03/05/2012
Text of Laureana Toledo's talk, for those who missed it-
Where I am sitting is a very hot sunny day, not much pollution. I am skipping my lunch
hour to be attending this, which is happening at the same time on another side of the
world where it is dark and rainy, I suppose.
So, to speak about reality, we are forced to connect with each other through an
invisible wireless signal that travels through real air and that can put the image of me
in a real room in a theatre in London. I don’t really know where I’m placed, for all I
know, Michael left his computer at home, and I’m speaking to myself. On your side,
secretly, many of you would rather be watching The Only way is Essex on the telly.
A couple of weeks back we had a big art fair in Mexico City, the 10 th time it happens,
I believe. Things that happen in this city are usually the biggest this, or the largest
that of Latin America. So this was the most important fair in Latin America. In Mexico
there is an overpopulation of artists: a stable and old market for painting but only 5
important collections where one’s work should go, as a contemporary artist. There are
around 5 commercial and successful galleries and many interesting small projects, but
those hardly make it to a fair like the one last week, where the cheapest stand costs
around 10 thousand dollars. There are a lot of museums interested in contemporary
art, but a very limited budget from the government -a lot of what museums get
is through private donations and private funding. Many of the before mentioned
collectors support some of the museums. Only a bunch of contemporary artists, no
more than 50 have a successful career and only 3 have made it to the Tate timeline.
One is of Belgian origin.
At the Forbes list, a Mexican, Carlos Slim has come first place as the richest man on
earth for three years in a row. Drug dealer El Chapo Guzmán is believed to be the 10 th
richest person in the country, but nobody knows exactly how much he makes. Carlos
Slim got his son in law to design his own museum, which shows for free the eclectic
and not very good art collection of Mr Slim. His collection stops in the 1980’s, with no
interest whatsoever in seeing what’s happening today. Drug dealers only get songs
made after them, and their treasures shown in specialised websites.
Rich people make their fortunes in ways that are not equal, ways that profit from
those less fortunate. The rich always and powerful have an advantage on opportunity,
on education, on the use of power that paves their way and that leaves many, many,
many people on a very sad and miserable wage, if any. Drug dealers are known to fill
those gaps: they pave the streets that governments do not because they need roads
to escape. They employ those who makes a poor candidate for a steady job, which, by
the way, end up earning more than any laureate doctor by just selling drugs or passing
information along. Contrasts are visible and enormous. Violence permeates a lot of
what happens here, and Ciudad Juárez on the north of the country is more dangerous
than Kabul.
In a country like Mexico, where only half of the children that start, finish primary
school, forced out to work, to be an artist is an immense luxury.
Art is said to free the spirit, to nourish it, to go ahead of its time and make visible
those things of life that people do not or can’t see. Art in Mexico at the moment,
most of it, is a way of escaping. There are important issues to talk about but to talk
about them trivialises the same issue you want to talk about. It is both complex and
dangerous, and art that “looks” political, in may cases, only has a thin spread of it,
as if to liberate everyone from the guilt of not speaking about it —especially at this
moment where ideology in art has been traded for market in art. That is true here,
there, and everywhere, and it is also true for most of commodities —even nature-
given tomatoes.
Do we artists have a responsibility to speak about our local realities? Do we escape,
close the window and think about how to fit with the latest trend in London, New
York, Beijing? How do we help restore balance in a world that is polarised as ever
before?
Art should be on the side of the solution, shouting out loud, painting it out, writing it
big. But then again, it seems that fear has gotten into our heads as well: a year ago,
the son of a poet was found dead on the trunk of a car, cut into pieces (a random and
accidental death); a few days ago, my father, a painter, received a second anonymous
death threat along with some other social defenders. Not to mention the huge amount
of dead journalist, photographers and social fighters, which silently disappear to
violently appear in horrendous conditions.
Right now, in the country where I’m sitting, reality is an overwhelming matter. I guess
this happens elsewhere in other scales. I don’t know how art should deal with this
reality and intend to live in the reality of producing luxury goods. I pass along the
question…
