COVID Perspectives – Online Exhibition 2020


Sacred Mountain

The Sacred Mount is located in the center of the world and acts as a communication channel between Heaven and the Underworld, as a Cosmic Axis that is projected towards the four directions.

It is an intermediary between two planes that serves as a representation of the earthly, but it is also a reflection of the Sky-Underworld duality. It is then that the Sacred Mountain becomes a path and a mirror.

In the mountains, hills and mountains we can find replicas of the Sacred Mountain, also in the domestic altars that seek to be the Cosmic Axis of daily life.

 

Mountains as subjects

If we assume that images that are shown as Sacred Mountain variants in this exhibition can ultimately be subjects, it will be necessary to explore what are the limits of those beings as images.

             A traditional pictorial form, such as a picture or a tableau, certifies the power that such composition can attain.  The fact that an image hangs on a wall is not enough to identify its purpose as an object. It is not a question of upgrading photographic images and putting them on the level of paintings. The form of the picture as an image placed there can be an object or an image that revives a thought based on fragments, and not the utopia of a comprehensive systematic order, only as image, as the material manifestation of an image (which does not need to be only visual).

            Along with visual images, there are also other types of images, such as musical, olfactory or gustative images.  That is why we must explicitly and repeatedly underline the fact that the image contained in a painting is different from other things in the world, different from other occurrences, from  mere representations or decorations.

            In this way, it is possible to observe that images as entities are not static and are not monolithic. Images of being are always “in transit,” change constantly and exchange various forms of coexistence and manifestation. They exist under multiple designations, successive or concurrent (sometimes even simultaneously contradictory, always in excess of themselves, almost symmetrical, although remaining the same). Therefore, the difference between image (as a being) and image (as a representation, in the common use of the term) is defined ontologically, although this differentiation expressed in and through different ontic denominations produced by cultural, social, historical or political constructs.

            In the limits of this exhibition of Significant Mountains, there is precisely the condition that each one of the paintings, that is, each one of the images is a presence, a subject in the extensive sense of the word. A complex subject, that changes, that modifies itself and that modifies others who look at it and observe it not in a superficial and anodyne way but as observers who engage with the images, walk them, climb them, live them.  It is interesting to discover to what extent paintings can also be a safe conduct for surviving and living.


Monte coesencia de tlatícpac-tenahuac
(en este mundo y al lado de alguien)
oil on amate
60/40

Monte coesencia tzicuehua tlapani
(del nacimiento)
oil on amate
60/40

 

Chupa si diidxa’
I
Naganda’ cundubi bi lu beuu xandu’,
redane’ xho’ guie’ gue’tu’,
redané xho’ bandaga guesa,
ruchehe gu’xhu’ cayuu lu biguié’
zuhuaa lu bidó’ ndaani’ yoo.
Yaga guesa si nga zuhuaa
ndaani’ ladxiduá’ yanna,
ra gupa’ lii dxiqué sica ti bidó’.

Just Two Words
I
Cool blows the breeze in this month of October,
it brings the smell of flowers for the dead,
it brings the smell of willow leaves,
it spreads the smell of incense
which billows out from the floral offering
before the god of this house.
Only willow branches now
inhabit my heart,
where you once lived as my goddess

(Zapotec poem by Víctor de la Cruz)

 

Monte coesencia in atl in tlachinolli
(del agua y la hoguera)
oil on amate
60/40

Monte nahual de Quetzalcóatl
y el Verbo Encarnado
oil on amate
60/40

 


 

Monte coesencia de In xochitl in cuicatl
(de la flor y el canto)
oil on amate
60/40

 

Monte coesencia de in ixtli,
in yóllotl (rostro-corazón)
oil on amate
60/40

 

Chupa si diidxa’
II
Nahuiine’ rua’,
stale ru’ dxi zeeda guibane’
guca huadxí, bicahui,
dunabé huadxí
guca ndaani’ ladxidua’ya
dxi lii bisaanu’ naa.
Ma’ qué ñuuya’ rua’ biaani’ lu xneza’,
nuzaani’ guendanabani neza zezaya’.
Dunabé nahuiine’ bicahui ladxidua’ya’,
sica binni riasa xcaanda’
zezaya’ ndaani’ guidxilayú yanna.
Dunabé nagueenda bicahui,
guca huaxhinni ndaani’ ladxidua’ya’.

Just Two Words
II
I was still very young.
I had many days ahead of me
when it became late; darkness fell,
it became much too late
within my heart
the day you abandoned me.
My path no longer had light
to illuminate my life’s journey.
I was very young when darkness fell within my heart.
As a sleepwalker
I now wander among the people of this Earth.
Darkness came too soon,
night fell within my heart.

(Zapotec poem by Víctor de la Cruz)

 

 

Monte del atardecer
oil on amate
60/40

 

Monte coesencia de In ahuehuetl
in pochotl (del sabino y la ceiba)
oil on amate
60/40

 

 


 

Monte coesencia in atl in tepetl
(del agua y el cerro)
oil on amate
60/40

Monte coesencia in temoxtli in ehecatl
(del polvo y el viento)
oil on amate
60/40

 

Diidxa’ bisiaanda’
Ti diidxa’,
ti diidxa’ si,
ti diidxa’ si ñapa’
lu bata naya’,
ndaani’ xquendabiaane’,
ndaani’ ladxidua’ya’.
Ti diidxa’ si
ñabe lii lu
ra nibáninu siadó guigueela’ru’,
ne riuunda’ sti’ guirá’ mani huiini’,
lu ca yaga nuu Laoyaga.
Ti diidxa’ si,
tu diidxa’ ma’ biaanda’ naa.

The Word I Have Forgotten
One word…
just one word.
If I had just one word
in the palms of my hands,
in my mind,
in my heart;
just one word
to say to you in bed
as we awaken in the blossoming dawn
to the singing of all the birds
atop the trees of Laoyaga.
Just one word,
a word I have already forgotten.

(Zapotec poem by Víctor de la Cruz)

 

 

Monte del primer día
oil on amate
60/40

Monte dual, coesencia
del nahualismo y tonalismo
oil on amate
60/40

 


 

Monte nahual del amanecer
oil on amate
60/40

Monte de la sabiduria
(in tlilli in tlapalli)
oil on amate
60/40

 

Dxi biaba’
Guete’, guete’ biaba’,
sica ndaani’ ti bizé yuxi
cadá yuuba’ ndaani’,
cadi nisa,
dxi naa biree xquidxe’.
Ladxiduá’ riuuba’ casi guibane’
ne guyadxie’ ra zuhuaa;
xiñee nuaa’ xquidxi binni
-rabe´ndaani’ ladxiduá’-
ne ma’ zigatá’ zigaze’
la xluuna xtobi
qué ganna’ tu laa.

My Fall
To the bottom,
all the way to the bottom I fell,
as into a dry well
where pain flows
instead of water,
ever since I left
my town behind.
My heart grieves every morning,
every time I look around.
“What am I doing in this place?”
-I say to myself-
and I go to sleep
in someone else’s bed,
whose name I do not know.

(Zapotec poem by Víctor de la Cruz)

 

 

Monte coesencia in ayahuitl in poctli
(de la niebla y el humo)
oil on amate
60/40

Monte de las semillas-corazones
oil on amate
60/40

 

Monte de los hermanos bacabes
oil on amate
60/40

Monte tronco de malinalli
oil on amate
60/40