the cassandra pages

Form

Sculpture by Jimenez Deredia

In Mexico I am always, immediately struck by the emphasis on form in all the arts. Whether dealing with architecture and public spaces, with fresco painting, or - especially - with sculpture, the emphatic and confident use of form is a major, defining aspect.

If we look around, there are reasons. The land, shaped by volcanic activity, is dramatic, and these shapes were echoed in the iconic stepped pyramids of Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan.

The plants are sculptural.

The people themselves are monumental and beautiful.

There is a long history of form-emphatic art, from the very early Olmec heads (around 1000 BC)...

...through the long pre-Columbian period of remarkable ceramic sculpture...

...combined later with the Spanish wood-carving tradition.

Form finds expression in literal, representational ways, but also in abstraction: Mexico has a strong tradition of graphic design, surface decoration, typography, and pattern.

 

I'm always fascinated to see contemporary expressions of these traditions. While at the Museo Franz Mayer for the Decorative Arts, we saw an exhibition of contemporary ceramics. It was in two parts: a biennial competition for functional ceramics, and a separate room containing (mostly large) works by master living ceramic artists. I was crazy about some of these latter pieces and took pictures to show you:

Cactus, by Javier Villegas

Bodegon con taza y peces, by the same artist.

Florero, by Marta Ovalle

Horizontes continuos, by Gloria Carrasco. Each of these pieces is about two feet in the widest dimension. Aren't they beautiful?

The Air We Breathe

 A clear day, two years ago.

Mexico City's air quality has improved in the last two decades, but it is not exactly good. On clear days, the view from our hotel room included the mountains in the distance, but during this particular stay, that was an exception.

A typical recent day.

The city is at 7,000 feet, and fills the Valley of Mexico: once surely one of the most beautiful places on earth, surrounded by mountains including active volcanoes more than 17,000 feet tall.

Above, The Valley of Mexico from Del Rey Mill, by Jose Maria Velasco, painted in 1900. The Chapultepec castle is in the middle and the city itself is the small white expanse in front of the lake. Today the castle and its woods are a park, with the city extended all around them, over all the green space you can see in the picture above. Popocatepetl, on the right, erupted recently and has no snow cover at the present time.

Looking in the same direction on a pretty clear day, from the Torre Latinoamericana: nothing but city fills the entire valley.

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For the first couple of days, travelers from lower altitudes, like us, generally experience some breathlessness, especially when walking fast, carrying luggage, climbing stairs. I don't usually have too much of a problem with that. But I was very aware of discomfort in my lungs, and found myself coughing. After a week, I came down with a respiratory flu. Whether it's something I picked up on the airplane, or in the crowded metro, I'll never know, but I'm convinced that my lungs were already struggling from the pollution. Now at home, a week later, I'm still ill but gradually getting better. Yesterday when I looked out of the airplane at the frozen fields of Quebec, I wasn't shuddering like many of my fellow passengers: I couldn't wait to take a breath of that cold, clean air.

I was on the street every day, both as a cyclist and pedestrian. Every day, trucks passed us belching black smoke, buses filled the air with diesel fumes, the highways were choked with car traffic. In our neighborhood and all through the city, many people work outside or in spaces that are open to the outdoors - there's no way they can avoid exposure to the air. The effects on everyday health must be devastating. I don't think I couldn't survive there, but for the 22 million citizens of Mexico City, there's no choice. What about all the people who live in the Maximum Cities of the world, and can't fly away to places with better air, let alone water and sanitation? I have a close friend in Beijing. She has no options in that very polluted city.

What I observed, and the fact of my own fragility, have made me think a lot this week about us as biological organisms, with simple needs for air, water, and nutrition: things the earth naturally provides in abundance. Most of the time, we don't even think of ourselves in this way - like a plant or a bird or a goldfish - so dependent are we on our technologies and the ways they keep us removed from and oblivious to the cycles of life. I've thought about what we are doing to ourselves and all the living things, and it's been more appalling to me than ever. Air to breathe: the most basic requirement of all, and yet for millions and millions of human beings, even this is impossible.

What do the indigenous people think? First the Spanish came and violently took away their land, massacred thousands of people, decimated their rich and highly-developed native culture, and converted the people to Christianity; then industrialization destroyed much of the natural world with which they had always lived in harmony. And now, many of the indigenous people are forced to come into the city for work, to sell their foods or handcrafts on the street, or worse yet, to beg. In Mexico as nearly everywhere, the darker one's skin, the more discrimination there is, the more menial the jobs, and the fewer chances for education and economic advancement. There's more than one way to suffocate, and unfortunately the people with the least power are always the ones who suffer the most.

As I hope is obvious, I love Mexico, and I don't mean to be negative - simply realistic about some of the very real problems that became even more obvious to me during this trip. The legacy of colonialism continues, and we have to look it in the face if there is ever to be a hope of addressing what we've wrought.

Love Takes Many Forms

Happy Valentine's Day, a day late!

Last week we spent a day at Museo Franz Mayer for the Decorative Arts. The collection is housed in a former church, hospital and monastery. One of the exhibitions displayed the treasures of the convent for the Discalced Carmelites, the order founded by Saint Teresa of Avila, the Spanish mystic (1515-1582). The treasures are presented along with a history of the order and this particular foundation, and a detailed look into the life led by the nuns.

The house had a lifesize polychrome statue of Saint Teresa, dressed like a wealthy woman of the period, in embroidered velvet with sewn-on pearls - as my friend V. exclaimed "She NEVER would have worn that!" - and of course she's right! This figure looks like a doll but it's five feet tall; sometime I'd like to research and write about the Mexican tradition of making these polychromed figures, which are most often Jesus or the Virgin, and incredibly lifelike. I think wax is applied over the paint to give a such a flesh-like appearance.

The abbess also had an extraordinary robe, embroidered (a better word might be "encrusted") entirely with silver threads.

There were fascinating documents in calligraphic handwriting, including one bearing the signature of Saint Teresa herself. 

And, of course, there are relics. A piece of the heart of St. Teresa; a piece of the flesh of her friend and mentor, the great mystic St. John of the Cross; two rose-colored fabric hearts that supposedly touched her garment; and (more touchingly, at least to me) a tiny sandal that St. Teresa supposedly wore, housed in a delicate crystal box and covered with flowers.

The women who entered this order in New Spain were often daughters of wealthy aristocrats; some are shown in life-size paintings, their heads crowned with elaborate bouquets of roses. When they took their vows of solemn profession, the nuns became "brides of Christ," sworn to a life of chastity, poverty and obedience. I did not know that this order included the practice of self-mortification, but the display included these metal whips, covered with vicious barbs and thorns, used by the nuns to flagellate themselves:

If it's hard to imagine why anyone would do this, especially women, perhaps this painting gives a clue: here is Christ as "The Divine Spouse", lying in a bed of flowers, into which are inscribed the instructions for a devout life: "Gratitude," "Love", "Penance," Renunciation, mortification.

Is it such a huge leap from teen-age girls going crazy over modern rock stars? With an image like this as one's only object of devotion, and a completely cloistered life, I can imagine love-sick, sexually-repressed young women resorting to extremes to win his favor, even though there seems to be a huge contradiction between the peaceful atmosphere of convents and monasteries, the beautiful embroideries and paintings, and what went on behind the closed doors.

El Papa

Pope Francis' image is everywhere - here he is, almost lifesize along the route his motorcade will take to the Zocalo tomorrow. On the far right, you can also see his face on the side of a phone booth.

Readers of this blog know about my longstanding interest in religions and how they intersect with culture and politics, so it may not be a surprise that we timed our visit to Mexico City this year to coincide with visitation of Mexico by Pope Francis. He arrived tonight - in fact, we watched his flight come in from our hotel room - it was unmistakable because all air traffic had ceased for a long time beforehand, and the plane was large. The tv coverage showed his arrival at the Presidential Hangar, greeted by a mariachi band and folkloric dancers, thousands of cheering (handpicked? specially invited?) Mexicans in grandstands, President Pena and his wife (they were both married when they got together, but were granted a special divorce/marriage permission by the Vatican - don't get me started), and phalanxes of Mexican cardinals and governmental ministers.

We attended Obama's inauguration, and have participated in huge political demonstrations in New York City, so I thought I'd seen crowd control and security, but none of that has come anywhere close to what is happening here. Jonathan will be covering the subject in much greater detail on his blog, but here are a few pictures from today; tomorrow we'll try to get close to the actual events and crowds, and see the motorcade as the Pope travels up to the Basilica of Guadalupe to say Mass.

Part of the barricaded motorcade route, the Zocalo in the distance. There are three separate checkpoint zones that people will have to pass before reaching the venues where the pope will be appearing, and there will be 10,000 soldiers in the city in addition to all the city and federal police and civilian volunteers.

These guards gave a big smile for the camera, though.

Yesterday in the late afternoon, we went up to one of the terrace restaurants high above the Zocalo to drink tequila and take some pictures with a bird's-eye view of the preparations for tomorrow's crowd when the Pope goes to the National Palace (on the far side of the square) and the walks over to the Metropolitan Cathedral, on the left. There are big screens that will show live video, and the Zocalo itself is gridded with pens that with contain the crowds in small enough numbers both for security, and to protect the people themselves. The rather tiny light brown structure at middle left, in the roadway, is a temporary grand entrance leading to the cathedral; when we walked by it yesterday, there was a tent containing potted calla lilies to be placed on the stage, and a metal wall that will also be filled with plants to make a green backdrop for the Pope's remarks or blessing, and, of course, for the photo op. We won't try to go there; we'll watch on tv, and try to see his motorcade elsewhere.

As I've said before, I admire this Pope, as popes go, and hope he'll be safe here. In order to make the points he wishes to make, he will be visiting some very dangerous places, and as we've watched these preparations in such a complicated and chaotic city it's been obvious that no amount of planning or force could guarantee his safety here. I can't help but be reminded of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, the people who revered him, and the governmental powers who wanted him silenced. So I hope all will go well.

Color Therapy

Hola! I'm in Mexico City for a couple of weeks, and deliberately taking a break from blogging, but I thought I'd post a few pictures from time to time for those of you who aren't connected with me via Facebook or Instagram. It's still "winter" here at this high altitude - some of the trees are bare, the spring trees and flowers are just starting to bloom, and the Mexicans look like they're freezing, and are wearing coats, scarves, boots and hats, while we are basking in the sunshine and warmth. The days begin cool - in the high 40s or low 50s, and then warm up to the mid-70s. Except for some pollution, always an issue here, it's been bright and quite beautiful.

Having done most of the main "tourist" things in the past, we're visiting the current exhibitions but mostly just trying to be here, in this complex culture, learning more, doing deeper, trying to observe more layers of that complexity. I have immense respect for the Mexican people: their dignity, spontaneous warmth and generosity, their pride in their culture and history, the way they have borne such suffering and sorrow and continue to do so. There's a lot to learn from them, and I feel privileged to be able to spend some time here each year.

On Saturday, Pope Francis will be in the city, and we're hoping to be able to catch a glimpse of him and to try to capture in words and pictures some of what this event means here. So stay tuned, and even if I'm not writing anything lengthy before returning to Canada, I'll be putting up some pictures. Here's the link to my Instagram feed, and that's where I am hanging out on a more daily basis. However, Jonathan is publishing regular blog posts at jonzphoto, where he is posting his own photographs and text, and you might like to take a look over there. He'd be happy to hear from you too.