Back in Mexico City after a week of great films and impossibly blue oceans.
“The Man Who Lived in a Shoe”, our feature-length doc was in competition.
Had a ball, and a very fun screening–full house and a moving Q&A that lasted almost an hour.
This, here, is an article in Mexican press that recounts that night in Playa del Carmen.
Alinka–Mexican, but oh so very addicted to distances–is in town for a while. Talented photographer and anthropologist, this above is her latest project entitled “Becoming South Sudan”.
“On 9 July 2011, six months after nearly 99 percent of four million voters in a referendum opted for secession from the North, the Republic of South Sudan came into being, becoming the world’s 193rd nation. The run-up to independence witnessed a place and a people in transformation, as some of the millions of exiles who had sought asylum in neighboring countries returned to rebuild their communities and construct their identity as a unified nation. The new government has the task of developing law-enforcing institutions such as the police and prison services out of a rebel movement, and from people trained as combatants, not peacekeepers.”
And I am looking forward to hearing more about what she has been up to when we catch up over mezcales this week.
(Take a look at more of her work right here.)
(Alinka was part of “La (otra) maleta mexicana”, a collective Tóxico art proeject.)
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/34269442[/vimeo]
Our muy querido Felipe Guerrero–film director and also the editor of “The Man Who Lived in a Shoe”, my first doc–just wrote to let me know that his newest experimental film will have its World Premiere at the Rotterdam International Film Fest, in the Bright Future section.
“Corta” (i.e. Cut) shows how agricultural labourers in Valle del Cauca, Colombia (where Felipe grew up) harvest a field of sugar cane using machetes. “The hypnotic rhythm of the timeless (yet rapidly disappearing) handiwork is masterfully reflected in the making of the 16mm film. Contemplative and pure cinema.”
Hit play, and enjoy a tiny taste. While we celebrate in DF with manzanilla and mezcal.
Yep. Bernard is in town once again. But this time he is not only descending for tacos, but actually back in Mexico for good, after many years of living in NYC.
Which makes me very happy indeed. So as part of my own personal celebration, I am reposting a blog entry I wrote in Feb 2010 about a VBS.tv episode that Bernardo and I did together.
Enjoy.
(Y bienvenido señor!)
+++
Some months ago, I got a call from Bernardo Loyola–senior editor at VBS, (plus DP, occasional producer, also director and now a dear friend who brings gifts in the form of chocolates with truffle oil and sea salt when he comes to visit Mexico City).
He had just read an article of mine that was published in Vice Magazine, which started off describing a certain amusement park in a certain indigenous town:
(“There is a certain amusement park in Alberto Town, in the Mexican state of Hidalgo. It is run by hñahñu Indians. There, instead of the usual merry-go-round or what not, amusement takes a different turn: one can pretend for a couple of hours to be an illegal immigrant trying to get across the border. You will be chased for 18 kilometers; there will be shots, barbed-wire fences, cactuses, sirens, shouting, running for cover and even a theatrical death or two: all for 25 bucks a head. It is a simulacrum of the “torturous travails of a ‘mojado’ crossing the border, with educational objectivesâ€, the organizers have explained several times. Non withstanding its educational and entertainment value “for the whole family, sometimes people even bring babies, like in real lifeâ€, the amusement park has been criticized by some as so-called training grounds for people who are truly planning to get across the border; by others for treating lightly the terrifying ordeal that real immigrants go through, in search for something a lot more basic than the American dream: just plain old food on the table and a roof over their families heads.
The idea for the theme park—even if it is in central Mexico, far from the real border– was not gratuitous. The town’s number of inhabitants dwindled to a little over two hundred (compared to an average of two thousand in former years) because their population started immigrating to the USA. So a council was formed and they decided upon a strategy: to gather stories of people who have been there and done that, all while reviving an ecological park and guaranteeing steady income for their townsmen so they would no longer feel the need to cross the border; only pretend to everyday. Almost 80 towns-people work there, don their police uniforms or become masked coyotes for the tourists as soon as the sun comes down, so they can imagine what the real thing is like.”)
So, yes, Bernardo had read this, and was calling from New York with a proposal: that we travel together to Alberto and do a 30 minute documentary for VBS.
And so we did. We ran in the dark for a few hours, huddled beneath the bushes,  hopped on ‘Border Patrol’ trucks with wailing sirens, heard stories of real crossings, and all the time our feelings verged madly between enjoying the surreality of it all and quietly pondering the complex social scenario at our northern border–so palpably visible in this small town–, mulling over questions with no easy answers. Bernardo, Rodrigo Teie (who assisted us with an additional camera) and I where in a thoughtful mood on our drive back to Mexico City.
No easy answers, no. But creative ones in Alberto: that, for sure.
Click, click click to see the short VBS documentary.
Stefan and I met when he was creative director of Colors Magazine, many projects and about a hundred shared tacos ago.
Just back from photographing the Bill Clinton, the Bush´s ranch, and a nameless African dictator, he’s now landing in Mexico City to telenovela his heart out once again. And again. Here we go.
(Book by Aperture coming soon. Photos by Stefan, texts by yours truly. How fun.)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNUifH5htTc&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Extended trailer for “The Mayor” a documentary film in progress by Carlos Rossini, Emiliano Altuna and Diego Osorno–and all too relevant to the times at hand in Mexico.
***
(Emiliano and Carlos were part of the Tóxico Master-Class by Christopher Doyle.)
***
Image by Juliana Beasley, who gave a fabulous Tóxico Lab workshop for emerging Mexican photographers several months ago.
(Was great to catch up with her in NYC last week and hear about all that she has been up to since I last saw her.)
“To work in the abyss between fiction and reality, to work between what you know and all that is mysterious: I love that tension. I think its important to find the cinematic in everyday life, a hungry point of view, daily. When you dig into people’s individual worlds and develop a keen sense of smell, to question, investigate, invent, to find fiction. The real is different to the realistic.”
-Óscar Ruiz Navia at Tóxico Lab-
Oscar Ruiz Navia, talentosÃsimo y multipremiado director de cine estará impartiendo un taller teórico/práctico de 6 dÃas en donde exloraremos métodos de selección/observación de personas que existen en la vida cotidiana y que puedan convertirse en personajes cinematográficos, construyendo un universo que confunda la vida, el sueño y la ficción.
***
Más informes en www.toxicocultura.com/ruiznavia.
(Los talleres de Tóxico se llenan de volada, asi que si les interesa escriban muy pronto)
***
Tóxico Lab es una nueva serie de talleres diseñados especialmente para (y por) una nueva generación de talentosos artistas emergentes.
Agradecemos profundamente la colaboración de la Cineteca Nacional de México, asi como el apoyo de The Lift, el British Council, y el programa de TED Fellows.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEiMA3QtYWc[/youtube]
Our dear Bernardo Loyola–with whom I have collaborated on several projects for VBS– sent me this fantastically fun new episode that he just co-produced and edited: a journey to the dusty city of Matehuala, Mexico, in search of the pointiest long-toed cowboy boots ever made.
“Over the past year, the botas vaqueras exóticas phenomenon has overrun the rodeo dance floors and clubs of this area and even spreading North into Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and any place where big groups of immigrant Mexicans have taken root. We made our way to Desierto Light, one of the clubs in this area where party promoters host dance-offs to music known as Tribal Guarachero. For the finals competition, the 17-year-old prodigy DJ Erick Rincón of the 3ballMTY crew performed for a crowd of adoring pointy-boot wearing raver cowboys”.
And strangely enough, Maricarmen Guajardo and I had been secretly planning on doing a little doc on the same subject this summer, since she had started photographing them in San Luis Potosà over a year ago… Oh well. If somebody else besides us had to do it, I am glad it was another close friend. (Nos ganaste condenado, ja)
(Plus I confess that now I can’t wait to visit him in New York soon, and see him do the pointy boot tribal dance–since now he has a pair of his own: the very longest and the very pointiest and the very purplest in all of Williamsburg, all the vice-filled nightlife rumors say)
Today! Tóxico in conversation with the wonderful Daniel Hernández– author, journalist, and the main man behind the Intersections blog.
We will be talking about our respective projects and creative industries in Mexico.
More info here.
The yellow skeleton of our first feature-length film baby, mmm.
Almost finished, one month to go, news and website soon.
Says Alinka EcheverrÃa:
“Six Million Pilgrims (2009) is a photographic typology of the backs of three hundred Mexican Catholic pilgrims on their journey to the
Basilica de Guadalupe in Mexico City. Â This yearly pilgrimage, undertaken by approximately six million people every year takes place
on the anniversary of the five apparitions of the Virgin of Guadalupe between the 9th and 12th December 1531 to the indigenous man Juan Diego in Tepeyac, the sacred place of the Aztec goddess Tonantzin. The myth of the apparitions marks a turning point in the spiritual conquest of native Mexicans by the Spanish and lead to the amalgamation of Tonantzin and the Virgin Mary. This is the origin of the devotion of Mexicans to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Â Since the spiritual conquest of Mexico (arguably one of the most important legacies of the colonial period), the image of the Virgin has been of central importance in the history of Mexico. Her image was used by political leaders as a symbol of faith and freedom during the Independence movement in 1810, and again during the Revolution a century later.
In 2010 the Virgen de Guadalupe continues to be the center piece of our cosmology as Mexicans. This work is an observation of her role in contemporary visual culture and the vast layers of symbolism transmitted through her iconic image. I am also interested in the pilgrimage as a socio-political and cultural phenomenon and in the psychological and emotional relationship that each individual has with the Virgin.  The work is inspired by the Becher tradition of systematic documentation.  I chose to photograph the pilgrims that are carrying their virgin, which is usually hanging in their home.  They take their paintings, sculptures, posters or cloaks of the Virgen to the Basicila to be blessed and to give thanks. Each portrait was taken separately, then ‘cut out’ and mounted onto a plain background. This decontextualization is intended to focus our attention on the individual. It also functions as a means to be able to then recombine it with the other hundreds of pilgrims. When placed back into the series the image has a direct relationship to the other portraits
rather than with the rest of the elements originally in the image. The large number of portraits creates a visual maze of similarity and difference, perhaps metaphoric of Mexican identity and makes us imagine the millions of pilgrims that visit the Basilica every year.”
***
(Alinka is part of “La (otra) maleta mexicana”– a Tóxico collective art project.)
(Click pic twice to enlarge)
This new book is out today, with an essay on arts, culture and creativity by yours truly.
Ya veremos qué tal.
Image by Cristóbal Trejo.
A couple of months ago we had the pleasure of having photographers Juliana Beasley and Tema Stauffer give a great workshop for Tóxico Lab. Tema, who is also a curator at Culturehall–a curated online resource for contemporary art where selected artists can share their work– invited four workshop-ers to be part of it. In Tema’s own words:
“In August 2010, photographer Juliana Beasley and I co-taught the first Tóxico Lab workshop. Tóxico Lab is a new series of events designed for emerging photographers. ‘Truth or Dare’ was a three-day intensive course during which we gave artist talks, lectured about the work of relevant photographers, and critiqued student works-in-progress. We were introduced to twelve photographers living and working in Mexico City, and from this inspiring group, I invited four to contribute portfolios to Culturehall.”
Do take a look here, and see what four young and talented Mexican photographers have been up to.
(Wonderful to see things happening across borders.)
We are extremely happy to officially inaugurate our International Internship program with Audrey Young, who flies into Mexico City today, stays for three months and will be collaborating with us in different multidisciplinary projects during that time.
Audrey studied at NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation graduate program, has worked at the Arquivo Nacional do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro, just came back from Portugal and a Fullbright Scholarship, and has, to boot,  collaborated with Cabinet, one of our very favorite magazines in the whole wide world. We feel oh so lucky to have her.
And you will be hearing more from her here, on the Toxi-blog. So stay tuned.
(Bienvenida Audrey)
Images of “Caca Grande”, a new book for children by Carlos Amorales, renowned Mexican artist.
It was a couple of years ago that the amazing Vanessa Eckstein—founder of Blok Design, and also our esteemed partner in “The Blok+Tóxico Film Project”—told me about a dream of hers: to create an editorial project for children, in collaboration with acclaimed and imaginative international artists.
And finally. It is here. Poop. Grand poop. The First one.
“Poop in the air, poop in the trees, poop on your chin, poop on your knee: Mexican artist Carlos Amorales’ children’s book revels in the stuff, rendering these scenes in bold, scatological brown and black silhouette. Amorales (born 1970) has already established an impressive reputation as an artist working in a variety of media–animation, performance, video, sculpture, photography and works on paper–and here explores that singular niche within artists’ publications: the artist’s book sort of for children and definitely for adults. Caca Grande plays fast and loose with the brown stuff, dispatching it to places it had previously never been, with joyous abandon.”
Amorales likes the fact that it is an open-ended book that leaves much room for children’s imagination, for mental creativity, touching upon adult’s taboos with a certain humor and even a certain darkness that is so much a part of childhood.
Mmm. We like that too.
And so welcome into the world, Lampyro. An editorial project by Blok Design and Editorial RM, with contributors selected by Patrick Charpenel and Ana Elena Mallet. Books for children–and the not so children too. By visual artists, architects, composers and filmmakers. Soon on their way: Francis Alÿs, Liam Gillick, Herzog and de Meuron, Robert Staedler, Melanie Smith, Marcel Dzama, Pipilotti Rist and Sanaa. Impressive list. Can’t wait for more. Childhood will never be quite the same again it seems…
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/11334968[/vimeo]
By Carlos Casas (ES)
Music: Andrea Belfi (IT)
EVILÂ 03:46Â Â |Â Prix Ars Electronica 2010Â |
Says Carlos:
Evil (3:30) Evil variations 1
is part of a archive works I ve been developing to uncover a certain ghostly fluid inherent in film, a way to deconstruct and use archive material as mortar for a new audiovisual matter. These works are only a way to give new life to this material, as well as constructing a new vision. Evil uses samples expands or extends the opening shot of Touch of Evil, by Orson Welles. Considered the most remarkable long shot in the history of cinema, it also includes an amazing sound design work, and music, that at it s time was more than revolutionary and was only understood and applied years later when Walter Murch reedited the film through Welles´s notes. Evil is the first on a series of variations developed with italian musician and drummer Andrea Belfi.  It is trough these notes that I found inspiration to rework and recompose these scene.
Orson Welles: “In scoring the picture, it was planned to use, for the most part, rock and roll and latin-american rhythm numbers. The streets of a border town are always noisy with the blare of various loudspeakers, broadcasting from the entrance of night clubs…bars and cantinas. Considerable use was to be made of this. It is very important that the usual rancheros and mariachi numbers should be avoided and the emphasis should go on afro-cuban rhythm numbers. …This rock and roll comes from radio loudspeakers, juke boxes and in particular, the radio in the motel. It is very important to note that in the recording of all these numbers–which are supposed to be heard through street loudspeakers–that the effect should be just exactly as bad as that. The music itself should be skillfully played, but it will not be enough in doing the final sound mixing to run this track through an echo chamber with a certain amount of filter. To get the effect we’re looking for, it is absolutely vital that this music be played through a cheap horn in the alley outside the sound building. After this is recorded, it can be then loused up even further by the basic process of re-recording with a tinny exterior horn…. And since it does not represent very much in the way of money, I feel justified in insisting upon this, as the result will really be worth it.” “All the above music of course is “realistic”, in the sense that it is literally playing during the action. For the purpose of clarity in these notes, this music will be referred to as ‘background music’, as distinguished from ‘underscoring’, a term which will be used to designate that part of the music which accommodates dramatic action and which does not come from radios, night clubs, orchestras or juke boxes. In other words, the usual dramatic music (used) in a picture. This underscoring, as will be seen, is to be most sparingly used, and should never give a busy, elaborate, orchestrated effect. What we want is musical color rather than movement; sustained washes of sound rather than…melodramatic or operatic scoring.”
***
(Carlos Casas is a Tóxico padrino, constant accomplice, fellow list maker–with more projects joint coming soon. He also gave a fabulous cinema workshop for “La Incubadora”–a multidisciplinary program created by Tóxico for the 12 best students of a private university in Mexico City.)
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/13043612[/vimeo]
Wonderful, mesmerizing short film by Carlos Armella. Do click.
“Winner of over a dozen film festivals, including the Golden Lion in Venice and published in the American Cinematographer Magazine of June 2010, Land and Bread is a piece of art that could only be achieved through film. With what seems as one single shot trough a day, Isi Sarfati and Carlos Armella developed a technique to achieve this suttle camera movement. Sarfati calls it a human motion control.”
***
(Produced by Tania Zarak, founder of Bonita Films, with whom we have a few new exciting projects in the oven)
Images by MarÃa José Cuevas, from her series Bellas de Noche — film stills from a documentary to come:
“Seven great and powerful vedettes, all of whom witnessed the low and dark world of  politics, society, and entertainment of Mexico during the 70s and 80s. Today, their reign has ended and their lives are marked by scandals and tragedies. Sasha Montenegro, Princess Yamal, Rossy Mendoza, Olga Breeskin, Lyn May and Wanda Seux define an important and peculiar period in the history of Mexico.”
This is Maria José’s first documentary, now in the final stages of filming; she is in Las Vegas as I write, staying with Olga Breeskin. I saw a 15 minute trailer a few weeks ago and I was very (!) impressed with her work. It will be a fantastic film: a wonderful mix of surreality and poignancy, with a good dose of both humor and sadness. The tale of Mexican politics and life-style through very strange and particular lenses.
Download a PDF and read more about her project here on the Tabloide website.
Juliana Beasley estudió foto en NYU. Al salir de la universidad se dió cuenta que no era tan fácil encontrar trabajo en el mundo del arte. Decidió volverse lapdancer profesional y asà seguir tomando fotos. Ocho años y muchos movimientos de cadera después de haber comenzado: un libro que combina sus dos carreras. Y unos años después de eso: un taller en Tóxico Lab, la próxima semana, junto con Tema Stauffer.
Truth or Dare?
Un poco de ambos, probablemente.
***
Juliana tells us:
“When I discovered lap dancing, I was delighted because my job description was cut and dry—no more conniving for tips. I provided a service and was paid upfront. I had the freedom of choice to interact with customers verbally if I cared to, but my income didn’t depend on me making conversation with men or developing regulars. If they were difficult, I always had the option of turning my back and walking away. Since alcohol is not served in nude clubs, I never felt the pressure to sit with a customer for drinks, which invariably left me with a hangover the next morning. I personally found it less emotionally taxing.
Besides doing the obligatory dance sets—either sharing the stage with other dancers or performing alone—I made the majority of my money walking up to customers and soliciting “private dancesâ€â€”lap dances—and taking them into “private†areas of the club. Private dances are really not so private: they are often wedged between undulating couples biding for space. During peak hours on Fridays and Saturdays, customers and dancers wait their turn outside the lap dance room.
A lap dance has a beginning, a middle, and an end. First, I would systematically lay down a cloth on the customers’ laps, then grind against their crotches, either by straddling them frontally or by rubbing my buttocks against their groins. In nude lap dance clubs, many dancers carry around personal wraps or leave them in the lap dance room. They lay the material across customers’ laps to provide a hygienic barrier between themselves and rough or dirty pants and unwanted fluids.”
Read more here, on Juliana’s personal blog.
Estamos muy contentos de tener a Juliana y Tema en la Ciudad de México dando un taller intensivo de foto en el marco de Tóxico Lab, una nueva plataforma de Tóxico creada para (y por) talentosos artistas emergentes.
Si eres artista visual o fotógrafo, haz click aquà para saber más.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyF9y1kcggU&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Grandes noticias: Martha–la ópera prima del maravilloso Marcelino Islas Hernández–se va al Festival de Venecia, competencia oficial, dentro de la semana internacional de la crÃtica.
Felicidades a todo el equipo! Estamos celebrando por acá.
Y pronto tequilas en vivo.
—
(Marcelino además es el productor del primer proyecto de Tóxico Cinema: un largometraje documental que estamos realizando con apoyo de FOPROCINE, fotografiado por el mismÃsimo Rodrigo “el Potro” Sandoval, quien también es el director de foto de Martha.)
Images by Juan Carlos López Morales.
Memento Mori–”remember, you will die”:Â art or symbolic object that evoke mortality, impermanence.
And from one edge of this reminder, this death, to another: animal and then machine. Animal-machine. Different series that provoke different reflections, that reinvent the relationship between them: from his pictures of biotechnological composites (sewn by hand with traditional surgery techniques that he learned at a vet’s school); to lab drawers that keep unintended jigsaw puzzles of once-were animals (bones sliding down the abstract scale: seal first, then mixing flamingo and deer bones, and then an unidentifiable something, nameless, forgotten: this is how he found them, how they had been scientifically ‘classified’). And then a still-life at the end. A still-life reminiscent of Renaissance paintings, pointing to the origin in man’s imagination of world that is coming, and that is coming quickly. A cabinet of curiosities poised between our past and our future, let us say.
***
Juan Carlos is a young Mexican photographer that has already won several grants and awards; happily, he is also a regular at Tóxico Lab: he has been part of the Fabrica/Colors, Laurel Ptak and Juliana Beasley/Tema Stauffer workshops.
We also just got news that he got an Honorary Mention at the upcoming Photography Biennale in Mexico City–one of the most important photo events in Mexico.
Images by Eunice Adorno, from the series “Fraum Blaum”.
Fraum Blaum (Flower Women) is an ongoing project by Eunice, a young Mexican photographer that was part of our last Tóxico workshop “A Tremor In the Structure“–the first of the Tóxico_Lab serie: dialogue platforms specially destined for (and given by) talented emerging artists.
Eunice’s on-going project follows a group of Menonite women who live in Durango, Mexico; the community they live in is one of the most isolated and conservative social structures in our country, and a world unto itself. Eunice had noticed that Menonite women are usually portrayed as being somber and submissive; she is looking to portray a more intimate aspect of their lives, showing those sides of their personalities and communal interactions where their life and social structures becomes more complex and three dimensional.
This is just a small sample of an amazing body of work.
More images by Eunice here.
And more series from other participants soon on the Toxi-blog and www.iheartphotograph.com.
We were very excited to see new work and new faces at Tóxico.
Thank you again Laurel, Museo Tamayo, Colección/Fundación Jumex and The Lift for making these encounters possible.
***
(Eunice was also part of the Tóxico Workshop by Tema Stauffer and Juliana Beasley)
Revisión de portafolio + plataforma de diálogo
30 de Junio
10am – 6pm
Entrada gratuita
Selección por portafolio
Cupo muy limitado
**
Laurel Ptak es la creadora de I Heart Photograph, uno de los blogs de fotografÃa más visitados del mundo. Por medio de éste Laurel ha dado a conocer a docenas de jóvenes fotógrafos, y de paso se ha vuelto una figura importante entre la nueva generación de curadores independientes–quienes logran moverse con la misma soltura entre territorios virtuales y los espacio de las galerÃas o museos tradicionales. Porque además de haber trabajado con instituciones establecidads tales como el Guggenheim Museum, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Art:21, Aperture Foundation y el Museo Tamayo, ha buscado experimentar continuamente con nuevas estrategias curatoriales y formatos altamente experimentales.
En este taller intensivo Laurel nos platicará sobre los nuevos modos en que se está reconstituyendo el mundo de la fotografÃa hoy en dÃa; sobre las múltiples alternativas que existen para crear plataformas de visibilidad, comunidad e intercambios; y sobre la interesante posibilidad de poner en crisis a las estructuras jerárquicas tradicionales.
Además, habrá una revisión de portafolio en vivo y directo: podrás compartir tu trabajo, ver el trabajo de otros, intercambiar ideas y recibir retroalimentación. Los mejores portafolios serán publicados en iheartphotograph.com y en el blog de Tóxico; también se harán llegar a varios editores de las revistas culturales más importantes de México.
Laurel inaugura Tóxico: Lab, una serie de talleres multidisciplinarios de Tóxico: especialmente creados para (y por) una nueva generación de talentosos artistas emergentes.
**
Interesados en asistir al taller favor de mandar a foto@toxicocultura.com:
- Un PDF con tu portafolio
- Una breve biografÃa
- Un par de renglones que expliquen por qué te interesa asistir.
La plática se dará en inglés, si requieres traducción porfavor menciónalo también en tu correo.
Recomendamos escribir lo antes posible dado el número limitado de lugares.
Fecha lÃmite: Lunes 28 de junio, 6pm
**
I Heart Photograph es un blog sobre fotografÃa contemporánea. Se creó en el 2006 para explorar los bordes del medio y ayudar a darle forma a nuestro entendimiento de la fotografÃa como discurso contemporáneo. El blog es reconocido por mostrar trabajo vanguardista–tanto a nivel visual como a nivel conceptual– creado por jóvenes fotógrafos alrededor del mundo, y es explorado diariamente por miles de personas, entre ellas artistas, curadores, editores y coleccionistas. El sitio también se usa frecuentemente como herramienta educativa en preparatorias y universidades alrededor del mundo.
**
Agradecemos como siempre el generoso patrocinio de la Fundación/Colección Jumex, asà como el apoyo del Museo Tamayo, The Lift y Tomo.
“Si mi vista tuviera el poder de penetrar la realidad, verÃa a través de las paredes, que están constituÃdas por moléculas separadas, y a través de los cuerpos, que son torbellinos de átomos(…) No hay más que una unidad. Lo infinitamente grande es idéntico a lo infinitamente pequeño. El espacio es infinito sin ser grande. La duración es eterna sin ser más larga. Estrellas y átomos son lo mismoâ€
-Camille Flammarion, 1903-
Espacio que se vuelve identidad, individuo contra espacio, espacio anulado que crea identidad e intimidad: todas las paradojas empujan hacia dos lados que, mas que anular, crean el momento único del sentido.
Tóxico presenta para Postopolis! DF una radiografÃa inmersiva de la ciudad: comenzando por los retratos aéreos del piloto Oscar Ruiz, siguiendo con las fotos urbanas de Mark Powell y cerrando con pornógrafos de medio tiempo, sectas y burócratas, tres series del fotógrafo José LuÃs Cuevas.
-“¿Alguien reconoce éste lugar?â€- pregunta el piloto. Para los asistentes hay un aire irreconocible y familiar en la inestabilidad de sus geometrÃas. Grandes terrenos verdes contra infinitos puntitos en la ladera de una montaña, geometrÃas en idéntico patrón repitiéndose contra completa irregularidad orgánica, territorios llameantes contra enormes centros de comercio: SerÃa imposible no reconocer a la ciudad en éstos paisajes, más aún; serÃa imposible no ver los rostros de sus habitantes en sus contrastes.
Mark Powell, si de algo sabe, es de paradojas: un hombre fornido muestra sus músculos en el interior de un puesto de flores, un equipo de fútbol acostado en el piso alrededor de un balón, una coqueta niña de preparatoria rodeada de basura. ¿Quién mejor para no dejar desapercibida la curiosa cotidianeidad de la ciudad? Mark Powell, estadounidense ahora residente del D.F, muestra la poética relación entre el individuo y su contexto como solo un extranjero podrÃa notar.
Sin embargo, si uno no es extranjero ¿por qué no hacer exactamente lo contrario? Tomar lo ordinario, descontextualizarlo, vaciarlo hasta su verdadera profundidad y ver qué florece en su interior. José Luis Cuevas y su serie “el hombre promedio†toma a decenas de burócratas, paisaje gris casi amueblado de la ciudad, les elimina su espacio y los deja resplandecer en su personalidad.
Llevándolo aún más lejos ¿ por qué no explorar lo invisible de la ciudad? Cuevas descubre y captura, bajo la máscara del hombre común, sectas apocalÃpticas y estrellas pornográficas.
Casi al final de su presentación, Cuevas muestra un director pornográfico tomando parte en la escena, haciéndolo aún más intensamente que sus actores. Si el fotógrafo repitiera la pregunta del piloto –“¿alguien sabe qué es esto?â€- la respuesta no serÃa problemática : probablemente todos verÃan en ella el paisaje de la ciudad.
-Emilio Bassail, escribiendo desde Postopolis DF!-
*
(Mark Powell y Jose Luis Cuevas han asistido a varios talleres de Tóxico.)
(Emilio es parte de Tóxico In Vitro, una nueva plataforma de colaboraciones multidisciplinarias integrada por talentosos estudiantes)
We get quite a few emails a month that go somewhat like this: “It all looks amazing, but what is Tóxico exactly and how can I participate?”
Ajá, sÃ, eso: the crisis of definitions that arise from trying to create changing and nomadic structures in the gaps of places and things. (Me gusta.)
And with out a doubt one of those complex scenarios is the way that Tóxico has been working for some time now with talented young professionals in Mexico, from different art-related fields. In past years this has been a multifaceted endeavor and somewhat extra-official. But now, finally, it will have its own name in the structure of things, and we will soon be launching “Tóxico Think Tank: Cases No. 001” and  the “In Vitro” project.
Both of them will involve hand-picked, hungry, talented students and young professionals, across a myriad of disciplines; it will be about collaborating together, about rethinking in friction with each other, knowledge building, the capacities of creativity to undo specific knots; about exploring the beautiful and tumultuous areas between their respective languages and diverse ways of viewing their world. It will also be a way of helping kickstart their careers, provoking their minds, and making them part of many national and international cultural and social projects. La Colección/Fundación Jumex (Mexico’s most important patron of the arts) will be following their progress; I will use input from my TED Senior Fellowship to help hone the parameters this individualized program; The Lift will be donating flights for some of them to be part of international events,  internships and residencies in the near future.
We are getting ready to launch websites and such.
Meanwhile–since they will be helping me cover the Postopolis! DF events on the Tóxico Blog–I introduce two people whom I am very excited to be working with:
Frida Robles, history major, with a special interest in “creative research” (as we have come to call it), and who has that strange capacity of prying into chaotic dusty archives with an unusual combination of talents: both amazing method plus impressive imagination.
Emilio Bassail, visual artist, and a perfect fit for Tóxico’s almost squizofrenic nature: interested in a whole bowlful of disciplines, and conversational many of them.
Also, a shout-out to Audrey Young–since she will be flying here soon–who will inaugurate Tóxico’s International Internships. Audrey studied at NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation graduate program, has worked at the Arquivo Nacional do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro, is now on a Fullbright Scholarship in Portugal, and has, to boot,  collaborated with our beloved Cabinet Magazine. We feel lucky to have her.
Mmm. I am oh so very excited to have a new generation coming on board–our biggest motor is without a doubt that intoxicating possibility we have of being in constant contact with hungry, passionate, talented people from different generations–both our masterful awe-inspiring international guest, plus also this younger generation of creative people–whose minds buzz and whose eyes almost seem to pop out of their heads when they talk about all those things that matter to them and that make their (our) Â lil’ hearts beat faster.
Asà que bienvenidos a Tóxico Frida, Emilio, Audrey.
Designers, pilots, architects, artists, food experts, sewage divers, cumbia punks, photographers, urbanists, human rights directors; a local public, a hand full of international bloggers, a Domus live-stream and voilá: Postopolis! DF. 60 speakers back to back, 15 minutes each, five days, mezcales and dinners and parties.
On day one, all of us bloggers had 15 minutes to introduce ourselves and our respective blogs:
Cassim Shepard  from Urban Omnibus — conversations about design and how cities get formed
Daniel Hernandez from Intersections — cultural and political commentary, with a marked interest in subcultures
Ethel Barona from DPR Barcelona — architecture and publishing direct from Barcelona
Gabriella Gómez-Mont from Tóxico Cultura — intoxicating things of course, across disciplines
Guillermo Ruiz de Teresa from Tomo — the non-blog blog, a cultural mag
Jace Clayton aka DJ /rupture from Mudd Up! — one of the leading voices in music
Nicola Twilley from Edible Geography — all those strange things food says about us
Regine Debatty from We Make Money Not Art– art from everywhere
Sam Jacob from Strangeharvest — alas, Sam got sick and could not come
Wayne Marshall from Wayne & Wax — ethnomusicologist and rapper run blog
Each invited blogger in turn had to invite 5 people to talk about their projects.
And I do believe the interesting thing of this format is how discourse and ideas from different disciplines can pile up in the head and start feeding off of each other, both mingling and fighting. Since Tóxico’s very birth comes from my fascination with exploring the gray areas between disciplines, the meeting and clashing of different borders–with future projects venturing deeper into this–I am always keenly interested in seeing how these complex encounters play out: both the problems and possibilities of translation, as I have mentioned in other posts.
Talking about which, I was specially excited to see Gilberto Esparza–with whom we worked on a few projects back in my days of Laboratorio Curatorial 060–invited by We Make Money Not Art to show his new work: symbiotic robots that eat pollution.
Meanwhile, this here is the @toxicocultura Twitter sum of the second day of talks:
(Image by our dear Pedro Meyer, Mexican photographer.)
At the airport. Buenos Aires comes to a close. And even though the day bombarded me with a good dose of soft yellow nostalgia after a series of goodbyes, now I cannot wait to once again peer out the airplane window and see the endless city below, let the eyes grow large.
I will also get immersed in Mexico City-ness right away: Postopolis! DF soon to begin, come Tuesday.
Mmm.
Nos vemos ahÃ?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqxGBXolmw4[/youtube]
I arrived in Buenos Aires two weeks ago. I stay for a little over a month. I have been living close to a train track, 100 meters away from an old metal bridge where  one can lean against the railing with a cup of hot coffee to watch the trains pass by. I have been editing my first feature-length documentary with el dueño de la tijera y el péndulo, la barbarie doméstica, editor descalzo, Felipe Guerrero.
Watch a fragment of his experimental film “ParaÃso” above. Directed by him and music by our friend Sebastián Escofet.
(10 am)
(Back to work)
(Mmm, film)
Martha, una pelÃcula dirigida por el maravilloso Marcelino Islas Hernandez, por fin se estrena en México: tanto en el Festival de Cine de Guadalajara como en Cinema Global.
“Martha es una mujer de 75 años que vive sola en una casa de interés social en la periferia de la ciudad de México. La monotonÃa que marca su vida rutinaria cambia cuando un dÃa, después de 30 años, es despedida debido a que su trabajo será desempeñado por una computadora. Impulsada por las circunstancias y con el apoyo de Eva –la joven encargada de vaciar los archivos en la computadora- Martha decide que acabará con su vida una vez terminada su última semana de trabajo.”
Una buena parte de las personas de esta pelÃcula–Marcelino (director), Rodrigo Sandoval (fotografÃa), Daniel Castillo (sonido), Rodrigo Teie (edición) e Ivan Lowenberg–han colaborado con Tóxico en diferentes proyectos. Además, ya arrazaron con varios premios nacionales e internacionales, y eso que apenas empiezan: Martha fue su tesis para la carrera de cine.
(Click en los links de arriba para ver horarios.)
(Ahà nos vemos.)
Tóxico Think-Tank: Project No. 001  is about to be launched.
The team is now being formed; and I am thrilled to be working with a very talented young duo of designers: señor Manuel Bueno and monsieur Santiago da Silva, of Combo, who will be project’s creative leaders.
(They also designed the great infographics you see above, presented a few weeks ago to TED attendees.)
More news coming soon.
I recently did a Q&A with América Late, an Argentina-based magazine focused on creativity in the Latin American Region.
You can read it here.
Alexis Okeowo interviewed me about a month ago, for MIL, The Economist’s Cultural Supplement.
It was published yesterday. And you can read the Q&A here.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcORFml-k0M[/youtube]
Jacinta.
A new short film directed by Karla Castañeda and produced by Luis Téllez.
***
Jacinta won a “Best animation” at Morelia, and a coveted Ariel, among many other recognitions.
***
(Luis– also an award-winning Mexican animator–took the Brother’s Quay Tóxico workshop.)
Images by Onnis Luque. Photos taken at Unidad Santa Fe, social housing designed by Mario Pani one of Mexico’s best-known architects of the 50s.
(Compare it to Mexico’s social housing of today, in the post below.)
Says Onnis:
Este proyecto se llama USF/ DF y es acerca de una Unidad Habitacional, la Unidad Santa Fé, diseñada por Mario Pani en los años 50, donde está expuesta mucho de la ideologÃa del positivismo, del movimiento moderno en la arquitectura mexicana y del régimen de esa época. Este proyecto muestra las transformaciones espaciales y de forma de vida que la unidad y sus habitantes han tenido que experimentar para que siga siendo habitable.
El proyecto es acerca de un territorio especÃfico, su apropiación por parte de los habitantes y de como lo transforman y adaptan, tanto en términos expresivos como vitales. En este proyecto logro abracar muchos de los temas que me interesan y a los que todo el tiempo les estoy dando vueltas.
(Via Tomo. Read the rest of the interview here.)
***
(Onnis took the Amy Stein Tóxico Workshop, and also a workshop that I imparted at El Gimnasio.)
Images by Carlos Casas. From The End trilogy.
Carlitos Casas. Filmmaker, visual artist, sound artist and somewhat of a poet of the everyday. Oh: and Tóxico Padrino extraordinaire.
Says Carlos:
“The trilogy of films dedicated the most extreme environments on the planet, I was interested in living in these lands trying to capture those lives styles which are dissapearing, I was interested in the collective imaginary of these places and their mythic idea of the end of the world. I was interested in landscapes, places that carried in a certain way a feeling of the “Endâ€, through abandonness, remoteness, harshness of the land and of course living conditions, places that could represent in a way a post apocalyptic future scenario and at the same time a certain archaic civilisation feeling. I was interested in the people living in this peripheries of civilization and how they survive their everyday life, why they were here and how they were managing to survive. I was interested in living among them, following their rhythms and trying to understand their ways, their reasons.”
***
(Take a look at his website for more images, films, texts and sounds.)
(And click here to learn about MAP Productions: a headquarter for the creation cultural projects–based in Paris and Uzbekistan– Â that Carlos recently created with his wife Saodat Ismailova, also an award-winning filmmaker, and one of the most incredible women I know.)
(Carlos is also part of La Otra Maleta Mexicana, a collective art project created by Tóxico that is now showing  in Cuba)
Jerónimo “Peto” Reyes, a young graphic designer and visual artist, is at FABRICA as I write, on his trial period, thanks to a Tóxico connection.
Peto was part of La Incubadora, a multidisciplinary educational pilot program created by Tóxico for a private university in Mexico, and also part of the FABRICA portfolio reviews organized by Tóxico.
We wish him luck. We are happy he is there.
Because one of the things we love doing at Tóxico, and will be doing so every time more often, is connecting talented mexican creatives with interesting projects in other parts of the world.
Ah, yes. The news in now official:
I have been chosen as a TED Senior Fellow.
Not only am I incredibly excited to be able to personally attend TED during the next three years, but also deliriously happy to be part of such an amazing group of people from all over the world.
The TED Senior Fellowship will be a beautiful excuse to take the Tóxico platform to the next level, and many new multidisciplinary cultural projects are on their way; most of them with the support and council of the oh so very impressive TED platform.
So more news soon, right here, very soon.
And thank you to the amazing TED team for the vote of confidence. We will do all we can to grow to the measure of new expectations.
***
TED CONFERENCE ANNOUNCES THE 2010 SENIOR FELLOWS
20 outstanding individuals chosen for three-year fellowship
NEW YORK, December 1, 2009 — Organizers of the TED Conference today announced the inaugural class of TED Senior Fellows.
The TED Senior Fellows program is an extended, three-year fellowship awarded to 20 individuals from the disciplines of arts, science, entrepreneurship, the NGO sector and education. Senior Fellows are selected from the previous year’s class of TED Fellows. Over the course of their Senior Fellowships, the Senior Fellows will work on projects within their individual disciplines.
Benefits to the Senior Fellows include attending five additional TED conferences (TED and TEDGlobal), participating in five Senior Fellows pre-conferences, the potential to deliver a full-length talk on the TED University or main TED stage, and the possibility to have that talk posted on TED.com.
The Senior Fellows’ responsibilities include mentoring the newer Fellows, holding a TEDx event in their communities, posting on the TED Fellows blog, and year-round participation in the TED community.
“Of the 65 outstanding Fellows that joined us at TED and TEDGlobal this past year, we are thrilled to welcome 20 into the Senior Fellows program,†says Tom Rielly, TED Fellows Director. “This group is especially important to us, as they pioneered the Fellows program. We look forward to helping them grow as leaders, and to assisting them to further their important work.â€
Meet the 2010 TED Senior Fellows:
One morning, hunting the Mexico City flee markets, I came upon a small battered suitcase that caught my eye. When I opened it up I was surprised to find it full of old photographs, negatives, postcards and other personal mementos from the 30s and 40s. There was a whole story to be woven, image by image: I could tell that the original owner was both an amateur photographer and also an amateur physicoculturist; I could easily imagine that this suitcase kept a certain (nameless) young man’s favorite pictures, plus dozens of self-portraits in different stances and under different guises. I was mesmerized by all that was there to be inferred, and also wondered about how such a suitcase ended up in a stranger’s hands. It made me think of the story of The Mexican Suitcase–a suitcase full of negatives of the Spanish war, shot by Capa et al–and also of the suitcases that someone found on the streets of Massachusetts, full of pictures of a ravaged Hiroshima after the war… both of them surprisingly full of important historical contents. And then there was this suitcase, this other Mexican suitcase, also full of images, of a very different nature. The contents are not historical, but it is history nonetheless: a personal history taken, kept, forgotten and lost and then sold. Because yes, I bought it with all it contained. And Tóxico then invited several talented visual artists to reinterpret the materials–or rather be inspired by them, to propose their own.
Today the suitcase flew into Cuba, ready to be shown at the Fototeca, in Habana. Besides, Alinka EcheverÃa–wonderful Mexican photographer, and one of the artists involved–will be working with several talented local photographer’s: the suitcase will leave the island with a new artist-book, created collectively.
And so the suitcase will travel now, and keep on traveling, and it will acquire a will of its own. It will travel with what it contains, both the new and some of the old, making space for both chance and accident, and at every stop a new artist will be added to the list and at every gallery or museum the project will be presented in a different type of installation. And just like before: who knows where it will end up, and in whose hands.
—
Artists: Ramiro Chaves, Mark Powell, Mezli Vega, José Luis Cuevas, Carlos Casas, Maggie Delgado, Santiago da Silva, Carlos Ãlvarez Montero, Alinka EcheverrÃa, Lorena Moreno, Andrés Padilla, Corine Vermeulen, Alfredo Moreno, Omar Gamez, Gabriella Gómez-Mont and the anonymous photographer, the original owner of the suitcase.
–
(Muchas gracias a Alinka EcheverÃa, Lorena Moreno y Maggie Delgado por su ayuda. Y gracias a Nelson–curador de Noviembre fotográfico– por su invitación.)
–
(Soon a website for la Maleta)
Images by Mexican photographer Vida Yovanovich, from the series Soledades Sonoras.
Vida has spent many years traveling around Mexico, photographing women in jail. Her main topics–both in this series and in former work–are abandonment, marginalisation, injustice, courage, vitality and survival.
More here.
***
(Vida took the Martin Parr Tóxico Master Class, as well as the one with Christopher Doyle.)
New work by Carlos Casas. Visual Artist. Sound Artist. Filmmaker. Toxico-padrino extraordinaire.
(This is both art installation material and also visual and audio research for one of his films in progress.)
It was a great pleasure to see Stefan Sagmeister–renowned graphic designer– on stage again at TED, a few months ago: this time it was all about sabbaticals and creativity.
(His Tóxico workshop and Tóxico conference still resonate deep in the head. And he was our first international guest and, so, he is almost like a padrino.)
Denise Dresser, Javier Elguea, Claudia Fernandez, Gabriella Gómez-Mont, Gabriel Guerra. Blanca Heredia y Damon Rich:
en Pase Usted, ideas sobre educación.
(O de intoxicación, en mi caso)
(Nos vemos por ahÃ)
Our talented Amy Stein–the most recent Tóxico international guest–has a solo show in a New York gallery.
See details on Amy’s blog, and check out this week’s New Yorker for a rave review.
(The image above is “Struggle”, from her famous Domesticated series.)
In January 2010 Tóxico Cultura and Blok Design launch a new grant: The Blok+Toxico Film Project, created to support young talented filmmakers and visual artists working in Mexico with professional video and audio equipment, free film stock, help with the design of titles, posters etc, plus the possibility of being part of a mentorship program with experienced filmmakers.
And good news starts coming in, even before we have officially started. We just received news from Vanessa Eckstein–the wonderful woman behind the logo and print design, plus our accomplice in this new adventure– that the project’s image won an award at the coming Coupe International Design Competition. It seems the competition is usually quite fierce: last year’s 10 winners include Stefan Sagmeister–one of the world’s most admired designers, a TED speaker and also Tóxico’s first international guest. So needless to say we feel honored and are very happy indeed to be included in this year’s top-ten list.
(More news on this soon, and a bilingual website too.)
(Tantas felicidades Vanessa y Paty)
Nos acaban de contar. Paulina del Paso ganó la Beca Gucci-Ambulante para la post-producción de “La Guerrera”.
LA GUERRERA es un documental acerca de la vida de Ana MarÃa Torres, una boxeadora de Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl. Es el retrato de cómo los deseos y la necesitad de ser diferente, de sobresalir y valerse por si mismo pueden llevar a alguien a subirse a un ring a darse de golpes. Es una historia de cómo la peleas más duras son las que se tiene con uno mismo. Ana es la prueba de que, pese a todos los obstáculos, uno si puede cambiar su destino.
Y golpes se dan. Acompañamos a Paulina a ver una pelea hace unos meses, cuando La Guerrera defendÃa su tÃtulo como campeona mundial, contra una tailandesa-huracán sacada de una caricatura japonesa de ciencia ficción. (Quizá tendrÃan que haber estado para entender.) (La Guerrera ganó.)
(Felicidades Paulinita.)
***
(Paulina tomó el Tóxico Workshop de Christoffer Boe.)
(Salvador ‘Chavo’ Figueroa with his radical hopper: a ‘83 Cutlass Supreme, modified so it can hop 80 inches in the air.)
.
(Jaqueline, Alejandro, Guisela, Alejandro Jr, Jocelyn Villasenor and their ‘82 Cadillac Coupe De Ville.)
.
(Clockwise: Gilberto ‘Potente’, Gilberto Jr, Maria, Alondra Diaz and their ‘48 Chevrolet Fleetline. Rick with his ‘93 Fleetwood Cadillac. Francisco, Checo and Angel Vallejo with ‘El Cotorro’ (the Parrot). Edgar ‘Cholo’ Becerra with his ‘90 Lincoln Town Car.)
***
“Agressive Levelz” and “Good Times” are the names of two automobile clubs that get together in a parking lot near the house of Corine Vermeulen, in Detroit. Lowriders are cars that have been adapted with an hydraulic system that lets them ride much closer fto (or much further from) the ground; lots of time and mechanical work goes into these cars, and then a whole world is created around them. (The Lowrider tradition started within the Chicano culture of L.A., during the 40s.)
***
Photos by Corine Vermeulen, Dutch artist based in Detroit, and frequent Tóxico partner in crime.
(This series will be included in “La (otra) maleta Mexicana”, a new collective and itinerant Tóxico Art Project that will start its journey in Mexico City and then travel to Cuba and New York.)
“One rainy night eight years ago, in Watertown, Massachusetts, a man was taking his dog for a walk. On the curb, in front of a neighbor’s house, he spotted a pile of trash: old mattresses, cardboard boxes, a few broken lamps. Amidst the garbage he caught sight of a battered suitcase. He bent down, turned the case on its side and popped the clasps.
He was surprised to discover that the suitcase was full of black-and-white photographs. He was even more astonished by their subject matter: devastated buildings, twisted girders, broken bridges — snapshots from an annihilated city. He quickly closed the case and made his way back home.
At the kitchen table, he looked through the photographs again and confirmed what he had suspected. He was looking at something he had never seen before: the effects of the first use of the Atomic bomb. The man was looking at Hiroshima.”
***
This essay was originally published on Design Observer in November, 2008. It is republished here to commemorate the 64th anniversary of Hiroshima, and with a new slideshow of 100 photographs courtesy of the International Center of Photography. See more images and read the full essay here.
***
(Tóxico also found a small battered suitcase, full of old photographs, negatives, postcards and other images, at a flee market in Mexico City a couple of months ago. The contents are not historical, but it is history nonetheless, a personal history taken, kept, forgotten and lost and then sold. We bought it with all it contained. We then invited 15 talented photographers to reinterpret the personal materials–or rather be inspired by them, to propose their own. The suitcase will be presented at the Feria Internacional del libro de artista, in FotoSeptiembre–a bienal-type festival, based in Mexico City– in a couple of weeks. More news here soon.)
Our next Tóxico Lab international guest!
Tóxico Lab is a new series of workshops created for (and by) talented emerging artists.
Collages by Javier Sirvent, alias Pancho Pancho Pancho, talented 23 year-old visual artist and designer.
(Javier was part of the Amy Stein Tóxico Workshop and will soon be doing other nice lil new projects with us.)
(Gracias Martha por el link)
Image by Andrés Arenas, from the Hotel Virreyes series.
Have been away, have been traveling, am traveling, loose and lost in the world, a bit disconnected from the virtual one. Just noticed that our wonderful Amy Stein has been posting on her blog images by the 27 photographers and artists that were part of her intense Tóxico Workshop. Do take a look. Great images, fantastic memories.
(Gracias Amy)
Images by Omar Gámez, from the series Stability. More here.
“The theory of stability of dynamic systems proposed in 1892 by the Russian mathematician Aleksander Lyapunov covers three states of equilibrium: stable, unstable and asymptotically stable. Any of these three possibilities suggest that the origin, the point at which the body stands independently of external supports, is in fact a solution for equilibrium. The body always achieves balance by locating its own center.
The series entitled Stability takes this premise in a metaphorical way from Lyapunov´s theory to confront the physical, emotional and mental states within each figure once they have been stripped and destabilized. More than just photographs, theses images are sculptural proposals concerning canonical treatments of bodily beauty throughout the history of art. They are also notes on the possibility and impossibility for man to seize and sustain his permanence on earth.”
-O.G-
—
(Omar took the Tóxico Master-Class by Christopher Doyle)
Â
Today. Flying to London, 5.45pm.
Tóxico news soon from that side of the world. Right here.
(Mmm. Clouds)
Preparing, excited, leaving in one week to England, getting ready for Oxford and seeing what exactly it means to be a TED Fellow. Meanwhile. TED. More TED. Yes. TED in anticipation to TEDing. Libeskind, here, for example. Talking about 17 words that underlie his vision for architecture — raw, risky, emotional, radical and wonder are some of them: to create a place that has never existed, to create that which has never been. A struggle against improbability. Expression which disturbs, and yet maybe that is what life is about: not about anesthesia. Definitely not anesthesia. A living connection, emotion to be introduced into city life, in city forms. Emotions not just of the people that build them, but of people that will live there as well.
Searching for something else in my Gmail I ran across these images by Joshua Ray, which he sent me once upon a time, just before flying to Mexico City for a Tóxico project. Mmm. I like. Mucho.
(Click images to enlarge.)
“Dog Wool” is photography series by Erwan Fichou, portraying women and men across Europe that recollect their dog´s hair and make coats and sweaters out of it, for personal use. And possibly for an extra dose of bonding too.
(Erwan took the Tóxico Martin Parr & Chris Boot workshop.)
—
“The animal envoys of the Unseen Power no longer serve, as in primeval times, to teach and to guide mankind. Bears, lions, elephants, ibexes, and gazelles are in cages in our zoos. Man is no longer the newcomer in a world of unexplored plains and forests, and our immediate neighbors are not wild beasts but other human beings, contending for goods and space on a planet that is whirling without end around the fireball of a star. Neither in body nor in mind do we inhabit the world of those hunting races of the Paleolithic millennia, to whose lives and life ways we nevertheless owe the very forms of our bodies and structures of our minds.”
-The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell-
.
It is official!
Says the TED press release:
TED CONFERENCES ANNOUNCES 25 TED FELLOWS FOR TEDGLOBAL IN OXFORD, UK
New program brings outstanding world-changing leaders to participate in TED Community
Organizers of the TED Conference introduced today the first group of TED Fellows to participate in its new international conference, TEDGlobal. Twenty-five individuals from around the world have been invited to participate in the TED community this year by attending TEDGlobal 2009, to be held in Oxford, UK, July 21-24… In addition to participating as full members of the TEDGlobal Conference audience, each TED Fellow will participate in a two-day pre-conference where they will receive world-class communication training, deliver a short TEDTalk, and collaborate with their peers, among other benefits…
The TED Fellows program helps world-changing innovators from around the globe become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities. Fellows are drawn from many disciplines that reflect the diversity of TED’s members: technology, entertainment, design, the sciences, the humanities, the arts, NGOs, business and more.
.
And, well, among these 25 fortunate people chosen as TED Fellows is me, ajá, very excited. A profound thank you to TED, a project I have loved and followed since I heard about it about four years back, from our first-ever international guest, Stefan Sagmeister. Mmm. What a nice closing of circles. And an opening of new ones too, let’s hope. Let’s make sure.
And the list of 25 fellows after the break.
“Los recorridos son desplazamientos y derivas en el entramado urbano. Se trata en ellos de efectuar reconocimientos, prácticas de campo, distanciamientos crÃticos y otros tránsitos que activen los flujos de la memoria, las tramas históricas, los afectos y los itinerarios en esta urbe.”
Y estos serán, seguro, una serie de pequeños éxodos de lo común; cuales lÃneas de fuga ideadas desde la cabeza delirante, desplazada y derivada del muy maravilloso, genial y extra-querido Javier Toscano (a.k.a. Agente Tote), director del 6to foro de arte público.
(Más info aquÃ.)
.
Ayer empezó este ciclo de cine mexicano con el documental “El Ciruelo”, de Emiliano Altuna y Carlos Rossini.
Organizado por Edwin Culp (uno de los socios de Conejo Blanco) el ciclo intenta abordar el tema de la ausencia, vista desde varios ángulos. Y tomando en cuenta lo difÃcil que es atrapar inclusive las buenas producciones mexicanas en los cines–ya que normalmente duran tan poco en cartelera comerical–el ejercicio de hacer visible lo invisible se vuelve doble.
Aquà las fechas y pelis; la selección está buenÃsima. Ahà nos vemos con vinito en mano.
(De la serie “Hombres promedio” de José Luis Cuevas, quien se inscribió en el Tóxico Master-Class de Martin Parr.)
(JL acaba de obtener mención honorÃfica en la Bienal de FotografÃa de la Ciudad de México, y también le acaban de dar la beca de FONCA para una residencia en Colombia.) (Weew!)
Listen to great interview with legendary filmmaker Wong Kar Wai, with an intro by Ang Lee.
A little taste:
“In our productions—because we produce our films—basically, every day is like a war. We have to fight for what we want. The thing is, we try to do as much as we can, and so we roll until the last minute. I still remember when we shot Happy Together (1997) in Argentina, we shot one day a place called Ushuaia, which is the [most southern] part of America—because after that will be Antarctica, right. It’s so far away from Buenos Aires. We shot and shot until we realized, with Chris, I said, “Do we have enough film stock?†“No, we ran out of film stock.†“But we still have one scene. What we are supposed to do?†Then we sit down and then Chris comes up with an idea. So we go to all these photo shops to buy film rolls. It is like film rolls—but film rolls normally have thirty-six frames, or twenty-four frames. So we just rolled it and make this whole scene in still shots. So each shot lasts one second. And this is the way to do it. (Laughter) And we had fun, because I think at that point, we all feel this is an accomplishment! Sometimes people think, “Well, this is your style.†But I always want to explain—to students, especially—I say, “Well it’s not only an aesthetic decision. Sometimes it is a practical solution to solve your problem.â€
***
(Our dear Christopher Doyle, the last Toxico International Guest, will be filming again with Kar Wai, in China, this summer. And mmm yes oh yes Tóxico will be dropping by for a visit.)
(Gracias Nadia por el link.)
Says the Mannyd blog:
there is a great piece on the nytimes website today about ‘the mexican suitcase’ a collection of negatives by robert capa, gerda taro, & david seymour (chim) that had been untouched for over 70 years. the cardboard boxes contained 126 rolls of film (4,300 negatives!) taken during the spanish civil war.
(And though the NY Times fails to mention it, it was Trisha Ziff–with whom Tóxico co-organized the Martin Parr & Chris Boot events in Mexico City–who managed to get the negatives back for safekeeping, and handed them over to the ICP; Trisha is now preparing a documentary on the subject of the wayward suitcase. And we will convince her to do a short Tóxico interview about this, and post soon, aquà mismo.)
