Intersections

Máximo González: Dead money brought to life *

Born in Argentina and based in Mexico City, Máximo González is a contemporary artist perhaps best known for his inspired use of devalued currencies. I first mentioned his work in this post on the "Poetics of the Handmade" show at MOCA in Los Angeles two years ago.

The above clip documents "Inflation," an installation he did recently at MUAC on the UNAM campus. It consists of 1,000 metallic balloons left to deflate into a field of crumpled, shimmering plastic -- for months. When I caught it, a silvery light had been placed above the space, giving the whole work an alien kind of glow. The balloons are printed with the figure 10c on one side and the insignia of the Mexican republic on the other, representing coins that are hardly used any longer, deflating before our eyes.

Watch Máximo talk about his work with dead money here; it's a highly recommended mini-doc. "The work with the money in particular is that," he says, "Use all the significances, concepts, ideas, the histories of the countries, the symbols, and with humor and irony ... trap them, give it a meaning, and make it more valuable."

Art Deco meets Art Deco at Bellas Artes

* Above, 'La bella Rafaela,' via.

No better time than now to take a breather at a museum. MX-DF has the info on a new show on Tamara de Lempicka, until August at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, itself an art deco gem. The Polish painter lived her later years in Cuernavaca. The Wiki says her ashes were scattered on Popo. Pretty amazing.

Michael Jackson on a wall in an alley

... In the old-school Sherman barrio of San Diego (read that carefully crafted official description), in process. Notice the gooey, dripping apart face make-up.

Having been so moved by the somber but celebratory BET awards the other night, this made me think, A memorial is a memorial, right?

Graffiti removal as subconscious art?

It's hard to tell if this video is super-serious or seriously satirizing itself. It treats the gray, white and beige blotches of "graffiti abatement" rendered by municipal workers across the U.S. as unintentional extensions of abstract expressionism and minimalism, and an "important step in the future of modern art."

Yes, those quilts of anonymous spots of graffiti erasure are often beautiful. But ... really? * The clip info says the original filmmaker is Matt McCormick.

Acamonchi in Mexico City

Tijuana-San Diego street artist Acamonchi has a show up in the heart of D.F. right now, at the Upper Playground outpost in Condesa, and we caught it before taking off to California. His work is defined by a frenetic layering of icons and textures from the urban landscape.

Also on Amatlan, an offering of really great chandeliers by Carolina Fontoura, made out of discarded bicycle chains.

The tortilla wars: A creation myth

Ever wonder if there's a back-story to the practice in some U.S. Mexican restaurants to offer patrons, "Corn or flour?" Via LA Eastside, here's a mini-movie directed by media artist Esteban Zul that offers us a satisfying mythology over the always fruitful tortilla wars. Wait for when the "reclusive brujo" chants "Tecate! Tecate! Modelo! Sapporo! Asahi! Tecate! Tecate! Con limon!"

Zul co-hosts The Pocho Hour of Power on KPFK with Lalo Alcaraz. Their crew brings its comedy live for shows at the Steve Allen Theater.

ERRE pulls out of Tijuana retrospective

Marco "ERRE" Remirez has pulled out of a planned retrospective of his work at Tijuana's CECUT, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported on Sunday. The move was the latest salvo in an ongoing debate among the arts community in TJ over the appointment of the (federal) center's new director, Virgilio Muñoz. Sandra Dibble has details, suggesting the dispute reflects the scene's growing maturity.

ERRE's retrospective would have been a milestone on several levels, and would have traveled to Mexico City. Mike Davis was preparing a text for the catalogue. Now the show's future is uncertain, but let's hope it lands somewhere. ERRE is the most prominent contemporary artist working in Tijuana, famed for his "Trojan Horse" installation at the San Ysidro international border crossing during inSITE '97, seen above.

Contempo's night at DFashion

Contempo, a Mexico City modeling agency, closed DFashion last night with a special anniversary show featuring work by many of the city's young designers: EGR, Te Amo, Denise Marchebout, Carlos Temores, Mancandy, Marvin y Quetzal, Trista, Malafacha, and others.

It was a packed event. Rafa Cuevas of Te Amo DJ'd during the runway presentation and for the after-party, which went on until ... until way way too late. Above, Rafa and Zemmoa. And here, an intriguing art-fashion-music video they did together in 2007.

* More shots from the fuzzy night here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Just say no to candids

* At the one-year anniversary of Marrekech Salon, last Thursday.

Temple of blood: Teresa Margolles at the Venice Biennale

* Above, Margolles, via Universe in Universe.

What do you get when you put Mexico's preeminent contemporary art critic and its most radical working artist together on the global stage of the moment? I'm gonna go ahead and say it: You get a temple of blood.

Cuauhtémoc Medina, as a curator, submitted the winning entry for the Mexico pavilion at the upcoming Venice Biennale, featuring a new installation by Teresa Margolles, an artist who specializes in the material usage of cadavers, morgue water, and blood. For the 2009 Mexico pavilion, Margolles will exhibit mud and human blood from the sites of narco executions in Sinaloa area, where she is based. The pavilion is to be installed at the 16th Century Palazzo Rota Ivancich, just steps from St. Mark's Square. Blood, I'm told, will drip continuously upon the palace's ancient floors.

Read more at e-flux.

Reforma announced the exhibit in Wednesday's paper with this headline: "Narcoterror to be Exhibited in Venice." It's actual title is "What else could we talk about?", a blunt admission of the blood-soaked elephant in the room that no one in Mexico can deny, no matter how hard the president, media, and foreign boosters try. The purpose of the work, I'm told, is to "activate back those materials" in the face of the art-world and the consumers of Mexican-managed drugs in the United States and Europe -- and in Mexico itself.

So said Mariana Botey and Helena Chávez Mac Gregor, who aided Medina in the curation and writing of the work's texts. Those writings will be available later at this site where the artists contribute, Des-Bordes. Drenched in real Mexican blood, the installation, Chavez said, is all the more pertinent as Mexico became the pariah of the global community this spring after the swine flu feargasm.

"It's pure contamination, pure infection," Chavez told me Wednesday evening.

Botey added in our dual interview: "[Margolles] interrupts the art space by bringing in these materials that are really charged, which traces the relationship between death and power. It's about necropolitics, and the eruption of necropolitics in the art sphere."

With Mexico's conservative federal government trying its best to contain the geopolitical consequences of the orgy of narco violence in Mexico, and Europe's generally delicate airs, we'll see in the coming days how this aggressive gesture by Mexico's Medina and Margolles goes over. The Mexico Pavilion in Venice is slated to be on view until November.

* Images and media reaction to come later.