Last night's show went incredibly well. It may be the best audience response we've ever had. Lots of screaming, endless smiles and a sustained bout of cheering and yelling right in the middle of the set. A business man came up to me at the hotel the next morning and complimented me. He said he went by himself and thought it was an incredibly honest show, totally from the heart. It was maybe one of the most sincere and nicest compliments I've ever gotten. And from a somewhat unexpected source.
The venue is frighteningly clean, not just for Mexico, but for anywhere. It's a large club with standing room and a bar in the back, plus a balcony with bar-type seats. It sounds pretty good and it's filled up (not really). It's incredibly dry; we're in a high altitude, but I forget and wonder why my throat is so dry that I keep gulping water.
Afterwards, I say hi to some of the members of Los De Abajo, Déborah Holtz (who did the Sensacional! book of Mexican street graphics that I wrote an essay for), and Lynn Fainshtein (who licenses music for films). I bike back to the hotel.
We agree to meet the next morning, as Déborah has arranged to go out to JUMEX, the giant juice factory outside of town, where there is a contemporary art museum with a show curated by Guillermo. After that, she has arranged a lunch with a bunch of folks.
Around 11 AM, we head on out. The rest of the band, those that are awake, have gone to the pyramids. The factory is huge, spotless, and silent (it's Sunday). It has its own water processing plant, its own water tower. This might be largest juice factory in the country. It's run by one of 2 brothers. The other runs the plant that specializes in canned foods.
The entrance to the museum has a sign that must be an artwork — it's in English. It reads, "Love Invents Us."
The place is a full-blown, international-style art museum, with grey concrete and minimal style, plopped in the middle of a juice factory. Of course, it houses the owner's collection... or parts of it. Guillermo, who accompanied us here, curated a show that is up at the moment. There is a catalogue and everything, the whole deal, though the public is not invited here. It's pretty far on the outskirts, anyway.
I think it was Guillermo who refers to a lot of the younger artists on display as "children of Orozco," referring to Gabriel Orozco, a Mexican artist who works in a host of media and is a part of the big international scene. Santiago Serra has some pieces here; he had the images of people paid to say things they didn't comprehend and people paid to sit in cardboard boxes.
There is a lovely video by a Belgian artist that is a collage of pretty much unrelated scenes — roller skaters, girls screaming, clouds darkening a mountain. I only wish it was shot in film, as opposed to video, as the images are beautiful.
Damian Ortega, a young up and coming artist (according to Guillermo) made a neat sculpture out of chairs, string and a cabinet that looks like one of the odd, improvised constructions one sees everywhere here on the streets. Here are two of these "street" items I photographed earlier:
In a driveway in Polanco.
At the airport.
Surreal objects seem to exist as part of everyday life here. It's a fairly porous barrier between the objects seen on the streets and fine art.
The storage area has even more art hanging from ceilings and wrapped in hallways.
Our trip here is on the coat heels of a group from the De Menil museum/collection based in Houston. They arrive momentarily, older ladies and gents with accents. There is a spread laid out for them — champagne and juice, cevice served in shot glasses, squash blossoms filled with goat cheese and round chocolates. This will be my breakfast.
One man asks me what’s to see in Montevideo. I wonder who pays for their trip. Is it a reconnoiter in view of a future show of De Menil holdings? I don't think so. Maybe it's scoping out the competition.
A few of us head back to town for lunch at El Bajio, the rendezvous Deborah has arranged. Most of the folks who meet us there are involved with music here in one way or another:
Los de Abajo (Liber, Yoku and Vladimir)
Lynn Fainshtein (music producer)
Camilo Lara (mucic producer)
Oscar Sarquiz (best known music critic and manager for Los de Abajo)
Julieta Venegas (singer/composer from Tijuana) [didn’t show]
Guillermo Santamarina (art curator/ curated the last JUMEX exhibit, the most
important contemporary art collection)
Matt Holmes and Cristina Faesler (editor of ABCDF)
Guillermo Osorno (editor of DF, the most important culture magazine...
something like Time Out).
Uriel Weizel (Radio Ibero and music producer)
Déborah Holtz, Oscar Reyes and Juan Carlos Mena (Trilce)
The food is unfussy, tasty, and the tequila and sangrita are already on the table. There are a few altars in the restaurant, as the day of the dead is approaching.
I sit next to Liber from Los De Abajo, the band whose last two records were on Luaka Bop. Oscar (which one?) sits across from me and, soon enough, I was taking notes as he and Liber recommended recordings by Mexican classical composers and Norteño singers.
Some of these folks, being in the music biz, have just returned from Miami, where the Latin Grammy's were held. All were appalled that it was felt necessary to have respectable Latin songwriters and singers be presented under the auspices of a salute to Usher. What is that about? Smells like multinational record label pressure to me... or TV pressure... or both. But it's pretty damn stupid.
Others mention how fake Miami seems in comparison to Mexico City, which is dirty, crowded and messy, but full of life and energy.
After lunch, Deborah says we simply must visit her friends, the family of an artist, Jaled Muyaes, who has a collection of about 5,000 Mexican masks, from all regions of country.
We arrive in a nice neighborhood; it has character and seems old. People wander the streets comfortably. Down a dead end street is a gate and we are let in to a courtyard, where the family has been celebrating a birthday. The tequila is out.
Jaled is, it seems, an obsessive collector, not just of masks. On a massive pink wall nearby is an artwork made of tools. It’s a veritable hardware store of saw blades, pickaxe blades, trowels and awls. Other pieces of his are scattered about — a "tree" of trowel blades, another of shovel blades.
In a hallway are maybe a hundred framed old French engravings of people dressed as their occupations. A furniture maker is made out of tables and cabinets, a book printer is made of presses and books. In a side room, Jaled himself, 80 years old, is patiently at work on some Matisse-like colleges made out of cut-out bits of corrugated cardboard. He rises to answer some questions about the masks and where they are from.
There are other collections here and there: a massive collection of Posada prints, massive antique fruit presses, ceramic cows and old books, including 1st editions and encyclopedias.
The mask collection is incredible. I'm getting seriously overloaded today. It's beautiful to see this 80-year old quietly getting on with his work of creating while the family celebrates a birthday with nieces and nephews. Some masks are very contemporary looking, abstract, or distorted and even hairy. Some have penis noses. We are told that they are not made very much any more. Villagers now buy the mass-produced rubber ones that we all know; the craft of making these is fading away.
Deborah wants to visit the house of the JUMEX owner for anther round of drinks and more art viewing, but as it's getting on and the tequila is taking its toll, I beg off. This puts her in a tricky social situation, but none of these visits were planned, so I suggest she blame me.
9PM
Just got back to the hotel from lunch!! The Doors are playing across the street at the National Theater, which is a bit like the Kennedy Center. Very prestigious. Masses of people swarm outside buying tacos and soft drinks. Vendors blow whistles. The Doors? Huh? The guy from the Cult is singing with some of the original guys, who make up most of the band. This is like channeling a singer from 50 years ago, who recorded before Ian Ashbury was born, or so I suspect. Creepy, if you ask me. But I guess they're cashing in. Conceptually, maybe it's no more creepy than an actor doing an historical personage, but somehow this IS just a little bit weirder. It's not billed as one of those Broadway or West End type revues with a through-line like the ones about Queen or Buddy Holly.
The one tourist attraction I haven't checked off here is Xochilmilco, a kind of Venice of islands, waterways and water traffic. It's a UN Heritage site also known as the hanging gardens of the Aztecs. Farmers still grow crops on the floating islands. Typically, a city dweller would go for a weekend lunch, hire a boat and oarsman, and then, when hungry, summon another boat that pulls alongside, attaches itself and prepares food. Likewise, a marimba ensemble might attach itself on the other side and provide entertainment. I was told at lunch that one of the islands is a Barbie island, with thousands of doll heads hanging from the tree branches.
Whew, I'm exhausted. A lot of talk. Incredible food, and plenty of Tequila and cervezas.
