Karina Hodoyan sheds light on Violeta Luna’s treatment of the U.S- Mexico economic and narcotics policies in her 2010 Bicentennial of Independence tribute. The article recounts how the performance’s transformative nature refers to the Narco-terror’s effect on public space. Luna imbibes her action and setting with conspicuous consequence. The employment of her body and symbolic props collectively convey life’s resolution. Luna’s work is saturated with consumption, expendability, national emblems as well as facts and figures regarding capital and fatalities. Hodoyan attributes Luna’s contextual and semantic shift to cocaine campaign disclosure. The imagery allied the social institutions in addition to the celebration with the requisite homage and condemnation. As Hodoyan artfully and allegorically articulated, “In Luna’s gesturing towards the traces and absences left by the unnamed dead, she embodied the motherland and absorbed the dead unto her own self-it was a form re-membering through embodiment of the images of the dead.”(pg. 2). To answer Hodoyan about culture and media violence, I feel they share a mutually supportive relationship that supplies the demand and reflects a consciousness. It is their duty to report major events but what is sifted as news worthy is downbeat and eclipses the rest. Shock value or whatever evokes heightened emotional, mental or physical responses are sought after. The audience is so accustomed to the inundation of messaging and thusly desensitized by it that the expense for attention is the acute, the latest, the relevant and the tragic. Crime scene evidence and script are intimidation tactics of psychological warfare. Such substantiations point to a culprit of duality. Those responsible are a public yet private adversary who’s post puppets the governing body and imposes indirect hegemony on the populace. The rebuilding could start with re-appropriation of power and war time occupational procedure. Those holding office would be relieved followed by the partitioning of regions and contained liquidation of cartel combatants and then re-monopolize the remaining sectors through military incursion.
In this article called Violeta Luna: Requiem, she re-contextualizes the celebration of the 2010 Mexico's Bicentennial of Independence by US-Mexico's devastating economic and narco-war policies. At the San Fransisco's "Celebrate SF" events in the fall of 2010, she starts at the community center's lobby. In mourning black, she walked between spectators while carrying a shopping bag emblazoned with the logo of Mexican Bicentennial celebrations. The lobby represented the narco-war violence. The shopping bag represented aggressive marketing of a glorious Mexican state history and habits of consumption and people under global capitalism. The second performance involved President Calderon's speech to the US Congress in 2010. Six white bottles were placed in 2 diagonal rows of 3 and center bottles showed the eagle with a Mexican flag. All bottles spilled but the first bottle was nothing but air. The spilling of bottles represented the spilling of "resources," people, land and wealth into the ill-fated drug war. The chalk spilled represented cocaine. After that, Luna takes out a white dress and washes herself with white paint. She represented dead bodies. She enbodied the "motherland" and absorbed the dead into her own self. The third part is when she bent over and extended her long hair. She placed portraits of the dead over it. At the closing, she picked up her shopping bag and strolled away from the crowd as a gesture for the violence. I agree with this performance and loved it as it sends a powerful message to the governments to either shape up or ship out and things need to improve and change for the better. As they say, "ni un muerto mas, no mas sangre!" or "not one more death, no more blood! Overall, I would have loved to see this performance art in San Fransisco in the fall of 2012 if I would have had the chance too.
It is quite powerful. Luckily, it is captured on video!
I think it's important to discuss this idea of Luna's body standing in for "the nation." I also think we need to think about how she ends it, that life simply continues, goes on. Violence has become the "new normal."
In the article on Violeta Luna "Body and Space as Sites of Transfer: Violeta Luna's Requiem for a Lost Land" Roberto Varea gives insight into the performance of the memorial on the war on drugs in Mexico. It was a powerful performance consisting of various props that aided in the reenactment of a crime scene. The performance is jaw dropping from start to finish and for me it seemed as gruesome and unreal as a horror movie. Luna exemplifies the issues in Mexico and war on drug by first drawing a line with chalk which represents cocaine this line represents the crime scene location that Luna never steps foot out of. As the performance begins several audio are played simultaneously. President Calderon's speech on the war against the drug cartels is played, the voices of individuals participating in the march for peace organized by Javier Sicilia, and lastly the voice of the Mexican poet Maria Rivera. The three audios represent the various sides of the war on drugs and the individuals they affect. As the performance progresses Luna places several white bottles within the crime seen, each with a "police tag" that represents a body count. Luna puts on a white dress and washes her body with white paint. She takes on this motherly presence as she moves on to place black and white photos of the dead on her long black hair. This whole performance reminds me of the movie "The Grudge" It's this presence of the force of good and evil.
I agree that her image evokes some kind of character from a Japanese horror film. Let's talk about this more tomorrow. It should scare (disgust? anger? terrify?) us, as should the violence that has become "the new normal."
Also, I think this notion of Luna taking on a motherly figure is really important. What about her (visually or in terms of her actions) recalls a motherly figure? Why?
Roberto Gutierrez Varea analyzes Violeta Luna’s ritualized performance piece Requiem for a Lost Land in his article titled Body and Spaces as Sites of Transfer. This article feels over reaching, claiming Luna’s piece is some sort of expression of neo-baroque art. This link between cadaver paintings and general extravagance of the baroque period seems like an ill fitting metaphor to describe Luna’s work. Varea actually seems to negate his own point later in the article by stating “Luna takes on the aforementioned baroque complexity with an antidotal disarming simplicity.” Although there are paintings of cadavers and a slew of nude bodies in baroque art (and…all art…), this work does not originate out of violence but rather scientific or biblical curiosity. Luna’s white drenched performance, similar to Nina Yhared’s bath of milk, is over flowing with symbolism (which might even negate his negated point of “simplicity”) in an attempt to awaken to her audience to negative effects of President Felipe Calderon’s crack down on drug related violence. The most engaging part of this article was the explanation of the failed militarization of Mexico, one he likens to the United States and George Bush, in an attempt to take down drug cartels which led to disgustingly calculated violence, which has become “the new ‘normal.’” Furthermore, Varea’s comment that Luna is “birthing death” through her performance is an unfortunate description that leads me to be unsettled by the thought that blame might be transferred to women of Mexico, who birthed children that grew up and became drug lords or gang members when really it was societal construction that birthed this death. Thankfully, it seems less likely the argument of whether or not Luna’s performance is art might arise, her mind and body present and active within the performance that illustrates violence against the paisanos of Meixco. However, it is Varea’s reading that I personally call into question and mars my perceptions of Luna’s piece.
Perhaps Varea is constructing a loose (or mistaken?) definition of "baroque," but I would not call something "simple" and "baroque." Right?
I also felt uneasy when I read this "birthing" analogy. Where do you think it comes from? Why is there some kind of birthing/motherhood connotation here?
Roberto Gutierrez Varea dissects Violeta Luna’s ritualized performance “intervention” in his article entitled Body and Space as Sites of Transfer. Luna’s performance, Requiem for a Lost Land, address the victims of the “War on Drugs” that was initiated by former Mexican president Felipe Calderon. Through the use of a series of props and her own physical body, Luna conceived of a performance that served as a memorial, while highlighting issues of national security, mourning and power. Throughout the course we have read about several performance artist within Mexico who have addressed these very issues, but what seems to be unique to Luna’s performance is how the performative elements transform into a haphazard installation which forces the audience to engage with even after the artist has completed her physical performance. Gutierrez Varea argues that, “The performance has ritualized the space, transforming it into a multi-layered site of transfer:the scene of a crime, an altar for the victims, and a memorial to hold us in relationship with an ongoing unnecessary slaughter from where there is no return to what ever was, even in a nation with an imaginary where violence is no stranger”. This idea of using performance and the extension of the performances themselves as “sites of transfer” serves as a way to further extend the boundaries of the physical body. While performance is so heavily reliant on the presence of the body, this act of ritualization and sacred space is symbolic of a presence.
"This idea of using performance and the extension of the performances themselves as “sites of transfer” serves as a way to further extend the boundaries of the physical body."
What a great point! I like this idea that the resulting installation grows out of the performance. I think this happens with Teresa Margolles, too, wouldn't you say?
Do you think this strengthens the work? Why or why not?
In the article "Body and Space as Sites of Transfer: Violeta Luna's Requiem for a Lost Land" author Roberto Gutierrez Vera provides us with an analysis of Luna's performance intervention piece. Painting a very descriptive picture of Luna's anti narco violence performance the author presents his analysis of the performance as almost anti government and anti Calderon (mex president). Touching on the fact that Calderon won his post as president through a shady election process which happen to coincide with former president Bush's shady election, the author has the inclination of fowl play which caused self inflicted violence to infect the Mexican motherland and its citizens. Luna's red, green, and white colored performance serves as a re-bonding action for the viewers. A rebonding of the common Mexican with a hurt, ravaged, and bloodied homeland which is now breeding and birthing death at an astonishing rate through the consistent and ever violent murders and mutilations which have become the norm of Mexican society. The author has coined a the term Mexican Baroque, which has gone from an artistic practice or technique and has now gained the meaning of the excessive violence practiced by the warring cartels "Excesses become the affirmation of power precisely when those in power operate in a state of constant institutional insecurity" What I get from this quote is that maybe the president has tried so hard to re-affirm his shady rise into power that he has sought to do this by opening and stirring a big bloody violent can of worms and the cost has been massive loss of innocent and not so innocent lives through nation shocking violence ultimately making this the norm and even accepted fact of Mexican life and society. My question is this: Would it have been better for the current president to not start this war drugs and the cartels in the sake of keeping the piece and safety of the country or is this an acceptable price for taking out a few capos and creating a violent scramble for those positions by hungry narcos?
You ask an important question. What do you think? Were/are there other alternatives? What might Calderón have done differently? Or what do you think Peña Nieto will do?
I am also glad that you brought up the use of the three colors of the Mexican flag, because this work, in addition to being about mourning and loss and violence and the personal stories behind the violence, is also about this abstract idea of the nation. Let's talk about this more tomorrow.
Karina Hodoyan shared insight and critique of Violeta Luna's performance, titled Requiem, which is about grieving the deceased killed by the narco violence and president Calderon's incompetence to maintain peace in his own country. Luna's performance turned the public space into a crime scene, locating bullet holes with bottle cap to label the number of deaths. The location of the bottle caps and the bottles could be interpreted as the map of cities of the most deaths, but I am simply speculating. The long line spread of white chalk was evident representing drugs that are stimulating and the main cause of these violence. Her performance carried a ritual quality, similar to rituals in Africa, where white chalk is to symbolizes their respect for Oshun, the river goddess, and calls on her for their prayers to grant them wishes. Similarly, Luna's use of chalk could also be interpreted as calling on or mourn with the supernatural spirits of the deceased. As she released her hair and lay the photographs on her hair, her body became a symbolic grave site in remembrance of these innocents lives. The transformation of multiple dimensions of performance activated the audience's translucent imagination and connected all the aspects of the performance back in mourning for the individuals.
In “Violeta Requiem”, author Karina Hodoyán recalls the performance piece “Requiem For a Los Land/Réquiem para una tierra perdida”, conducted by performance artist Violeta Luna. Held at the San Francisco Mission Cultural Center in 2010, the work of art that Violeta Luna presented reflects her response based on the Narco Wars that were happening in Mexico. In the performance, Luna is seen wearing black and carrying a shopping bag that displays the Mexican Bicentennial logo; inside of the bag are six white bottles that are eventually taken out to be arranged in a specific way. After the placement of the bottles, Luna gradually spills the contents of one bottle after another, each carrying different types of symbolism. I feel that the first half of the performance was comprehensible to all audiences, especially to those who were knowledgeable about the Narco Wars. The act of the artist wearing black brings in a sense of mourning and that the bag along with the bottles themselves are the cause of the death(s) that she mourns for. However, Luna’s second and last part of the performance illustrates the artist taking the victims and absorbing them to herself by utilizing her own body. Although the author states that the color red that the artist used to pour on her hair was to represent the Mexican flag, I felt that it was symbolizing the blood that was shed in the wars, especially many innocent lives, which is possibly implied by the artist’s white dress. Just as Galindo expressed the loss of innocent lives in her response to the re-election of a corrupt president by walking throughout the city with human blood on her feet, Luna mourns and embodies those who have died by utilizing herself to carry on the pain and the suffering of those who have lost their lives from the Narco Wars.
I agree! For me, that red paint was DEFINITELY evoking blood. I think it functioned simultaneously to recall the three colors of the Mexican flag, too, but I think it forces the viewer to see the red of the flag AS blood. The national emblem is soiled with blood now.
The article by Roberto Gutierrez Varea covers the performance of Requiem For a Lost Land staged by Violeta Luna. Requiem is a ritualized memorial for the victims of President Felipe Calderon’s “war on drugs.” Varea briefly summarizes President Calderon’s adventure with his war, and he follows up Luna’s performance becoming and installation because of the “drenched aftermath-ness.” One opinion that Varea manipulates to his pleasure is saying that because Calderon chose to start a “war on drugs” that aligns him to the political right. So by his train of thought, a person that aligns itself to the political left would not start a war, but then again democrat or republican are closer to the center on a political spectrum. I myself, a leaner to the left, would like to start a “war on poverty” or some other abstract term that cannot possibly show results.
You know, I have a problem with anyone who says that all people of a certain political persuasion think one way or another. But I do think that a critique of Calderón's policy is valid. I think, what is apparent, is that the current official strategy is not succeeding and that there needs to be some exploration of alternative solutions. A "war on poverty" might actually do more to help the situation.
Requiem: "Also called Requiem Mass. the Mass celebrated for the repose of the souls of the dead." By the definition stated on Dictionary.com Violet Luna's piece "Requiem for a Lost Land" sets the tone for the whole piece. Karina Hodoyan reviewed Violet Luna's performance at the San Francisco Mission Cultural Center during the “Celebrate SF”event. Luna slowly dismantles the Mexican flag, and skews ordinary items into significant aspects of Mexican society--something that can be applied to any country, anywhere.
Hodoyan describes the performance, "Here, the reference to the transformation of public space by the narco-war became a site of mourning shared by the community of witnesses-spectators." Each element, the space, the audience, the objects factored in to represent each factor of this war against drugs, declared by Mexican president Felipe Calderon. Again, something that can pertain to many countries, and ours in particular. Like Roberto Gutierrez Varea's reference to George Bush and his declaration of war. War has become the answer, and the scapegoat. Something Luna presents in her performance.
The work could be carefully analyzed as art, in the context of medium: her body. She utilizes her body, and implements other objects as well--mixed media. This in my eyes is easier to identify as art, and consider it as almost a "traditional" contemporary performance piece. It's always easier to identify something you are familiar with, and this is definitely something I'm familiar with.
However, when reading this review I was directly impacted by her utilization and implementation of color. Luna not only used colors that are directly associated to the Mexican flag, but that are representational of purity, innocence, envy, and anger. The strong correlation of the cognitive association we have with color and the meaning of it in her performance made it that much more powerful, and personal.
Violeta Luna’s performance, Requiem For a Lost Land / Réquiem para una tierra perdida, recalls the techniques of Mexican Political Cabaret with contemporary similarities to Niña Yhared. Her use of the “cocaine” powder as a “border” between herself and the audience is an interesting metaphor considering relations of power in government. Roberto Gutiérrez Varea states, “The line of cocaine, eventually blurred by the elements or her actions, creates a porous border, and ordering principle, a ‘here and there,’ rich with significance and allusions both to the transnational reality of the narco-economy and the oppositional binaries favored by power”. This adds another layer onto the complicated relationship between Mexico and the United States. Along with President Calderon’s speech in front of the American Congress, Luna critiques the bureaucratic way in which the “war on drugs” is handled and how it has caused even more gruesome deaths to innocent citizens. The use of white in her performance, in her clothing and in the paint she places all over herself, signifies a curiously new Mexico where the blood is even more present. Killings are not only higher in number but more sick and perverse. By Pouring the blood over her hair and photographs of paisanos, Luna apparently “births death” according to Varea. The line, “Her sons are intent on killing one another with great cruelty and brutality; she is birthing death,” suggests that we are born killers, as opposed to being shaped as them by society. I can’t help but think that she is glamorizing death once she leaves the space and it becomes a “scene of a crime, an altar for the victims”. It seems unnecessarily voyeuristic. However, what would it mean if she didn’t leave the photographs behind? Would that be like the government trying to cover something up or downplay it?
Karina Hodoyan sheds light on Violeta Luna’s treatment of the U.S- Mexico economic and narcotics policies in her 2010 Bicentennial of Independence tribute. The article recounts how the performance’s transformative nature refers to the Narco-terror’s effect on public space. Luna imbibes her action and setting with conspicuous consequence. The employment of her body and symbolic props collectively convey life’s resolution. Luna’s work is saturated with consumption, expendability, national emblems as well as facts and figures regarding capital and fatalities. Hodoyan attributes Luna’s contextual and semantic shift to cocaine campaign disclosure. The imagery allied the social institutions in addition to the celebration with the requisite homage and condemnation. As Hodoyan artfully and allegorically articulated, “In Luna’s gesturing towards the traces and absences left by the unnamed dead, she embodied the motherland and absorbed the dead unto her own self-it was a form re-membering through embodiment of the images of the dead.”(pg. 2).
ReplyDeleteTo answer Hodoyan about culture and media violence, I feel they share a mutually supportive relationship that supplies the demand and reflects a consciousness. It is their duty to report major events but what is sifted as news worthy is downbeat and eclipses the rest. Shock value or whatever evokes heightened emotional, mental or physical responses are sought after. The audience is so accustomed to the inundation of messaging and thusly desensitized by it that the expense for attention is the acute, the latest, the relevant and the tragic. Crime scene evidence and script are intimidation tactics of psychological warfare. Such substantiations point to a culprit of duality. Those responsible are a public yet private adversary who’s post puppets the governing body and imposes indirect hegemony on the populace. The rebuilding could start with re-appropriation of power and war time occupational procedure. Those holding office would be relieved followed by the partitioning of regions and contained liquidation of cartel combatants and then re-monopolize the remaining sectors through military incursion.
Let's talk more about this idea of the media's obsession with violence in class tomorrow.
DeleteIn this article called Violeta Luna: Requiem, she re-contextualizes the celebration of the 2010 Mexico's Bicentennial of Independence by US-Mexico's devastating economic and narco-war policies. At the San Fransisco's "Celebrate SF" events in the fall of 2010, she starts at the community center's lobby. In mourning black, she walked between spectators while carrying a shopping bag emblazoned with the logo of Mexican Bicentennial celebrations. The lobby represented the narco-war violence. The shopping bag represented aggressive marketing of a glorious Mexican state history and habits of consumption and people under global capitalism. The second performance involved President Calderon's speech to the US Congress in 2010. Six white bottles were placed in 2 diagonal rows of 3 and center bottles showed the eagle with a Mexican flag. All bottles spilled but the first bottle was nothing but air. The spilling of bottles represented the spilling of "resources," people, land and wealth into the ill-fated drug war. The chalk spilled represented cocaine. After that, Luna takes out a white dress and washes herself with white paint. She represented dead bodies. She enbodied the "motherland" and absorbed the dead into her own self. The third part is when she bent over and extended her long hair. She placed portraits of the dead over it. At the closing, she picked up her shopping bag and strolled away from the crowd as a gesture for the violence. I agree with this performance and loved it as it sends a powerful message to the governments to either shape up or ship out and things need to improve and change for the better. As they say, "ni un muerto mas, no mas sangre!" or "not one more death, no more blood! Overall, I would have loved to see this performance art in San Fransisco in the fall of 2012 if I would have had the chance too.
ReplyDeleteIt is quite powerful. Luckily, it is captured on video!
DeleteI think it's important to discuss this idea of Luna's body standing in for "the nation." I also think we need to think about how she ends it, that life simply continues, goes on. Violence has become the "new normal."
In the article on Violeta Luna "Body and Space as Sites of Transfer: Violeta Luna's Requiem for a Lost Land" Roberto Varea gives insight into the performance of the memorial on the war on drugs in Mexico. It was a powerful performance consisting of various props that aided in the reenactment of a crime scene. The performance is jaw dropping from start to finish and for me it seemed as gruesome and unreal as a horror movie.
ReplyDeleteLuna exemplifies the issues in Mexico and war on drug by first drawing a line with chalk which represents cocaine this line represents the crime scene location that Luna never steps foot out of. As the performance begins several audio are played simultaneously. President Calderon's speech on the war against the drug cartels is played, the voices of individuals participating in the march for peace organized by Javier Sicilia, and lastly the voice of the Mexican poet Maria Rivera. The three audios represent the various sides of the war on drugs and the individuals they affect. As the performance progresses Luna places several white bottles within the crime seen, each with a "police tag" that represents a body count. Luna puts on a white dress and washes her body with white paint. She takes on this motherly presence as she moves on to place black and white photos of the dead on her long black hair. This whole performance reminds me of the movie "The Grudge" It's this presence of the force of good and evil.
I agree that her image evokes some kind of character from a Japanese horror film.
DeleteLet's talk about this more tomorrow. It should scare (disgust? anger? terrify?) us, as should the violence that has become "the new normal."
Also, I think this notion of Luna taking on a motherly figure is really important. What about her (visually or in terms of her actions) recalls a motherly figure? Why?
Roberto Gutierrez Varea analyzes Violeta Luna’s ritualized performance piece Requiem for a Lost Land in his article titled Body and Spaces as Sites of Transfer. This article feels over reaching, claiming Luna’s piece is some sort of expression of neo-baroque art. This link between cadaver paintings and general extravagance of the baroque period seems like an ill fitting metaphor to describe Luna’s work. Varea actually seems to negate his own point later in the article by stating “Luna takes on the aforementioned baroque complexity with an antidotal disarming simplicity.” Although there are paintings of cadavers and a slew of nude bodies in baroque art (and…all art…), this work does not originate out of violence but rather scientific or biblical curiosity. Luna’s white drenched performance, similar to Nina Yhared’s bath of milk, is over flowing with symbolism (which might even negate his negated point of “simplicity”) in an attempt to awaken to her audience to negative effects of President Felipe Calderon’s crack down on drug related violence. The most engaging part of this article was the explanation of the failed militarization of Mexico, one he likens to the United States and George Bush, in an attempt to take down drug cartels which led to disgustingly calculated violence, which has become “the new ‘normal.’” Furthermore, Varea’s comment that Luna is “birthing death” through her performance is an unfortunate description that leads me to be unsettled by the thought that blame might be transferred to women of Mexico, who birthed children that grew up and became drug lords or gang members when really it was societal construction that birthed this death. Thankfully, it seems less likely the argument of whether or not Luna’s performance is art might arise, her mind and body present and active within the performance that illustrates violence against the paisanos of Meixco. However, it is Varea’s reading that I personally call into question and mars my perceptions of Luna’s piece.
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up some interesting points.
DeletePerhaps Varea is constructing a loose (or mistaken?) definition of "baroque," but I would not call something "simple" and "baroque." Right?
I also felt uneasy when I read this "birthing" analogy. Where do you think it comes from? Why is there some kind of birthing/motherhood connotation here?
Roberto Gutierrez Varea dissects Violeta Luna’s ritualized performance “intervention” in his article entitled Body and Space as Sites of Transfer. Luna’s performance, Requiem for a Lost Land, address the victims of the “War on Drugs” that was initiated by former Mexican president Felipe Calderon. Through the use of a series of props and her own physical body, Luna conceived of a performance that served as a memorial, while highlighting issues of national security, mourning and power. Throughout the course we have read about several performance artist within Mexico who have addressed these very issues, but what seems to be unique to Luna’s performance is how the performative elements transform into a haphazard installation which forces the audience to engage with even after the artist has completed her physical performance. Gutierrez Varea argues that, “The performance has ritualized the space, transforming it into a multi-layered site of transfer:the scene of a crime, an altar for the victims, and a memorial to hold us in relationship with an ongoing unnecessary slaughter from where there is no return to what ever was, even in a nation with an imaginary where violence is no stranger”. This idea of using performance and the extension of the performances themselves as “sites of transfer” serves as a way to further extend the boundaries of the physical body. While performance is so heavily reliant on the presence of the body, this act of ritualization and sacred space is symbolic of a presence.
ReplyDelete"This idea of using performance and the extension of the performances themselves as “sites of transfer” serves as a way to further extend the boundaries of the physical body."
DeleteWhat a great point!
I like this idea that the resulting installation grows out of the performance. I think this happens with Teresa Margolles, too, wouldn't you say?
Do you think this strengthens the work? Why or why not?
In the article "Body and Space as Sites of Transfer: Violeta Luna's Requiem for a Lost Land" author Roberto Gutierrez Vera provides us with an analysis of Luna's performance intervention piece. Painting a very descriptive picture of Luna's anti narco violence performance the author presents his analysis of the performance as almost anti government and anti Calderon (mex president). Touching on the fact that Calderon won his post as president through a shady election process which happen to coincide with former president Bush's shady election, the author has the inclination of fowl play which caused self inflicted violence to infect the Mexican motherland and its citizens. Luna's red, green, and white colored performance serves as a re-bonding action for the viewers. A rebonding of the common Mexican with a hurt, ravaged, and bloodied homeland which is now breeding and birthing death at an astonishing rate through the consistent and ever violent murders and mutilations which have become the norm of Mexican society. The author has coined a the term Mexican Baroque, which has gone from an artistic practice or technique and has now gained the meaning of the excessive violence practiced by the warring cartels "Excesses become the affirmation of power precisely when those in power operate in a state of constant institutional insecurity" What I get from this quote is that maybe the president has tried so hard to re-affirm his shady rise into power that he has sought to do this by opening and stirring a big bloody violent can of worms and the cost has been massive loss of innocent and not so innocent lives through nation shocking violence ultimately making this the norm and even accepted fact of Mexican life and society.
ReplyDeleteMy question is this: Would it have been better for the current president to not start this war drugs and the cartels in the sake of keeping the piece and safety of the country or is this an acceptable price for taking out a few capos and creating a violent scramble for those positions by hungry narcos?
You ask an important question. What do you think? Were/are there other alternatives? What might Calderón have done differently? Or what do you think Peña Nieto will do?
DeleteI am also glad that you brought up the use of the three colors of the Mexican flag, because this work, in addition to being about mourning and loss and violence and the personal stories behind the violence, is also about this abstract idea of the nation. Let's talk about this more tomorrow.
Karina Hodoyan shared insight and critique of Violeta Luna's performance, titled Requiem, which is about grieving the deceased killed by the narco violence and president Calderon's incompetence to maintain peace in his own country. Luna's performance turned the public space into a crime scene, locating bullet holes with bottle cap to label the number of deaths. The location of the bottle caps and the bottles could be interpreted as the map of cities of the most deaths, but I am simply speculating. The long line spread of white chalk was evident representing drugs that are stimulating and the main cause of these violence. Her performance carried a ritual quality, similar to rituals in Africa, where white chalk is to symbolizes their respect for Oshun, the river goddess, and calls on her for their prayers to grant them wishes. Similarly, Luna's use of chalk could also be interpreted as calling on or mourn with the supernatural spirits of the deceased. As she released her hair and lay the photographs on her hair, her body became a symbolic grave site in remembrance of these innocents lives. The transformation of multiple dimensions of performance activated the audience's translucent imagination and connected all the aspects of the performance back in mourning for the individuals.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to talk more, and specifically, about her hair and how it is used in the work and what it symbolizes. Anyone have any ideas?
DeleteIn “Violeta Requiem”, author Karina Hodoyán recalls the performance piece “Requiem For a Los Land/Réquiem para una tierra perdida”, conducted by performance artist Violeta Luna. Held at the San Francisco Mission Cultural Center in 2010, the work of art that Violeta Luna presented reflects her response based on the Narco Wars that were happening in Mexico. In the performance, Luna is seen wearing black and carrying a shopping bag that displays the Mexican Bicentennial logo; inside of the bag are six white bottles that are eventually taken out to be arranged in a specific way. After the placement of the bottles, Luna gradually spills the contents of one bottle after another, each carrying different types of symbolism. I feel that the first half of the performance was comprehensible to all audiences, especially to those who were knowledgeable about the Narco Wars. The act of the artist wearing black brings in a sense of mourning and that the bag along with the bottles themselves are the cause of the death(s) that she mourns for. However, Luna’s second and last part of the performance illustrates the artist taking the victims and absorbing them to herself by utilizing her own body. Although the author states that the color red that the artist used to pour on her hair was to represent the Mexican flag, I felt that it was symbolizing the blood that was shed in the wars, especially many innocent lives, which is possibly implied by the artist’s white dress. Just as Galindo expressed the loss of innocent lives in her response to the re-election of a corrupt president by walking throughout the city with human blood on her feet, Luna mourns and embodies those who have died by utilizing herself to carry on the pain and the suffering of those who have lost their lives from the Narco Wars.
ReplyDeleteI agree! For me, that red paint was DEFINITELY evoking blood. I think it functioned simultaneously to recall the three colors of the Mexican flag, too, but I think it forces the viewer to see the red of the flag AS blood. The national emblem is soiled with blood now.
DeleteThe article by Roberto Gutierrez Varea covers the performance of Requiem For a Lost Land staged by Violeta Luna. Requiem is a ritualized memorial for the victims of President Felipe Calderon’s “war on drugs.” Varea briefly summarizes President Calderon’s adventure with his war, and he follows up Luna’s performance becoming and installation because of the “drenched aftermath-ness.”
ReplyDeleteOne opinion that Varea manipulates to his pleasure is saying that because Calderon chose to start a “war on drugs” that aligns him to the political right. So by his train of thought, a person that aligns itself to the political left would not start a war, but then again democrat or republican are closer to the center on a political spectrum. I myself, a leaner to the left, would like to start a “war on poverty” or some other abstract term that cannot possibly show results.
You know, I have a problem with anyone who says that all people of a certain political persuasion think one way or another. But I do think that a critique of Calderón's policy is valid. I think, what is apparent, is that the current official strategy is not succeeding and that there needs to be some exploration of alternative solutions. A "war on poverty" might actually do more to help the situation.
DeleteRequiem: "Also called Requiem Mass. the Mass celebrated for the repose of the souls of the dead." By the definition stated on Dictionary.com Violet Luna's piece "Requiem for a Lost Land" sets the tone for the whole piece. Karina Hodoyan reviewed Violet Luna's performance at the San Francisco Mission Cultural Center during the “Celebrate SF”event. Luna slowly dismantles the Mexican flag, and skews ordinary items into significant aspects of Mexican society--something that can be applied to any country, anywhere.
ReplyDeleteHodoyan describes the performance, "Here, the reference to the transformation of public space by the narco-war became a site of mourning shared by the community of witnesses-spectators." Each element, the space, the audience, the objects factored in to represent each factor of this war against drugs, declared by Mexican president Felipe Calderon. Again, something that can pertain to many countries, and ours in particular. Like Roberto Gutierrez Varea's reference to George Bush and his declaration of war. War has become the answer, and the scapegoat. Something Luna presents in her performance.
The work could be carefully analyzed as art, in the context of medium: her body. She utilizes her body, and implements other objects as well--mixed media. This in my eyes is easier to identify as art, and consider it as almost a "traditional" contemporary performance piece. It's always easier to identify something you are familiar with, and this is definitely something I'm familiar with.
However, when reading this review I was directly impacted by her utilization and implementation of color. Luna not only used colors that are directly associated to the Mexican flag, but that are representational of purity, innocence, envy, and anger. The strong correlation of the cognitive association we have with color and the meaning of it in her performance made it that much more powerful, and personal.
I'm glad you, like Justin and a few others, also mention the use of color in this performance. Let's discuss further tomorrow.
DeleteFor now, try to think about what these colors (red, white, green) symbolize.
Violeta Luna’s performance, Requiem For a Lost Land / Réquiem para una tierra perdida, recalls the techniques of Mexican Political Cabaret with contemporary similarities to Niña Yhared. Her use of the “cocaine” powder as a “border” between herself and the audience is an interesting metaphor considering relations of power in government. Roberto Gutiérrez Varea states, “The line of cocaine, eventually blurred by the elements or her actions, creates a porous border, and ordering principle, a ‘here and there,’ rich with significance and allusions both to the transnational reality of the narco-economy and the oppositional binaries favored by power”. This adds another layer onto the complicated relationship between Mexico and the United States. Along with President Calderon’s speech in front of the American Congress, Luna critiques the bureaucratic way in which the “war on drugs” is handled and how it has caused even more gruesome deaths to innocent citizens.
ReplyDeleteThe use of white in her performance, in her clothing and in the paint she places all over herself, signifies a curiously new Mexico where the blood is even more present. Killings are not only higher in number but more sick and perverse. By Pouring the blood over her hair and photographs of paisanos, Luna apparently “births death” according to Varea. The line, “Her sons are intent on killing one another with great cruelty and brutality; she is birthing death,” suggests that we are born killers, as opposed to being shaped as them by society. I can’t help but think that she is glamorizing death once she leaves the space and it becomes a “scene of a crime, an altar for the victims”. It seems unnecessarily voyeuristic. However, what would it mean if she didn’t leave the photographs behind? Would that be like the government trying to cover something up or downplay it?
I'm glad you brought up color, too!
DeleteWhy does she paint herself white?
I also think it is important to challenge this notion that violence is inborn, not a result of cultural training.