Epilogue: Houston, TX, 1.20.2009

Location: George Herbert Bush International Airport.

The world has changed and we must change with it.
Barack Obama, Inaugural Address.

If there were to be an ironic coda to our journey overseas, it could have only played out because of the airlines. Our delayed departure from Lima caused us to miss our connecting flight from Houston to Chicago and as a result, our almost-inseparable pack dispersed fighting for stand-by seats, lunch vouchers and an early return home.

The trip was over before we knew it and I found myself stuck in a “special” line at the Houston arrivals hall, having all my finger- and palm-prints diligently taken on the morning of the inauguration. That morning the immigration authorities decided to add a third category to their usual two: we weren’t just divided into “Visitors” and “Citizens and U. S. Residents,” but rather into: “Visitors,” “Citizens” and separately – quite beyond the ordinary regulations – “Residents.” As my picture was being taken and the last of the group drifted off into the customs area, I was abruptly reminded of the ambiguous space I occupy, neither quite here nor there: a fool who gave up a clear-cut identity for a conspicuous, second-grade status in the U.S. of A.

But hey, what are the cell phones for? My disconnected-ness did not last long. The return from the roaming area freed our accounts from the extra charges and the scattered remnants of our group reconvened at the gate E—31, faced with an impossible dilemma of celebrating OUR inauguration not at the home base – the White House West as some call it – but in Houston, TX of all places. The primary objective became locating a TV set with an audio and we would have not settled for anything less. We accomplished our mission by virtually taking over “Ruby’s Diner” as our little group huddled around the entire bar demanding energetically that the CNN volume gets turned all the way up, while the Muzzak gets turned all the way down. Believe me, I know something about the food industry policies and the inauguration made some employees bend the corporate rules for us pretty heavily. And so we were, cheering the new presidency with the morning beers and biting into fast food burgers (well, at least some of us were enjoying the beef), surrounded by equally engrossed wait staff, cooks, TSA officers, and other travelers. It surely did seem as if at 11.05 am that morning the Houston airport had temporarily suspended its usual activity.

Lucka, Joe, Corrina, Tang.

The oath.

This moment of a hopeful standstill actually made me reflect on the way we think of our work and the notions of professional engagement that are engrained in us. Let’s face it, by day 14 we were quite sick of one another and the vision of yet another group activity made us quietly nauseate. Yet, at the Houston airport all those feelings appeared to have fallen away while we cheered Barack Obama’s inaugural address. Nationality and attitudes did not matter at that particular point: we all applauded, clapped our hands and had tears in our eyes. Regardless of the utopian resonance of the phrase, we actually did come together for a brief moment.

Anne, Katie, Kirsten.

So far Obama has been praised as a pragmatist, who actually wants to get things done, rather than an ideologue, who will succumb policy to the hard lines. While I cannot predict the future, I am quite certain that I want my own work to be informed by an acute awareness of the contingency of my practice. Away with the romantic notions of the heroic, individual effort! While the vision is necessary to guide us and keep us inspired, I see the only sensible future in forming strategic partnerships that will help us forward our not common – but at least compatible – goals. This is not a call for any kind of new collectivism, but a reminder that we’re all in the same mess: together. The times are tough and we cannot risk our voices being lost in the cacophony of complaints and cries for help. So while some of us take pisco sours over soda, let’s make sure to keep the conversations going. This is the only way to get things done.

~Dorota

January 18 Sacred Valley

Today was our last day in Cusco area, and we traveled through the Sacred Valley north of the city. Our tour started with a drive up the mountainside, where we were able to take in amazing, expansive views of the city. Many in the group were impressed by the view of the airport in Cusco. It boasts one of the longest runways in Peru, which delivers you straight into the center of the city. As we traveled down into the valley, we saw more incredible views of the Andes mountains and just a few of the over 84 (out of 114 in the world) terrains that Peru has between its mountains, deserts, coast and jungle areas. Throughout the day, we were also able to see many examples of farming in the Andes Mountains, often on very steep terrain. The Incas used terraces on the mountainsides, and those terraces are still incorporated into present-day farming.

At the alpaca farm

Our first destination was a roadside llama and alpaca farm, where we were able to get up close and personal with the animals. Their pens were enclosed, but there was a walkway that took visitor through the farm. We were even able to feed them. A great llama and alpaca experience for those of us who have been infatuated with them since being in Peru.

Our second stop was in the town of Pisac for their weekly market that happens on Sunday. It is well known and quite large. There was a market for souveniers as well as a market for food, which a few of us got to see. The market had a vast array of things to choose from, especially when it comes to anything made from an alpaca or llama. There were textiles for the table, scarves, slippers, blankets, rugs, ponchos, sweaters, etc. There were many other trinkets to choose from as well, and it gave us all some good bargaining practice.

After a buffet lunch at a hotel in the area, we again boarded the bus and headed for the Inca village of Ollantaytambo. On the way, we stopped at a small meeting place called Descanso — clearly a designated tourist stop, but also bearing the trappings of a family home. The purpose of the stop was to taste chicha, a homemade Quechan beer made from fermented corn that is popular in the Andes. Local establishments selling chicha will create a colorful decoration out of material at hand — anything from vibrant cloth to colored plastic bags, and display the decoration on a pole in front of the uilding to alert the locals, and tourists as well, that chicha is sold inside.

Chicha -- regular and strawberry flavored

At Descanso, we were introduced to a Quechan “bar game” in which a player attempts to toss a gold coin into the open mouth of a frog. While many attempted to do so, Bryce was the only member of our group to successfully toss the coin into the frog’s mouth. We also had the opportunity to sample two types of chicha. The first tasted strongly of corn, and also a bit like vinegar. The second, a strawberry-flavored variety, won the vote as the tastier of the two.

After experiencing chicha and playing the frog game, we continued on to Ollantaytambo. Julian took us around the cobblestone streets of the city, which retains vivid elements of its Inca past. We spent some time in the home of a family who lives in the town, and while we all strongly felt our role as tourists in this environment, and all felt at least a little uncomfortable being in their private space, we still marveled at the sight of approximately 15-20 guinea pigs scrambling around the family’s living space.

Possibly tonight's dinner for a family in Ollantaytambo

The fortress at Ollantaytambo

Ollantaytambo is dominated by an Inca fortress from which the Incas repelled the Spanish who were attempting to conquer the village by raining stones, arrows and other missiles on them. While the Incas eventually fled Ollantaytambo (the Spanish had retreated, but returned with reinforcements) they were never actually defeated by the Spanish there. As we climbed up the terraces,we once again saw the phenomenal examples of Inca engineering — the stones of the walls, particularly of those buildings meant for ceremonial purposes, fit together perfectly with no mortar.

At the top of the site there is a ceremonial center which was unfinished at the time the Incas left. The building is constructed with stone from a mountain 6 km away from the village. The villagers therefore would have had to transport the huge blocks of stone up to the site. While we saw evidence of a ramp which they may have used to do this, an American anthropologist who has attempted to recreate the scene has conjectured that it would take 2,000 people to move the stone up the ramp, which would have been impossible given the width of the space. Thus, like so many elements of the Inca civilization, how they managed this feat is still unknown.

From Ollantaytambo, we returned to Cusco for a final group dinner capping off the last leg of our journey. In our group discussion at dinner, we discussed the differences between this day — a day where, unlike most other days on this trip, we had a true tourist experience, complete with the pressures to purchase that many tourists enjoy — and the more analytical, comparative aspects of the majority of our time abroad. We talked about both the enjoyable elements of the day, including the ability to absorb certain facts about the region we were in without too much intellectual effort, and the frustrating ones such as the uncomfortable feeling of being an intrusive observer of a family’s lifestyle within their home. All in all, we generally agreed that even with these elements of discomfort, the Sacred Valley was a great way to end a wonderful study trip.

When dinner ended, we returned to the hotel to get ready for the trip back to Chicago the next day.

Emily and Kirsten

January 14, 2009 — Lima, Peru

Today’s itinerary illustrated a series of organizations with disparate modes of approaching contemporary art.

• Corriente Alterna with Luis Lama.
• Panel Discussion with Jorge Villacorta and other affiliates of Centro de la Imagen.
• Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano with Pedro Pablo Alayza
• Fundacion Telephonica with Jose Carlos Mariategui

Our first stop of the day was at the art school Corriente Alterna with Luis Llama, who is director of the school as well as a curator and art critic. Llama promoted the school as being the most contemporary and experimental of all the art schools in Lima, as well as having the “best video art in Peru.”  He said the largely female student body was partcularly interested in feminisms and representations of the body. While our group seemed to be more or less in agreement that we weren’t convinced of the modernity or experimental quality of the work presented to us, it perhaps calls into questions our own expectations for studio art educational practices and production.

The second visit on this trip to Centro de la Imagen yeilded a surprisingly enlightening panel discussion with Jorge Villacorta, biologist/geneticist turn art curator, and several other artists associated with Espacio la Culpable who also teach at Centro de la Imagen. The great value of this visit was how, collectively, these speakers provided much information toward the greater context which contemporary Peruvian art exists within, most directly related to class systems.  The State educational system (more or less equivalent to our notion of public schools) and the teachers therein, they said, are in a rather terrible state of affairs, particularly regarding arts and creativity, which they called a “fascist past-oriented educational system” where teachers are wholly unpreparred to teach.  Apparently to address this problem, the state tried to institute examinations to test teacher competency, but the unions are so powerful that they were able to go on strike – and win – aganst such oversight.  They each expressed gratitude toward their experience with better private education, but acknowledged that such schools only serve about 10% of the population and that the vast majority of Peruvians are underserved in their foundational education.  Here, the conversation shifted toward their collective desire to gain proper accredidation for the programs at La Imagen, as it provides a much needed alternate educational resources, but does not yet yeild any sort of officially recognized degree.

At ICPN with Pedro Pablo Alayza, we mostly revisited the now common theme of funding problems due to lack of state support, no tax breaks for donations, and no real system of corporate support.  Interestingly, the ICPN produces exhibits at multiple spaces across the city (4-5?) but voices these funding complaints in lock-step with the other organizations we’ve visited. It would be interesting to see how their overall operational budget compares to some of the smaller projects we’ve visited, what with their ability to simultaneously administrate so many facilities.

At last, after hearing so much about the general arts philanthropy of Telephonica (in both Mexico and Peru) we finally got to pay them a visit. Frustratingly, however, we were hard pressed to mine any additional data, as we were pretty much presented with their standard public relations platform.  We were given a tour of the current exhibit which featured experimentations with new technologies.  As it was described to us, the idea behind the exhibit was that these artits were using these highly complex technologies to address fairly simple concepts.  A crowd favorite was the circuit-bended roomba with a mounted camera that projected the image onto either wall beside it.  The roomba wandered around a slightly elevated platform that the audience was invited to stand upon, to help “guide” the roomba into a red square in the center.  Once inside, the roomba became “trapped” and attempted to escape. The piece addressed ideas of survellance and mechanical adaptation.

Also at Telephonica, our translator Janine was having a show which was curated by our Lima coordinator Emilio. We were invited to attend the show opening that night, and they offered to take us out for Pisco Sours at a hotel en el plaza de San Martin en el Centro de Lima. After a brief walking tour of the beautiful colonial historic center, we actually wound up having to forgo the original plan, and settle for havng a pisco in a german pub. In the center of lima. Amusing circumstances to try a traditionally peruvian cocktail.

The day’s events eventually lead into a discussion about what we were learning to be a general sense of identity confusion for the arts in Peru, which were both further illuminated and confounded by our discussion at Centro de la imagen.  What with Peru’s embracement of the Incan past, but rejection of the contemporary native population, the claims of ‘experimentation’ that doesn’t seem terribly experimental by our cognitive expectations of experimental arts, and the revelations of caste systems providing or barring participatory access to the contemporary arts scene, we were hard pressed to establish a solid identity for the arts community in Lima, despite how small that community actually was.  While the speakers acknowledge this sense of cognitive dissonance about melding the past and the present, it doesn’t seem to hinder their own sense of community identity.  The sense of identity confusion seems to come purely from being an outsider looking in.

Joe

Jan 17 Machu Picchu

Jan 17 Machu Picchu

 

One of the first questions we asked in our group discussion was to engage the day in terms of our individual expectations of Machu Picchu before the trip and direct experiences in the actual site. What followed included a wide range of comments from historical references to personal recommendations. In the spirit of that initial question, we decided to reflect on the day’s activity in our own voices.

 

Fang + Makeba

 

Fang’s Take:

 

Gathering at 5:30 am in the hotel lobby and suffering from the effects of the altitude difference, the day began with unusual silence. Boarding at 6:30 with anxious people walking haltingly into the PERURAIL, which are one of the two ways to visit Machu Picchu (the other way is hiking for eight days from Cusco to Machu Picchu).

 

This was almost a four-hour trip. We were going from high altitude Cusco to lower altitude Machu Picchu and experiencing the natural scenery that shifted with the changing altitude. Once on board, most of us sank into the comfortable chair and fell into a deep sleep. When we woke up, breakfast was on the train.

 

The breakfast included breads (whole wheat bread, kiwicha bread and “coca” bread), Edam cheese, farmer’s cheese from Cusco, a cold cut platter, butter, “pineapple jam,” a banana muffin and an assortment of drinks (coffee, black tea, “coca” tea, etc.). The journey began with a series of switchbacks, known appropriately as the ‘zig-zag’, up the hill out of Cusco, before a brief stop at the village of Poroy. The train then descended from the highest point of the journey into the Sacred Valley to the foothills of the Andes.  Before reaching Machu Picchu, the train traveled along the Urubamba River with awe-inspiring views of the dramatic canyon. The railroad originally functioned as transportation for the resources and residents between surrounding villages of Cusco. However, with the increasing number of tourists, the PERURAIL started to provide services for tourists, just like the other railroad travel trains in Europe.

We got off the train around 10:00 and received the ticket from our professional tour guide Julian (Julian has 20 years experiences as tour guide and is originally from Cusco) to embark on our next mode of transportation—a 40-seat tour bus. Climbing up from the train station down to Machu Picchu, the bus driver cruised smoothly through the zig-zag mountain road and drove us to the entrance of Machu Picchu. Then most of us spent one sol. for using the public bathroom and five sols. for checking our bag or jacket. In order to get into Machu Picchu, we also had to pass the “gate” to check our ticket and bag. After we got into Machu Picchu, the uncomfortable feeling from altitude sickness, an involved travel schedule and lack of sleep vanished. Following our tour guide and his detailed explanations, we walked into Macchu Picchu with well-prepared cameras. There are no words to describe the beauty of Macchu Picchu.

As our tour guide said, “everything in Machu Picchu was designed for a different function and hierarchy.” There were structures reserved solely for storage, living, worshiping, astronomical study, security and so on. Moreover, the different arrangement of the gigantic stones illustrated the unique function of each building. Julian nearly described every detail and story of the Inca city, but there were still so many things that were inexplicable in fully understanding Macchu Picchu.

 

We were surrounding by the mystery of the site and the ancient people responsible for building it. In addition to the breathtaking views, we were inundated with the tones and dialects of the different languages that were spoken by the other tour guides and tourists from all over the world. Excitingly, we also met the iconic animal of Peru- the llama, which was brought to the site for us to photograph. YES! We love them.

 

After almost three hours in Macchu Picchu, we had lunch at the all-you-can-eat buffet located directly outside the gate to Macchu Picchu with the other tourist groups. At 3:30, we all jumped on PERURAIL back to Cusco to follow the same route we began in the morning to the Sacred Valley.

 

Makeba’s Take:

 

 

Like the sacred pyramids in Egypt, Machu Picchu’s brilliance cannot be fully acknowledged without seeing it firsthand. All the images and articles that were uploaded and read to prepare for the visit failed to adequately capture the beauty and sheer greatness of the architecture and its surrounding location. With each step we took towards the Inca ruins, it became increasingly impossible to picture a visit to the country without seeing them.  We were able to witness snow-capped mountains and roaring streams exist in conversation with the area’s architecture—a dizzying mix of indigenous, colonial and contemporary influences woven into single structures.

 

It was only after I viewed the experience in terms of inclusion—looking in conversation with what I saw previously—was I able to begin thinking of today’s visit as an arts administrator and not only as an awestruck tursita. Beginning with my thoughts on the area’s relationship with nature and commercial production, I inserted our class readings in this internal discussion. The Machu Picchu readings focused on patrimony and the presentation (and subsequent negotiation) of culture. The readings grapple with the tangled, problematic, but also ethically ambiguous issues surrounding the relationship between Yale University and the Peruvian government and scared sites and tourism.  Visiting Machu Pichu on the second leg of the trip allowed for me to not only see the day in relation to the readings, but also personally. We were able to participate in dialogue with our previous site visits in Lima and Mexico City and individual interactions with the residents and their neighborhoods.

 

 

One of the speakers last week described the area as a collision of several cultures. This phrase began to inform the way I engaged Machu Pichu and the supporting readings. The question of origin as the guiding principal rather than history as a tool for charting narratives became less of a dynamic question here. The numerous factors involved illuminated the nonsensical conversation that develops when attempting to tackle issues of representation, power and bureaucratic cultural policies in absolutes. As Rachel said over lunch later that day, there are no obvious “good or bad guys” in this discussion. In addition to her sentiments, this inclusive thinking strategy became the common thread for which I would begin processing the trip as a whole when I return.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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http://www.perurail.com/web/tper/journeys/4_53409.jsp

Jan 16 Cusco

FINAL CITY – AWE-INSPIRING.

We’ve arrived at our final city of the trip – Cusco! We’re a bit cloudy right now trying to adjust to the high altitude so please excuse this blog if it’s slightly non-sensical. Hopefully the cocoa tea is kicking in as we’re gaining our bearings! Flying in over the Andes was a spectacular experience, and was in stark contrast to the bustling city of Lima, a total population of 8 million, that we just left behind. Cusco, on the other hand, is only a population of 1/2 million. (And remember, we started in Mexico City which is population 20 million, wow!!!) So we’re making our way to increasingly smaller cities – and with this progression we’re also experiencing cities with increasingly less infrastructure for contemporary art.

Although we’re exhausted right now from a late group dinner last night (which was absolutely extravagant – we all took lots of pictures of the exquisite food) and an early flight this morning, it’s refreshing to be surrounded by green and greeted by a professional and enthusiastic Peruvian tour guide, Julian (who speaks perfect English). For those who managed to still have some energy, Julian gave us a speedy tour of the city where we saw original Inca walls, a beautiful colonial cathedral, and the center square. Our mouths were dropped the entire time and they’ll probably stay that way until we leave because everything is so breath-taking here.

It is hard to believe we are nearing the end of our trip, but we are excited to start digesting the big picture in order to begin to make sense of our overall experience here in Latin America…

ECLECTIC MIX.
We should probably back up a minute because as you may have noticed nobody blogged for yesterday’s activities. That doesn’t mean we didn’t do anything! In fact, it was a very busy day full of a diverse group of speakers, and ending with a delicious meal cooked by Peru’s number one best chef. Of course we didn’t want this to be left undocumented, so here we go.

Instituto Nacional de Cultura/ Museo de la Nacion

We started our day at the Museo de la Nacion which houses the Instituto Nacional de Cultura (INC). The bus pulled up to the giant cement “fortress”, quite an unwelcoming building to say the least and we were led into the meeting room which was set-up very formally – national flags at the front of the room, plastic name tents for each speaker, a microphone, powerpoint, and LOTS of government propaganda material handed out to us. The speakers included: Fabricio Valencia (Director of Defense, Historical Patrimony – yes, you read that correctly), Wilfredo Torres (Director of Registry), and Ana Maria Lebrun. None of them looked like they wanted to be there. They delivered a very canned speech to us making it difficult for everyone to keep their eyes open. They discussed the laws in place to protect the antiquities and historical sites of their country.

Luckily, to make up for the sterile speech, students went to a fascinating photography exhibition titled, “Yuyanapaq. To Remember”, a show about the civil war of Peru from 1980-2000, which was on display at the National Museum. This show helped provide a stronger context to understand how the contemporary art scene developed in a non-western way because it brought to our attention how really recent the war was and how it has affected the people and artists in Peru. The installation of the exhibition was interesting because it was divided into many small cells, almost giving a feeling of being in prison. Although the actual space is oddly shaped, it worked very well for this specific show however we’re curious to how it will function for future shows.

Museo de Arte Contemporanea Lima (MAC)

Ok, this is a bizarre place. Ready: a museum conceived 50 years ago, construction started 10 years ago, and today there’s still no building or mission or collection policy!!! BUT, there’s a salaried staff of eight people and they have an outdoor exhibition installed in the construction site within the park. We were all dumb-founded by this paradox. The old mayor 10 years ago agreed to give the space to this museum, but the new mayor does not agree with it so they are currently in legal limbo. The Director of MAC assured us (unconvincingly so) that the building will be complete in 2010. Everyone we met with in Lima mentioned MAC as an absolutely ridiculous space because the controversy has been going on for so long.

Micromuseum
The Director of the Micromuseum, which is a nomadic organization that travels its exhibitions around to different spaces, gave us a theatrical performance. This could not have been any more different than how our day begun with the INC folks. He spoke in a poetic way with conviction and passion.

Time to wrap up! We think the altitude must be getting to us now because we can no longer think clearly. Sorry for the abrupt ending, but we have a 4:30 AM wake up call tomorrow morning as we will be trekking off to Machu Picchu. Can’t wait!!!

Day Four: Last Day in Mexico City

If our fragmentary experience of Mexico City could be summarized in any way (after all, how can you even summarize a fractured city?), I think its essence would cohere around two points: a captivating personality and a “progressive” rhetoric of Cuauhtemoc Medina and the perpetual lamentations over the Mexican cultural policy model. While seemingly incongruous, these two moments inform one another and seem to capture the contradictions of the megalopolis. The city sets the stage for as much hope as hopelessness, and I am reminded of the constant negotiation I have to undertake with the two.

Cuauhtemoc Medina rocks my world.

By day four it was quite apparent that Mexico City is full of charismatic leaders and cultural practitioners. Yet, none of them was as straight forward and blunt as Cuauhtemoc Medina, an art historian, critic and curator. Despite having been stuck at the Madrid airport for several hours, fresh off the plane Medina gave us a forceful oratory on the state of Mexican art and his own involvement in the project of creating contemporary discourse on the Mexican art in the globalized art world: all of that while frantically smoking cigarettes and gesturing energetically.

The most refreshing about Medina´s talk was his transparency and willingness to explicitly lay out his agenda. This is very much unlike anything I have seen from mostly cautious American academics in the recent months — perhaps because the stakes of his project are so high. While trampling any illusions of the inclusiveness of art historical discourses, Medina revealed his strategy for “inserting” Mexican artists into the global art history. If the history was written violently in the first place, its re-writing must be equally violent, Medina implied.  His project´s success appeared to be highly contingent upon a careful and razor-sharp selection criteria for the contemporary Mexican narrative. Two guidelines were made apparent to us: the work had to be political and had to belong to the broadly understood ¨new media.¨

Medina´s talk reinforced without any illusions how closed were the circuits in which contemporary art circulated. While his own project might at least temporarily appear complete (as he himself suggested during the talk), I am still unsure how to undertake the project of opening up the spaces and forging connections between the circuits that seem to me to be out of the reach. This is said not to sound pessimistic, but to remind myself of the importance of strategy and tactics guiding my work.

The grass is always greener…

It might be worth it to summarize our reflections on the visit to Mexico City with a close look at our conceptions of cultural policy. From the American perspective, it is easy to bemoan the lack of the governmental involvement in culture, as it often happens — for example — in the mourning of the perceived decline of the NEA after the “culture wars.” It strikes me that it often appears to us that if only the governmental funding had been a little better, our work as cultural practitioners would be much easier and more productive.

The reversal of our common complaint was quite striking in Mexico City. Virtually all the museum professionals we spoke to lamented the dependence of their institutions — both in terms of funding and the choice of leadership — on the changing caprices of the political parties in power. From the viewpoint of the Mexican administrators, it was the centralized governmental cultural policy that effectively hampered their professional efforts. Notoriously mentioned were regularly changing leadership, unprofessional staff and directorial nominations as well as centralized accumulation of the institutional revenues. Our speakers suggested that an answer to the problem would be a greater corporate and private involvement in the institutional support.

Given the fact that it appears that in reality neither American nor Mexican model of cultural policy comes close to an ideal, it might be fruitful for us to recognize that — as both Ery Camara and Rita Eder indicated — cultural policy essentially seeks to instrumentalize culture in the name of the forces in power: be it governmental, corporate or private entities. Hence, the challenge for us, the culture practitioners, lies in developing strategies that will allow us to pursue our work despite of — or perhaps even against — the cultural policy that is given to us.

While particular tactics of the professionals we met might not have been readily apparent to us, it seems that building institutions around strong individuals and even boisterous egos was one common strategy that the Mexican administrators and historians eagerly adopted. Colorful personalities of Ery Camara or Cuauhtemoc Medina will not be easy to forget. The question for ourselves is how we choose to deal with the environment we work in and what approaches we take on in order to make our own work — as well as the work of the others — happen.

~Dorota

Day Six: Lima

The morning after our midnight arrival in Lima we began our exploration of the city at the Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI). The museum is situated in a colonial-style bulding in the Parque de la Exposition, built for the Peruvian exposition. MALI was established in 1954 by a group of private citizens interested in creating a collection of mostly Peruvian art for the people of Lima.

Unlike most museums in Peru (and those we visited in Mexico City), MALI receives essentially no funding from the government. Natalia Majluf, MALI’s director is quite proud of this fact, and made it clear that she has purposely “plagerized” American fundraising strategies to further the independence of MALI.

 

Recently, MALI has been using their fundraising success to expand their permanent collection, which ranges from Pre-Colombian objects to contemporary Peruvian works. The eventual goal is to have an extensive survey of Latin American (and specifically Peruvian) artworks, without focusing too strongly on any one period (as there are other, more specific museums that delve moe deeply into each period). However, MALI’s collection is currently weaker in regards to contemporary art, so the Museum is pushing aquisitions in that department.

 

Currently in the middle of a full-scale, $2 million dollar renovation of the Museum’s first floor, there is also a plan for an additional renovation for the second floor. This period of transition coincides with the contemporary art boom in Mexico City, though MALI arguably has a stronger history and mission than the institutions we visited in Mexico.

 

After strolling through the Parque de la Exposition, we drove to one of MALI´s temporary satellite spaces, housed in an historic building being renovated by developer Fundacion Wiese. The foundation has lent the space to MALI for an exhibition of its 2008 acquisitions of contemporary art. The noises of honking cars in the traffic outside came in through open windows and accompanied us through the exhibition. Works on display included collective Parentheses´ ads inserted into the classified section of the newspaper in the late 70´s that read ´patrons wanted´ and Jose Luis Martinant´s video installation of cartoon programs from the 80´s whose characters have been digitally erased, leaving behind half-rendered landscapes for the camera to pan aimlessly across.

Following lunch we moved to MALI´s second satellite space at Sala Luis Miro Quesada Garland, a gallery that sits at a busy intersection in Miraflores. The space is free and open to the public. It gets excellent foot traffic from the adjacent park. MALI´s exhibition there gives a taste of recent Peruvian works collected by the institution. They include Pre-Columbian ceramics, colonial paintings, and twentieth century crafts. Didactic wall text gives a history of the institution from its founding to the present.

By assembling a panoramic survey of Peruvian art, from Pre-Columbian to the present, MALI is doing the work of a state museum. The museum has an arms-length relationship with the national government, unlike most Latin American museums. A mixture of fundraising events, targeted sponsorships, and art programs for young people keep the museum afloat. The lion´s share of this money comes from the art programs. A structure resembling a board of trustees also helps to secure donations.

Even in the United States, whose model of private support for culture MALI has adopted piecemeal, the state invests (both financially and symbolically) in the articulation of the nation´s culture by way of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Could MALI be doing the same symbolic work for free? A full installation of the museum´s collection could help answer that question. In the meantime, the thumbnail version on view at Sala Luis Miro Quesada will have to do. The works on view there show a willingness to defy a linear presentation of Peruvian culture – such as craft works traditionally shunned by officialdom. Perhaps the fact that this aspect of what the museum does seems strange to us says something more about what we expect a museum to do (and are often wary of what it does and has done).

Bryce Dwyer and Talia Ullmann

Blog: held up customs

With hot plates of sizzling tacos, steaming platters of meat, and baskets full of blue corn tortillas, twentytwo students/arts administrators and our unshakable guide Andrea sat together stretched along the table at the Last Supper in Cuernavaca.  As presenters this evening we faced a particular hurdle of counteracting the overstimulated olfactory nerves and lymphatic glands of a salivating audience.

Our interest however referred back on our encounters earlier in the day after having visited Cuotehmoc, Gustavo Artis, and Magali Lara.  A common theme present today, as well as in previous days, was the constant resurfacing of ´inclusion and exclusion´.  As we continue on a day to day basis to speak of forming cultural policy in an ever globalizing world, we have nonetheless found areas of stark contradiction or at least controversial practices.  In particular, the accessibility of Jumex to the public confuses the role of a space supposedly for the ¨comunity¨.  It begs the question, for what community do they refer and is this realized; Why/Why not?

In a second example, we spoke of the dialectical practice that art provokes.  This type of conversation is often problematic for those who are unfamiliar with the art historical vernacular and iconographic references.  Once again we were faced with the question of how contemporary art is presented and for whom.   As the notion of audience continues to surface, we encourage our fellow students to think about how these questions and hurdles might affect us in our professional practices in the future.

January 13, 2009

Today we started our day at the Espacio la Culpable, an alternative art space in the Barrancas neighborhood of Lima. This space has been in use for the past 2 years as a place for contemporary artists to come and talk about their work to those interested in the Peruvian contemporary art scene. Here we met with a series of people, including Alfredo Marquez, Augusto del Valle, Giuseppe Campuzano and Christian Luna. Each gave about a 30 minute presentation, exposing us, among other things, to activist contemporary art.

Alfredo Marquez, a visual artist, explained his activist art  background including his involvement in the Bestias art collective. This collective was an artist group in the 1980s actively responding to the violent political situation of the country at the time. In the 1980s the Shining Path, a pro-Maoist group, was going through the country murdering thousands of people, mainly in the countryside. The cities became silent in response to the violence. Citizens were afraid to speak against the Shining Path and universities took on the role of creatively responding to the situation. Bestias was one of the underground student activist groups that tackled the Shining Path issue. Marquez created a silkscreen portfolio of important military figures of the time which commented on the violence. This was distributed to intellectuals, but was not allowed to be exhibited until 12 years after it was created.

Augusto del Valle is a philosopher that teaches at the Universidad Catolica and is interested in art aesthetics and communications. He showed us images of some of his and other artist´s projects which dealt with the use of public space. His focus of public art in urban spaces was illustrated by diagrams of projects that were not completed, but proposed by artists. One that was completed consisted of white sheets hung from trees in the park in front of MALI that caught the pollution in the air, cleaning the city.

Giuseppe Campuzano was another visual artist who has worked on the Museo Travesti (yes, Tranvestite Museum) for the past 5 years. Contrary to what you might think, it is not a museum that just shows tranvestites, but instead plays with the idea of power mechanisms through representation. He pointed out that in Peru (as in other places) the line between daily life and art is not clearly defined. He equated the Travesti Museum to a Trojan Horse for Peruvian culture, which was an entertaining image to picture.

Christian Luna is another artist and is interested in working on low budget projects. One of his projects is the Punto Rojo gallery, a gallery that moves to different locations ranging from a space in a shopping center to a coffin like box in the middle of the park. His aim is to involve the public and gives out free art supplies to those who approach him. He was also one of the first artists working on a project in the unfinished space that will eventually (hopefully) become the Museo de Arte Contemporanea, thus becoming the first museum of contemporary art in Peru. Christian was playing with the question of what the empty lot looked like to passerbys. This project also involved public interaction.

Our final stop, after a relaxing 4 hour break in which we indulged in a delicious lunch of ceviche (local AMAZING fish in lime juice) and other local specialties, was at Mauricio Delfin´s home. This had a great view of the coast which we all rushed to photograph. The bottom part of the 2 (3?) story home exhibit´s his father´s work, while the top floor houses his Realidad Visual studio. He was definetly one of the coolest people we have talked to. He runs Realidad Visual (a new media art collective) with 2 other artists, as well as running the Video and Electronic Art festival, writing and publishing an anarchist (his words, not mine) free newspaper and participating in Cultural Policy congresses. His contacts in this last field seem endless and he is commited to changing policy, and in turn, the cultural WORLD. All in all it was a nice interesting day filled with cool people, yummy food, and fun purchases. It lefts us all feeling as optimistic as ocean waves (and obviously VERY VERY poetic). See you all later!

Day Two: Jumex & Rufino Tamayo Museum

The Jumex Collection / Foundation: “Mexico’ Largest Contemporary Collection” hidden behind the gate of the Jumex juice factory, in Ecatepec – the super industrial corridor of Mexico city – does not receive visitors with open arms. However, the Jumex features the “big” names of Europe, Latin America, and North America, creating an important collection to visit at some point. The current show on view, “The Unruly Story of the Readymade,” features a very small portion of the greater permanent collection – about 80 pieces, with 20 loans from other institutions. We were able to talk with Michele Blancusbe, the head registrar and part-time curator of the collection – it was a refreshingly honest conversation about an institution well aware of its strange placement – both geographically and socially.

Museo Rufino Tamayo: Another public arts institution under the umbrella of the fluid Mexican government. The museum opened in 1981, based on the personal collection and works of Rufino Tamayo, a major player in the Mexican contemporary art world. The exhibition currently on view is on loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and deals with Chicano stereotypes and placement within the art world, and the dilution of Mexican culture in the United States

Today’s visits contiuned on the common theme from the day before — the security or insecurity of the institution, based on the fluidity of the Mexican government. We have heard from both sides: a public institution almost embracing the notion that there is no risk of closure. However, this does not mean monetary security – based on conversations with the curator of contemporary art at the Rufino Tamayo Museum, regardless of a well put together budget, government funding may run out before year’s end. In turn, the institution is in constant flux – changing directors every 6 years – institutions run the risk of not being able to create a historical context and archive.

On the other side, we see private collections – running more or less under the radar. In the case of the Jumex collection, in order to avoid government policing, has been tucked away inside an industrial bunker. There is currently no director of the collection – which commonly invites guest curators to run the exhibitions space as they deem appropriate. The collection, belonging to Eugenio Lopez, the heir to the Jumex fortune, is a vast survey of contemporary art (roughly 2100 pieces), allowing the public to view works they may not see at other institutions due to monetary constraints or institutional preference.