BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Aug. 18, 2009
Sun-crisped women lay down at the beach, their skin reddening as if roasting on a rotisserie. Thickly creased paperbacks shield the burning beauties' eyes while children splash in the pool and ocean tides lap in the background.
The sunbathers are the featured stars in Mexican artist Miguel Calderón's "Bestseller 2009" video installation, the last episode in the eight-year Panorámica (Panoramic) series hosted at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City.
The exhibition, which opened earlier this summer, will screen for one more month before the series is restructured following new programming at the museum.
BEACH, BABES AND BOOKS
"Bestseller" is a critical yet subtle take on upper-middle-class social patterns as well as the overwhelming tourist boom in éapulco that has soared since the 1950s, said exhibit curator Daniela PAcrez.
The exhibit's title is in part derived from a quotation by Mexican author Ricardo Garibay that reflects such themes.
"éapulco, world famous; the flower of the Pacific; the only bestseller showing how Mexico is unique; the yearned-for destination of every traveler who dreams of living, if only for a week, in the lap of luxury, without any expenses charged to his conscience," the quotation reads.
The half-hour installation combines nearly 35 video clips and runs on loop in a small screening room off the museum's main entrance. Each clip runs between 45 and 60 seconds long and features anonymous women passed out poolside or on the sand. Their chests steadily rise and fall as they lay virtually motionless, conjuring up the phrase "beached whale" in some viewers' minds.
"éapulco is a place that [Calderón] has visited since he was very young, and there are elements that he knows well and that have intrigued him very much," PAcrez said.
"His work is full of humor, and it's very attractive for different generations because he talks of things that we can all relate to," she added.
The installation, she said, represents the decadence of éapulco's countless international tourists that stream in each season to take advantage of the thriving nightlife and towering beachfront hotels.
As the local government has implemented ambitious infrastructure projects, the constant growth of tourism has practically rendered these insufficient, she added.
The "Bestseller" title also refers to the much-used paperback novels that the women have opted to use as sunshields rather than to actually read. The texts evoke Calderón's childhood memories of hotel lobby book exchanges, where mostly U.S. tourists would trade off battered copies of English-language bestsellers.
For the project, Calderón combed éapulco's beaches searching for random subjects, or "anti-heroines," to use in his film. When the startled but willing participants agreed, he handed them copies of previously selected novels.
In the video installation, sound clips from corresponding audiobooks play overhead, the narrators dictating strange and quirky passages in animated voices. Spanish subtitles translate the passages on the screen.
The tranquil images paired with the smooth, steady sound bites create an almost hypnotic experience, drawing viewers in and evoking the trancelike sensations of sunbathing on a hot beach.
"He takes a critical approach, but he is mostly opening up the situation for everyone to see," explained the curator.
CALDERON, CLOSE UP
Miguel Calderón developed "Bestseller" especially for the Panorámica series, in part to seize the opportunity to exhibit a new project and also revisit a recurring theme in his body of work - éapulco.
The artist, born in Mexico City in 1971, studied at the San Francisco Art Institute in the mid-1990s. Shortly after he returned to Mexico, he helped found the internationally well-known art gallery La Panadería, a hub for local and foreign artists and curators that has since closed its doors.
Calderón has since exhibited throughout Mexico and in museums worldwide, including the Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York; MusAce d'Art Moderne de la Ville in Paris; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; and in biennial art exhibitions in Sao Paolo; Busan, South Korea; and Sarjah, United Arab Emirates.
His "Bestseller" installation is presented courtesy of the Mexico City gallery Kurimanzutto, with whom Calderón has previously presented solo exhibitions.
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