as, "like, this May." Geez, let's hope not (I'm a contributor), but the defensive reaction by the company to Michael Hirschorn's piece points at least to the NYT's sense of general uncertainty.

The enigma of homo-hop

Will homo-hop, hip-hop by openly gay MCs, ever break into the rap "mainstream"? Should it even try? Who knows? They're really trying, though, with constantly active gay hip-hop festivals, documentaries, websites, and so on. Although homo-hop makes for an interesting story, the most common assessment about it that I've heard (from people who could care less who their rappers sleep with) is that most of it just isn't very good.

Above is an interview with Captain Magik, a gay rapper in Cleveland who is identified by the L.A. Times as a potential crossover figure in homo-hop. It's interesting to hear his story, but also a little painful to watch?

Without question, Los Angeles's Deadlee remains the most visible and storied MC in homo-hop. His video for "Good Soldier II" shows us why. It's urban blatino homoerotic L.A. melodrama at it's best.

Caldo de camaron

That bad boy poking out of his Styrofoam cup is huge shrimp with extra-long whiskers, floating in piping hot soup with diced potato and carrot, size chico, at the always-packed El Caguamo sidewalk mariscos stand on Ayuntamiento and Lopez streets. At 25 pesos, their spicy and savory caldo de camaron is a cheap between-meals snack or a most potent hang-over cure. (Emphasis on the "potent hang-over cure" phrase of the previous sentence.)

Everything at El Caguamo in fact is delicious and priced just right: The empanadas de camaron are especially recommended.

Diane Pernet in Mexico City

This is the incomparable Diane Pernet lounging at an afternoon sit-down session with a group of young Mexico City fashion and culture bloggers on Thursday at the hotel Condesa DF. Videographer Jun Olman is seen documenting on right. It was a spirited conversation. Diane shop-talked blogging, fashion, Mexico, her international fashion film festival, and her own short on the fascinating and extremely media-shy corset-maker Mr. Pearl.

From the talk, below are snippets of memorable quotes.

Excavations: The rock underground in 1980s Mexico

Here's the opening sequence of '¿Cómo ves?' by Mexican filmmaker Paul Leduc. The 1985 film is centered on the rock-n-roll underground in Mexico City; friends who saw it recently describe it as short, documentary-style, and "Beckett-esque." The clip above was just loaded to YouTube in recent days. Wait for the title to come up.

* Previously, "Excavations: Pola Weiss, and 'evidence' of moments."

The ravishing Denise Marchebout

My dear Denise Marchebout -- a young Mexico City fashion designer, L.A.-born, Guadalajara-bred, London-trained -- appeared in a solo photo-shoot at Diane Pernet's A Shaded View On Fashion recently. Stunning, as always. Photos are by Cesar Arellano, taken at the Clinica showroom. She and partner EGR, in many ways originators of the new D.F. fashion scene, recently relocated their collections from the Condesa to a modern loft with spectacular views in the Doctores.

* Diane and her fashion film series hit Mexico City for a screening at Lunario on Thursday night, January 15. The after-party "Mexico City is Burning" is set for Malva.

Mapping the bloodshed in Tijuana

Under those little red dead-man icons lies the word "Tijuana" in an ordinary Google Map. Here my family's ancestral city is shrouded by the towering evidence of death in one of the most active fronts in Mexico's infinitely gruesome and ever spectral "drug war." The interactive map, available here, is by the journalists at KPBS. It's part of a comprehensive online package of media, smartly rendered in English and Spanish, on the mounting toll in TJ. Check it out.

* Also, see the interactive map of smugglers' border tunnels along the U.S.-Mexico border, at the Union-Tribune, via Across the Border.

Weirdly, rain in January

Something is wrong. It's a Monday night in early January, and it's raining.

Now, there are two general categories to the weather in Mexico City: Rainy and non-rainy. Right now we're supposed to be in non-rainy. That's cooler temperatures, lots of smog, but no rain. Rainy season? May to October, Tlaloc's revenge.

Hmm.

Please, everyone ... stay calm.

* Above, a rain-slicked street in Colonia Centro, January 12.

Pre-hispanic motif playing cards from Russia

The blog Tirado/Thrown highlights these interesting playing cards from the Soviet Era depicting beautifully done indigenous Mesoamerican figures. What's the story? Tirado guesses:

Perhaps a bored KGB officer doing slopwork in 1950s Mexico City came across a deck of Aztec playing cards from Baraja Cuauhtemoc and passed over the naipes to an [acquiantance] at the state playing card factory in an act of [camaraderie].

More over there. * From English Russian, which says, "As it happens Mayan motives were popular in Soviet times in Russia."

Puebla, city of tile

Puebla, the capital of both the state of Puebla and in some post-border respects metropolitan New York, is a city whose history is tied to talavera, an earthenware they've been putting on pretty much everything in Puebla for centuries. Tile and ceramic talavera is so big here they even put it in the urinals.

There's the food, yes; some say poblano cuisine is the best in Mexico. We found some good pozole, vegetarian food, cantinas (one with a pretty good heavy metal house band), a couple underground drag shows, really great exhibits at the Museo Amparo, local candies, and knick-knacks. The take-home prize from Christmas weekend in Puebla: a small domino set, hand-made in unrefined onyx. Hours of play immediately followed. Check out more photos if you like here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.