Intersections

The Mara Salvatrucha, distilled *

* Image above by CCMC, via La Plaza.

Spanish photographer Isabel Muñoz went to document the Maras of El Salvador. An exhibit of her work was up at Centro Cultural del Mexico Contemporaneo in the Centro Historico behind the Templo Santo Domingo until the end of December. We caught it on December 31.

The show featured a series of arresting large-scale portraits of Maras, male and female (some pregnant), highlighting the extreme tattooing that distinguishes soldiers in the multinational gang. Muñoz also shot many Maras in their domestic spaces -- which is to say, in prison -- offering a look at their visual surroundings: layers of murals on ceilings and walls depicting demons and Satan, clowns, naked women, Death, and tombstones for their departed homies. The murderous Mara Salvatrucha of course was founded on the streets of the MacArthur Park-Pico Union area of inner Los Angeles, by surviving refugees of the Salvadoran Civil War. As many were deported back to Central America by subsequent anti-gang crackdowns in the U.S., the gang's reach globalized, along with that of 18th Street. You didn't get much of this crucial context in the show. What were we supposed to feel for these guys? Empathy? Fear? Disgust? Pity?

I asked a Salvadoran American artist friend for thoughts:

One thing that [bugs] me about the act of presenting them in Mexico (if they look like what I think they look like) [is] that they are only perpetuating the same old stereotypes that many uneducated Mexicans have of Salvadorans, at a time when there's so much opportunity to build bridges and deconstruct the many negative mis-perceptions and lack of knowledge about Central Americans by many Mexicans. This only does harm in the end I feel.

* For more, See Mandalit Del Barco's related reports at NPR here and here. ** ADD: The L.A. Times's 2005 package on MS by Robert J. Lopez, Chris Kraul, and Rich Connell, with photos and video.

Early holiday update

We'll be back to regular posting, as promised, on 1 January 2009. Lots to update you on and share. * Above, a view of the Torres de Satelite by Mathias Goeritz, heading north on the Anillo Periferico to the northwest suburbs of Mexico City, a few days ago.

A valediction: Of deadlines and celebrations

So here's where we're at.

It was freakishly cold in Mexico City this week -- shivering, daytime darkness, hoodies over hats, austere wool ladies' coats cold -- and it's not even winter yet. Congress, as expected, finally passed the Pemex privatization reforms, with only nominal lefty resistance. The Mexican market is teetering and, surprise, the narco cartels were revealed to have deeply infiltrated the government. Yet the airwaves are littered with offensively cynical public service announcements basically telling Mexicans to strap up and be patriotic. The realities are far more sobering. "To say so with total clarity," the president, in a rare moment of clarity, declared at an Iberoamerican economic summit in San Salvador on Thursday, "Youth today don't believe in anything." Whatever who cares DJ Mehdi played Pasaje America that night.

Today, Day of the Dead, marks the one-year anniversary of my open-ended arrival to Mexico City. It's time to take stock, and party. We're turning Intersections off until 2009.

The living 'phantom' of identity

Above, U.S. artist Carolyn Castaño, a descendant of Colombian immigrants who was raised within Mexican American culture in the barrios of Los Angeles, stands before a self-portrait currently on view in "Aparaciones Fantasmales," at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City.

As we discussed the complexities of identity in contemporary art, Castaño told me that the binding theoretical approach among many of the artists in this show is similar to the ideas at play in "post-black" shows such as "Freestyle": "There is this identity but we're not just about this identity. But there's power in also acknowledging that some of these works have a particular voice in a way, a phantom if you will, of those interests, and they aren't divorced from that."

* More later.

The Invisible College

In honor of Fashion Week in Mexico City (again), the above image is from the personal archive of artist and academic Mariana Botey, a native of Mexico City and a graduate of St. Martins, from her fall 1997 collection "The Invisible College," as presented in London. The collection is one of the earliest in contemporary couture that utilized indigenous Mexican motifs on the runway.

Here in D.F. in fall 2008, Marvin y Quetzal presents on Wednesday the last collection that the late Quetzal Rangel collaborated on with partner Marvin Duran. Fashion Week is at Campo Marte, in Chapultepec.

* Previously, "A few fashionable discoveries in Mexico City."

'Phantom Sightings' arrives in Mexico City

The Tamayo is the Mexico City host for "Phantom Sightings," the LACMA-originated exhibit on "art after the Chicano Movement." What's that? That's art made by Mexican Americans in the decades since the height of the Chicano political movement and, through the curators' filter, work that is mostly conceptual in nature. The foundational influence running through much of the exhibit is the ground-breaking Asco collective.

Curator Rita Gonzalez and several of the artists were at the Tamayo on Tuesday for a press conference and a walk-through with arts reporters from the D.F. dailies. True to the Chicano social reality, much of the back-and-forth happened through an English-Spanish translator. Above, Ruben Ochoa discusses his "Freeway Wall Intervention" as it is being mounted.

Here is Mexico City's chance to see cutting-edge contemporary art made by its hyphenated cultural compatriots north of the border. "Phantom Sightings" opens as "Aparaciones Fantasmales" on Thursday night, October 16, at the Museo Tamayo in Chapultepec Park.

* Check out reviews of the show at LA Weekly, Frieze, and Art Review. Previously, "'Phantom Sightings' arrives in Los Angeles."

Tlatelolco, October 2, 1968: A day of infamy

Forty years ago today the Mexican government opened fire indiscriminately on a crowd of peaceful protesters at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, killing still-unknown numbers of students, bystanders, and demonstrators. The operation was a brutal smashing of the grassroots movement for social reform that had swept across Mexico and the world in that turbulent year, 1968.

October 2 is a date that forever remains a dark mark on the Mexican calendar and the Mexican psyche. Its significance in the country's history has been finally recognized with a permanent exhibit and UNAM cultural center at the former foreign relations ministry complex near the plaza. Today there are marches led partly by the Comite 68, survivors who are still seeking justice, and by various student and youth groups from the Tlatelolco plaza, to the Zocalo. The papers and magazines have been faithfully previewing the 40th anniversary of the '68 massacre for weeks now. We'll have photos and observations from today later in the week.

* Previously, "Living testimony from Tlatelolco, 1968," and "Nada pasó: Contemporary responses to Tlatelolco, '68." See also, "Graphic perfection: The 1968 Mexico City Olympics."

Michele Serros and her two Fridas

 * Above, Frida on your feet, by Converse.

Oxnard-bred Michele Serros, one of California's sharpest and funniest writers, has an essay in the current Washington Post Sunday magazine titled "Boundary Issues." It's a short narrative about her therapist, her therapist's "housekeeper," and la migra. Serros also did a radio commentary recently for Latino USA about the two Fridas. No, not the ones in the iconic painting by Frida Kahlo. Serros draws a post-Fridamania riff about the Mexican painter and ... Frida from ABBA. Some strong assertions in there, but I'll leave it up to you to pounce upon them. Listen here.

* Know your Serros. Re-discover the hilariously good "How to Be a Chicana Role Model." When I gave it to my little sister Erika to read when she was in middle school, she devoured it in a couple of days. Everyone does.

Art Deco indigena in Mexico City

At Parque Mexico in the Colonia Condesa. Getting intimate with Kathryn Garcia.

Miguel Calderon at Centre Pompidou

The Mexico City-based artist, represented by Kurimanzutto, is at the Pompidou in Paris on Thursday night to present his video "La Discipula del Velocimetro," or 'Disciple of the Speedometer.' The new work focuses on a wealthy Mexican woman named Emma who hunts for thrills driving race cars.

* Miguel, spotted often at Covadonga with his dad, recently put out a book. For its release party in April, local art mavens gathered at the dimmed rooftop bar at gloriously go-go Hotel Sevilla, on Reforma.

Love and Astrid Hadad, the 'rockera ranchera'

First part of a documentary by Aurelie Semichon and Pierre Favre on the cabaret chanteuse/performance artist Astrid Hadad, a loyal devotee and true innovator of the song of Mexico, of postmodern Mexico, of the allegory of the Mexican woman. See also parts two, three, four, five, and six.

New at LA Daily: The 'Palm Pavilion' in Mexico City

The sterling photograph above is by William Dunleavy, of Rirkrit Tiravanija's "Palm Pavilion" installation currently on view at Kurimanzutto. Read more at my latest "Letter from Mexico City."

Kurimanzutto's website is lately featuring a favorite YouTube clip once a week by one of its many prominent artists; the current pick is by Daniel Guzman. The gallery, one of the most cutting-edge in the capital, is set to open a permanent space in San Miguel Chapultepec in November.

A labyrinth of glances in a world of immigrants

"All of us are immigrants," Mexico City photographer Federico Gama surmises in this Reed Johnson piece about "Laberinto de Miradas," or "Labyrinth of Glances," a photo and video exhibit that recently passed through Mexico, D.F. "All of us are in a search for something. We would like to be on another side."

Indeed, taken together the images in the show argue that immigrants are people who cross not only national borders but also urban borders and cultural borders and sexual borders, making for the deliriously globalized world we know today. Gama's contribution to "Laberinto de Miradas" is a set of images from his project Mazahuacholostakopunk, about heavily marginalized indigenous youth in Mexico City who combine and layer several codes of borderless rural and urban dress in the shaping of their identity. (See Gama's photostream for more.)

"Laberinto de Miradas" just closed at the Centro Cultural España in the Centro Historico of Mexico City, but much of the exhibit exists permanently online at its web site. Check it out. The images are set to travel next to Guatemala, followed by Miami, El Salvador, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and Costa Rica. Come to think of it, it'd be cool if the show eventually made it to Los Angeles, America's brown capital.

* Image above by Sergei Camara.

Catedral Metropolitana, at night, 150 years ago

This is a mid-19th Century chromolithograph by Casimiro Castro, showing a view of the Metropolitan Cathedral, in twilight. Up close and in person the print is a glowing grayish blue.

The image above is from the NYPL Digital Library, via BibliOdyssey, which has lots more links tagged Mexico to really wonderful historical prints. You can examine many of them up close at the permanent prints drawers at the Museo Nacional de Arte or in temporary shows that pop up at the Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico. Some show "villages" that are now complete engulfed by the metropolis: Iztacalco, Iztapalapa, Tacubaya ...

* Enjoy.

Graphic perfection: The 1968 Mexico City Olympics *

Part Op art, part indigenous Mesoamerican art, and wonderfully go-go, the "Mexico 68" logo for the Olympics held in Mexico City 40 years ago is considered to this day a masterpiece of graphic design, a completely integrated expression of the '68 Games's ambition that I don't believe any other Olympic logo in comparison has achieved before or since. Take a look.

There is a fascinating exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in D.F. on this logo and on the entire visual language of the 1968 Games. With the Beijing Games wowing everyone this summer, the images of that year's "Olympic Identity Program" are in the air right now in the Mexican capital. I went to see the show on a recent Sunday and it was packed with stylish kids taking photos and checking each other out. It's not just nostalgia or hype. The exhibit is a look at the extraordinary task the organizers had of convincing the world through the power of graphic design that Mexico was capable of hosting the '68 Games -- the first held in Latin America, the first held in a developing country, and first held in the Spanish-speaking world.

Curators mostly ignore the bloody repression against students in D.F. and in major cities at the time, focusing exclusively on the Olympics' central graphic system and how it was integrated into every visual aspect of the '68 Games, from tickets to events, to stamps, postcards, signs, programs, even clothing and tableware. Everything emanated from the Games' logo, "Mexico 68," like the design itself. Credit for the symbol is due to designers Eduardo Terrazas, Pedro Ramirez Vasquez (the architect who also brought you the Televisa logo and the CECUT in Tijuana) and Lance Wyman, who says in this statement that the "Mexico 68" logo helped create an image of "Mexico as an emitting or expanding centre." That's more or less the same impulse that inspired Anni and Josef Albers of the Bauhaus.

A story by Catherine Dunn at Inside Mexico has more details. Chilango magazine's piece comes with a guided tour by curator Tania Ragasol that you can download and play on your iPod when you hit the museum. Finally, in that short audio clip at Inside Mexico, organizer Beatrice Trueblood, marveling at how the '68 Olympics committee managed to pull it off, pays homage where homage is due -- to la Virgen de Guadalupe.

The show at MAM is up until October 27.

* Check out these amazing kicks by Puma commemorating the Black Power salute of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the '68 Games. Pretty fresh.

The war on crime, the war on youth?

* Above: 'Kill a delinquent'/'I am a delinquent.'

After exiting the metro at Zocalo, I found myself outside the Palacio Nacional on Thursday night, behind heavy barricades and rows of riot police. The president, members of his cabinet, the Mexico City mayor, and governors of the 31 states had been meeting inside for most of the day to discuss the "inseguridad" situation that has gripped the country since the name "Fernando Marti" entered the international lexicon. I'll let you decide if what was said has any long-term meaning. Read local Friday coverage of the "national security" summit at El Universal, La Jornada, Milenio, and other sources listed at right.

Incidentally, I ran into activists from the group that I traveled with to Chiapas among the crowds chanting outside. They were protesting the fact that it took the death of the son of a wealthy and connected figure for political leaders to sit up and take notice of a problem that plagues Mexicans of all social classes. There were some AMLO supporters in the mix, as usual, but mostly it was average Mexicans, walking by, some yelling, "Watch the rats run!" as dignitaries ducked into their SUVs outside the palace while a purple dusk descended on the vast Zocalo. Some of the student activists had just confronted the police, and there was a scuffle and chase. One of the leaders lay in pain on the floor of the square.

"Be a patriot," the message in the photograph on top reads, "Kill a delinquent." It is a widely reproduced message from the historic 2004 march in Mexico City against insecurity and delinquency and it sums up the same outrage that people in Mexico feel today. Some are taking the law into their own hands. Four years later, another massive march is planned for the evening of August 30. Solidarity marches are also planned in other cities in Mexico and even in the United States.

What is an alternative view? On Saturday at the Chopo street market I saw the poster seen in the second image above, designed by the talented graphic artist(s) at the Foro Alicia, a legendary music venue in Colonia Roma. It is a powerful response to a brewing climate of hysteria, reading:

TO THE ADMINISTRATORS OF THIS CITY / I AM A DELINQUENT/ I AM 20 YEARS OLD / I AM A YOUNG PERSON / I HAVE NO RIGHTS TO / AN EDUCATION / TO WORK / TO HOUSING / TO HEALTHCARE / AND TO MANY OTHER THINGS.

Check out the poster in full, and see more at the Foro Alicia MySpace page.

Havana ghosts in Mexico City, Part 2

A plaque historicizing the site of the assassination of Julio Antonio Mella, the Cuban Communist leader exiled to D.F. And next to it, a later plaque commemorating that first plaque. This is around the corner from Cafe La Habana on Bucareli, a street that figures prominently in the Roberto Bolaño masterpiece, "The Savage Detectives."

* Previously, "Bust of Che Guevara before sleepy plaza."

Cocktail of humanity: Hussein Chalayan in Mexico City

The London-based designer Hussein Chalayan was in Mexico City in May for the world premiere of his "Level Tunnel," another iteration of the increasingly common merging of commercial branding, fashion, and a strong marquee name. Here's what Chalayan had to say about D.F. on his first visit here, in my interview with the designer:

I feel like I’m facing a cocktail of humanity. I feel it’s a city of 10 different cities, and I’m quite overwhelmed. I find it’s completely a proper international, cosmopolitan city. I think there’s a strange Americanization as well. I guess it’s almost like Spanish imperialism has been replaced by American commercialization. But I think the city is really vibrant, there’s an incredible energy. I’m really impressed. And it feels really clean, weirdly. Like really, really clean.

Read the rest of our conversation in the current issue of Celeste magazine, where Chalayan touches on the good and bad uses of technology, today's generation of young designers, and his favorite article of clothing ("It's from my men's wear. It's called a Box Jacket. I wore it today."). The tunnel's official website reports: "2,800 people visited the tunnel in Mexico City -- everything from design school students to local celebrities -- and they seemed to agree. There was a strong sense of pride that Mexico had been chosen as the site for the world premiere."

Now, the consensus among people who saw it, as far as I heard, is that Chalayan's tunnel "experience" is impressive but ultimately does not achieve the kind of breathtaking effects we've come to expect from fashion's foremost trailblazer. Nonetheless, for me, it was a real treat to meet Chalayan, especially as he's transitioning into a new venture as creative director of Puma. Definitely expect some trippy results from that pairing.

The current issue of Celeste features also interviews with Diane Pernet, Jeremy Scott (both interviewed by Angela Esteban Librero), Vik Muniz (interviewed by Mauricio Limon), and photo stories by Napoleon Habeica, Alexandra Carr, Pablo Franco, and Valerie Phillips. (Shout-outs to editor Paola Viloria and translator James Young.)

* After its premiere in Mexico City, the "Level Tunnel by Hussein Chalayan" is scheduled to travel to Athens and Paris. Photo above from designboom.

An afternoon in Roma

You forget sometimes how big, 'urban,' and sort of permanently tucked away Colonia Roma is, despite its known evolution. In particular, I mean the farther reaches of Roma Sur heading toward Viaducto. It's like its own mini-city. Here I am with my friend Nuria, a resident of Roma Sur, checking out the current show at Border -- deceptively monochromatic paintings by Gustavo Abascal -- and then having a coffee at Border's new cafe-gallery-library space at 43 Zacatecas. They specialize in graffiti and street art.

Sergio Hernandez and the mind's borderlands barrio *

This is a detail of a painting by my brother Sergio, a graffiti and tattoo artist in San Diego. When I asked him to send me this image, I had been thinking of our curious relationship with Tijuana. The representational painting, in keeping with Sergio's toonish style, is a nostalgic scene of the barrio we knew in La Mesa. We called that lot -- a yard and a row of single-room bungalows -- "los cuartitos." Each little branch of my maternal Andrade clan had its own little cuartito. Here's what Sergio had to say about the painting:

The piece is called Saturday Morning in Tijuana 82. I've also called it Tijuana 1983. Either or. Like all the other pieces that are still in my house it is a work in progress. None of my paintings are finished until someone else owns them. I tried to portray what it felt like going to Tijuana to visit the fam on the weekends when we were little. I remember ninjas were awesome and Bruce Lee was the shit. I also remember random dangerous holes and cracks in the ground. Paleteros. The stories of [our brother] Gaston being like the local dog whisperer. I also included Gramma Esperanza in her lime green pants. Cars that were not functional... cousins that we called tios. Outhouses...stuff like that. I'm glad youre diggin it. I like it cause I think that that Tijuana, for better or worse, is quickly disappearing.

The piece kind of reminds me of a latter Carmen Lomas Garza. Lomas Garza is the Tejana painter whose warm scenes of Mexican American domestic life in South Texas are included in Cheech Marin's "Painters of the Verge" collection.

* Sergio is not naturally a self-promoter. But let me tell you that he has exhibited his canvas or graffiti work in galleries and shows in Baltimore, Oklahoma City, Mexico City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Tijuana, and Melbourne, Australia. He also practices mixed martial arts, MCs with the Boxfeeders, and has modeled for Tribal Gear.

* Previously, "Officially cool, Tijuana art arrives."

Trip out: Freaky Medusa on the Angel of Independence

While exploring the Angel de la Independencia on a rainy, trippy night, we spotted Medusa on the monument's east side, facing Centro. What the ... ? The Angel was designed by Antonio Rivas Mercado and Enrique Alciati, but a search turns up nothing. There may be an obvious explanation for it, who knows.

Same-sex couples on display in Mexico City metro *

The metro in D.F. is truly the working citizen's art museum. Many stations feature permanent murals and sculptures or pre-Hispanic artifacts, such as the Ehecatl pyramid that sits in the middle of metro Pino Suarez. There are also temporary exhibits. These are images from "Familias Mexicanas," currently on view at metro Centro Medico, a transfer point for Lines 3 and 9. It is a series of photographs by Oscar Sanchez doumenting same-sex couples in the capital, in their domestic spaces.

In the image above are Alfonso and Ruben, who according to the exhibit materials first met when Ruben was 11 and Alfonso was 18. Seven years later they ran into each other on the train, and immediately became a couple. They're in an "open relationship," hence the guy in the middle. Also, I noticed they're both wearing the Star of David. Below, more images.

The exhibit is mounted in conjunction with the Museo Universitario del Chopo, and is up until June 30. By the way, after taking these photos late on Tuesday night I headed back to the place where I'm currently staying, at metro Patriotismo, and saw a couple in a loving embrace on a staircase. I managed to snap a photo while taking the escalator to surface level. Yup, two dudes.

* Click on photos for larger views. Previously, "Happy gays in Mexico." * Add: Macha Mexico on the exhibit.

Backlog: Taggers tag at panel on tagging **

Meant to post this a whole ago: Sickly Season has valuable audio from a panel discussing graffiti and its engagement with civic life in Los Angeles, from June 2007, at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, in Little Tokyo. Really interesting perspectives in there from OG writer Chaz Bojorquez, Retna, Al Nodal, Slick, CalTrans official Dan Freeman, and Roger Gatsman, founding editor of While You Were Sleeping and Swindle. Also on the panel sat Shelley Leopold of the LA Weekly. Leopold has a feature this week on Mr. Brainwash, who is apparently making a scene on the L.A. landscape right now.

Definitely listen to what Chaz has to say. ("New York? They're still doing bubble letters.") But the really interesting part comes at the very beginning, when the panel's organizer tells the audience that someone had tagged the NCPD building in the "in the last fifteen minutes, which isn't cool." The organizer, in a fascinating bit of protocol and street smarts, handles the incident very well. Download the audio here. Graffiti: ever-mainstreaming, ever renegade.

* Image above, a piece by Revok on a Korean market in Mid-City, from the blog Lurker by LA Weekly online editor Mark Mauer. See related posts in Intersections in our graffiti category.

** Housekeeping note: The fonts here have been finally, mercifully updated. Sans serif at last. I also added the "recent comments" box on the left, to highlight feedback that arrives on posts deep in the archives. Also slightly updated my author profile. Thanks for the continued feedback and encouragement.

Introducing Domestic Fine Arts *

Yes everyone has one now and they're kinda predictable, but what is it about party photoblogs, at least the good ones, that makes them endlessly fascinating? Regular readers in D.F. may be already familiar with Domestic Fine Arts, but those in farther reaches of the planet might be interested to know what happens on a casual Wednesday or early Friday in Mexico City, through the eye of one embedded documenter, in certain places, under certain clouds, maybe, perhaps, wait that happened?

* All images from recent posts at Domestic Fine Arts. Previously, "Hyper-fashion scenesters in the D.F."

Moctezuma and Malinche, together at last

Manuel Vilar was a Spanish-born sculptor who worked in the mid-19th Century in Mexico City. Above, a shot of his Neoclassical renderings of Moctezuma II and La Malinche, side by side in the "Construction of a Nation" rooms of the second floor of the Museo Nacional de Arte. Below, a close-up of what is perhaps Vilar's most famous work, a larger-than-life sculpture of the heroic Tlaxcalan warrior, Tlahuicole, who preferred to die as a gladiator rather than face his people for compromising with the Aztecs.

* Click on both images for mega-large views.

Social studies in food, graffiti, and fake money

A fresh batch of posts at my "Letter from Mexico City" over at LA Weekly. Here are images from a show of Mexican graffiti at the Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico. Here's a quick look at the way the global food crisis is being approached in Mexico. And here is a cronica of my reluctant affair with a fake 10 peso coin. Lesson learned: Always check your change. * Image above, a pedestrian tunnel below Calzada de Tlalpan.

Photo journal: Tropical noir in Puerto Vallarta *

Vallarta, the once sleepy port permanently transformed by the film adaption of Tennessee Williams's "The Night of the Iguana," remains largely defined as a tourist colony for Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans on holiday from the interior. But in five days there for the arte contemporaneo festival, ignoring the tourist traps, I found it to be definitely coming into its own, with distinctly local culture-makers and scenesters, pleasing non-touristy nightspots, excellent food, and a seductive mixture of myth and menace that gave me an overall feeling of tropical noir. Below, some more snapshots.

A floating installation by Cristian Silva, mimicking the swan-shaped towel sculptures traditionally left by maids on beds in Vallarta hotel rooms.

Panelists Rita Gonzalez, Alma Ruiz, and Ruben Ortiz Torres, preparing.

A soup of chile poblano poured over huitlacoche and corn, at Los Xitomates.

Me with artist Shizu Saldamando after our panel talk outdoors.

A (lip-syncing, male) songstress performing at legendary gay disco Paco Paco.

A work by Davis Birks. The word "ELLOS" is readable on the fence's other side.

Shrimp tacos seasoned al pastor at the beach-front spot Barracuda.

A quiet corner late Friday night, up behind the bustle of town.

Sunset on Saturday, before returning to the big city.

* Congrats and cheers are due to curator/organizer Pilar Perez, and to all the local artists and volunteers who participated and helped put the event together. * ADD: Here's the L.A. Times' Reed Johnson writing on the festival.

The scene in Puerto Vallarta *

[Image removed by request!]

An invigorating exchange of ideas and energy in Vallarta for the arte contemporaneo festival this week. Sprinkled in this shot from left to right, moments after a rather charged panel on the intersections of tourism and artesania, are artist and academic Mariana Botey, architect and restaurateur Heidi Padilla, fashion designer Denise Marchebout, artist and educator Sandra de la Loza, and artist and writer Kathryn Garcia. Three galleries are hosting work by the invited artists, and there are site-specific works around town. Today we'll be talking about youth, borders, and culture on a panel. Afterwards, music by Dr. Lakra and Sonido Apokalitzin outdoors at Parque Cardenas. The streets sing with heat and partying -- and the pools are nice. * Edited slightly.

Calle 13 makes reggaeton worth it

This is a new single by the Puerto Rican reggaeton group Calle 13, featuring Big Yamo. Calle 13, a writer-producer duo of brothers, are no strangers to controversy and criticism. But no one can deny the danceability and wit of one of their jams. Meanwhile, the Obama song phenomenon has not only reached reggaeton, but now the kingdom of reggae. Check out "Barack Obama," by Coco Tea. And if you read Spanish, enjoy below the intricate word-play of this "Tocarte Toda" verse:

Soy la nueva cara del rock,
el nuevo new kid on the block,
que me sigan el el coro los estupidos
calle 13 y DJ jabo suenan nitido,
te vo´a a sacar el aire de la cabeza,
dandole un masaje a tu cerebro con cerveza,
pa´ cambiarle esa mente de fresa,
hay que consumir como cien tabletas,
chupate esta, una masajito por tu piel grasienta,
pa´ que sienta hasta la placenta,
pioca, pica, pica como pimienta
nos fuimos hipies como en los setentas
a ti yo te sedo la silla y la mesa
plaza de su alteza
eres una gata montesa, de las pezuñas hasta la cabeza

Mexico City at your feet **

This is a walkable map of the Centro Historico of D.F., part of a permanent exhibit about the city at the Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico. There's also a traveling exhibit on Mexican graffiti. Below, a detail of a large 1963 acrylic and pencil on wood piece by Luis Covarrubias, imagining Tenochtitlan and the great Lago de Texcoco before the arrival of the Spanish.

* Here is a cool and kinda weird virtual depiction of a battle during the fall of Tenochtitlan at YouTube. The rain and lightning are very apt. It's crazy to think that the ground where all that happened is the same ground we walk upon today: Colonial buildings and churches, McDonald's and Zara and Oxxo, metro tunnels.
** You may or may not see slight glitches in coming posts at Intersections. TypePad 'upgraded' its composing functions, reminding me that the look and functionality of this blog remains at the will of its hosts, and that maybe I should upgrade myself and seek to go solo somehow, again.
I know it must be easy, but I'm a dingbat when it comes to the mechanics of blogging. And anyway, with freelance work and the book project looming larger than ever, posting in general may be scaled back through the end of the year. Thoughts? Leave a comment, or email me.