Photos find life in abandoment

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News

Oct. 30, 2009

The peeling plaster, crumbling balconies and shattered windowpanes make the city look like an apocalyptic war zone. Piles of splintered two-by-fours scatter around sagging shells of apartment buildings as the destitute stillness eliminating any signs of life.

Yet the deteriorated remains, those that hint at a nuclear blast, are little more than the product of neglect, the result of a Japanese mining town that went from populous to desolate in a matter of months.

Exclusive images from the island's barren grounds are on display in Mexico City as part of a comprehensive project by StilL, a local photography collective that includes artists Guillaume Corpart Muller, Jan Smith and Ragnar Chacin.

The exhibit, titled "Fantasmas de GunkanjimO ("Ghosts of GunkanjimO) will remain at the Japanese Embassy's cultural annex in Colonia CuauhtAcmoc through Friday, Nov. 6.

"This is the last photo documentary that there is ever going to be on Gunkanjima," Corpart said at the exhibit's Oct. 21 inauguration.

Gunkanjima is a tiny island measuring just one square kilometer and situated off the coast of Nagasaki. In 1886, the Mitsubishi Corporation opened a coal mine there, and the population began to boom in 1916 when the company built housing complexes for its workers.

Over the decades, hundreds of coalminers and their families flocked to Gunkanjima. Schools, stores and clinics popped up as the island-city expanded. By the 1970s, however, petroleum had surfaced as a far more lucrative alternative to coal.

Before Mitsubishi closed the mine in 1974, the island's population had reached a staggering 83,500 people per square kilometer - the highest population density ever recorded.

(Mexico City, by comparison, logged around 8,400 people per square kilometer in 2007).

After the mine closed, literally every inhabitant left the island, with most heading to Nagasaki to search for work.

Last November, nearly 35 years after the mine closed, Corpart and Smith took a small boat to Gunkanjima to close the final chapter on a series of abandonment-themed photographs, a venture that took the duo to cities in Africa, Puerto Rico and Mexico.

Although the island at the time was technically closed and heavily guarded by coastal patrols, Corpart and Smith managed three trips lasting five hours each. They incessantly snapped images of the all that was left behind.

However, since the island has become an UNESCO World Heritage site, no one has been allowed back on Gunkanjima. With a platoon in place to protect the grounds, Corpart and Smith's pictures could very well be the last to emerge from the shell of a civilization.

Back in the Mexico City gallery, 24 of the collection's 60 images hang on the walls, mostly alternating between the two artists' works.

"I tried to capture how people lived, and I really tried to bring back the human elements that tie us back to a time of prosperity," Copart said.

A black-and-white photograph titled "No. 44" shows a polished pair of a girl's white ballet shoes, the toes pointing to a coal-covered balcony and resting on a cracked tile floor.

His image "No. 27" pictures an enormous heap of glass bottles piled up to the ceiling and spilling down to the floor, surrounding a metal-frame cot in what looks like a medical clinic.

Smith's work, on the other hand, is less about the life that remains and more about the ghosts of what once was.

In a photograph titled "Patience," the blurred silhouette of a nude woman accents the crumbling window frame on which she poses. The image "Au revoir HashimO shows rust-stained concrete walls, cracked glass and scattered debris with the sweeping shadows of the model in movement.

The Gunkanjima exhibit coincides with the StilL's mission to promote art photography, Corpart said.

"We're bringing evermore attention to photography as conveying emotions, feelings structures, ideas and messages," he said.

For more details, visit www.still-photo.blogspot.com

Mexico students put on Shakespeare show

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Oct. 28, 2009

With the wrap called and curtains closed on a worldwide Shakespeare festival, students in Mexico's bilingual private schools are setting the stage for a second round of events.

For the third consecutive year, secondary schools around Mexico City last weekend performed abbreviated versions of the Bard's most celebrated plays. Directors, teachers and students are now gearing up for a round of individual recitals at the high-school level, a process that kicks off in November and wraps up in March next year.

"Shakespeare is generally acknowledged as being the greatest writer in the English language, but his plays were never meant to be read - ever," said Stuart Cox, coordinator of the Shakespeare Project with The Anglo Mexican Foundation and artistic director of the Celebrating Cultures theater company.

"His plays were always meant for acting, and the best way to understand the play is not to read it, but to see it performed, or to perform in it yourself," he added.

Cox said the Shakespeare Project was founded in Mexico in 2001, a year after the main British festival got its start. Since then, the project each year has increasingly attracted more schools in its monologue competition and collective shows.

Around 200 students in Mexico recited monologues or sonnets last year. This year, 22 schools around the country will take part, with 11 finalists emerging for the final rounds in the spring.

Internationally, the festival of plays in October counted the participation of students in around 70 other countries, whose events took place on the same day to coincide with performances in the United Kingdom.

Participating schools in Mexico included the Lancaster School in Tlalpan, which performed "Macbeth," and the Greengates School in Colonia Lomas Verdes, which performed "The Tempest." The Mount Sinai Hebrew School in Colonia Roma performed "Twelfth Night," and the Las Rosas School in the Purísima Ticomán neighborhood put on "The Winter's Tale."

Two Cuernavaca schools, the Marymount School and Churchill College, in November will perform "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Richard III," respectively.

Cox explained that most of the students in Mexico speak English only as their second language, which he said adds a "fresh and innocent" perspective to Shakespeare's works.

John Kelly, lead English teacher at Lancaster, said that the standard for the performances has risen over the years, elevating the prestige of the festival and recital among students and parents.

Kelly directed his school's performance last Friday at the Anglo's Antonio Caso campus in Colonia San Rafael.

"As a school, we feel that these events are our cultural livelihood...To be involved in the Shakespearean play is starting to be a point of social status amongst our students, and many parents are keen to see their children in these plays," he said, adding that the audience that night exceeded the theater's capacity.

Gerardo Coello, 15, said he was thrilled to be cast in the lead role of Macbeth.

"I love [Shakespeare's] language, and how his characters and settings are all about one issue: in "Macbeth," it's repentance; in "Othello," it's jealousy; and in "Hamlet, it's about indecision," he said at a dress rehearsal before the final performance.

María Guillán, who played Lady Macbeth, said she loved learning Shakespeare in school because of his character manipulation.

"I love the way he takes a character, which seems to be perfectly normal, but then he transforms it and totally degrades it. He knows a lot about the human mind and psychology, and he includes that in his plays," said the 15-year-old.

For more on Shakespeare International, visit www.ca.org.mx

Alebrijes march on Mexico City

[Editorial update: Despite using reliable sources like an old story from The News, I got a few things wrong. The original alebrije creator was born in Mexico City, not Oaxaca, and was of Aztec, not Mixe, descent. Oops].

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News

Oct. 23, 2009

The cardboard creations come in droves, swarming in a colorful cluster down Mexico City's most prominent thoroughfares with dragon wings, webbed feet and wiry antennas on their 100-kilogram frames.

The alebrijes are back.

For the third year in a row, the capital city's Museum of Popular Art (MAP) is putting on its Parade of Monumental Alebrijes in an effort to familiarize the world with this papier-mache artisan craft.

Nearly 120 alebrijes this Saturday will commence their 4-kilometer march in the historal center, then move to the Zócalo and down Paseo de la Reforma. They will remain on display at the Angel of Independence monument through Sunday, Nov. 8.

"Mexico City has few popular traditions in its urban areas, so we're looking to start a new tradition in the heart of Mexico so that we can make it part of our collective tradition," said MAP Director and parade coordinator Luiz Haza.

Alebrijes are multicolored creatures that mix the parts of one animal with many others.

Elsa Linares' creation, for example, features the body of a bright red fish with white frog feet, patterned bullhorns and a long tail of red-and-yellow feathers. The internal structure is built from carrizo, a Mexican bamboo traditionally used with alebrijes for its density and flexibility.

Linares, 30, has been crafting alebrijes for more than 15 years, carrying on a family tradition that started the entire artistic movement.

In the mid-1930s, her grandfather, Pedro Linares López, fell violently ill from gastronomic complications, and a high fever knocked him nearly comatose, she said, beginning the family story as she painted a thick paper horn.

The elder Linares, who died in 1992, was an indigenous Mixe artisan from the Oaxacan village San Martín Tilcajete who made piñatas, carnival masks and dolls from papier-mache.

In his fever-induced delirium, he heard a crowd of voices whispering quietly and then shouting loudly the nonsensical word "alebrije." He saw a forest filled with fantastic creatures, like donkeys with butterfly wings and multi-legged lions.

After he awoke, he reconstructed his magical visions with paper, cardboard, paste and electric colors until, eventually, a Cuernavaca gallery owner discovered his work. As famed Mexican artists like Diego Rivera and Frida Khalo began commissioning Linares to build more alebrijes, the craftwork spread to neighboring Oaxaca villages and to Mexico City.

The tradition grew considerably after British filmmaker Judith Bronowski's 1975 documentary on Linares, who later received Mexico's National Prize for Popular Arts and Traditions for his work.

Now, alebrijes are considered the pride of Mexico's folk art repertoire. The figures are also carved from wood in less monstrous proportions.

Elsa said it was an exciting experience to participate in the alebrije parade each year because "my grandfather never imagined how far his creation would go. He never thought that it would become so popular in Mexico and even outside the country."

The parade in 2007 started with just 35 alebrijes on platforms. The 2008 parade included around 80 floats and started the Reforma run-through, attracting an estimated two million spectators, Haza said.

This year is set to include at least 117 floats and is expected to draw an even bigger audience than last year, he said, adding that the general budget this year fell around 1 million pesos. Sponsors include the National Council for Culture and Arts (Conaculta), the Mexico City government and MAP's Friends of the Museum Association.

The younger Linares said she and project partner Yeudiel Lara had committed three weeks of 14-hour days to build and paint their red "michin," the Nahuatl word for "fish." The design element, however, began immediately after the previous year's parade finished.

Ricardo Linares, who is not related to Elsa or Pedro, said he will present two alebrijes and oversee production for at least five others. His own creations will include a bird with cat paws and a snake in a conch shell with feet. They will also feature exterior mirrors to reflect the sunlight and internal lamps to glow at night.

"The alebrije symbolizes Mexico City in just one artisan piece," said the 37-year-old, adding that the parade provides a spirit of togetherness down streets often filled with political protests and marches .

Elsa noted, "Each year that more figures and artisans participate in the parade, it guarantees that alebrijes will be with us for much more time, that they will always remain relevant, and that more people will learn about them."

For more details, visit www.alebrijes.com.mx

Mexico fashion takes on Tokyo

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Oct. 22, 2009

While Mexico might be better known for exporting its more illicit goods, a Mexico City culture consortium is hoping to push the country's more stylish industries to the outside world - fashion, cinema and design.

This week in Tokyo, six fashion labels, two filmmakers and an interior design team have been presenting their latest and freshest proposals to Japanese audiences. The "DFTokio" event, coordinated by Mexico City's Pasagüero culture hub, also coincides with the 400th anniversary of the first recorded contact between Mexico and Japan.

Pasagüero director Ricardo Pandal said the idea to bring the contemporary Mexican artists to Tokyo was inspired by a recent talk regarding alternative subcultures in the world's megalopolises.

And while Japan's capital city has already hosted more traditional Mexican art like exhibits on Frida Khalo or pre-Hispanic artifacts, Pandal said he thought it was long overdue to bring a more modern perspective to the Mexican presence in Tokyo.

"Mexico's alternative, urban culture is very alive in Japan, I just think that now we're looking for the right ways to channel it," Pandal told The News last week before his flight to Japan.

"I don't see why Mexico can't be just like Brazil," he said, referring to Brazil's recent prominence in the global fashion, film and contemporary art scenes.

The project's purpose is to select a few aspects, personalities and professionals from Mexico's cutting edge, with the goal to create an event that will show the current trends in contemporary Mexican culture, according to Pasagüero. Creating this dynamic allows Mexican artists to communicate a renovated perspective of the country to the outside world, developing cultural promotion and investment and attracting more international tourists.

The event kicked off in Tokyo last weekend on Oct. 17 with Mexican director Alejandro González Iñarritu, of "Babel" and "Amores Perros" fame, presiding over the judges' panel at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

Designers participated from Tuesday to Thursday in Japan Fashion Week, and couturiers included Alejandra Quesada, Carla Fernández, Trista and T.E.M.O.R.E.S., a label by 22-year-old Carlos Temores. Jewelry designers include Gabriela Artigas and Anndra Neen, a jewelry label by Phoebe and Annette Stephens.

Although not on the runways, the six young design labels presented in a separate showroom styled by the Dfcasa interior design team, offered Japanese buyers, collectors and the general public a chance to admire or purchase the Mexican fashion. The line-up was also coordinated in part by the Mexican style magazine 192.

Pandal said that while Quesada and Anndra Neen have already entered the Japanese market, the event is an opportunity for everyone to strengthen their ties in the Asian style scene while representing their Mexican roots abroad.

Fernández's designs, for instance, reinterpret the colors, patterns and movement of traditional mariachi garb but with twenty-first century cuts and fits. Quesada offers flirty dresses and sheer blouses with floral prints and warm colors, indicative of a warmer climate influence.

The women of Anndra Neen, who are Mexican but live in Los Angeles, have received considerable U.S. press from publications like Vogue magazine and The New York Times. Their handmade pieces are certainly not subtle accents - with chunky, shiny pieces hanging from thick gold cords and thick metal cuffs with edgy details, they steal the whole show.

"These designers are definitely youthful, alternative and very cutting edge," Pandal said of all the stylists.

Pasagüero will celebrate the close of Tokyo Fashion Week and the film festival with an after-party on Thursday, with high-energy music by Mexican deejay Sicario and the Japanese group The Triple Nipple.

The final three days of DFTokio will return to its cinematic beginnings. A special three-day retrospective film presentation by Mexico City-born director Carlos Reygadas, whose films include "Japan," "Battle in Heaven" and "Silent Light."

While the actual film festival will not include any new projects from Mexico, the retrospective signifies a first for the Latin American country in Japan's capital city, Pandal said.

Pandal added that he hoped the Tokyo presentations could kick off a newfound relationship between Mexico and Asia over the next five years. Similar events might take place next year in cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong, he said.

"We hope that our presence in Asia doesn't just stop with this. We want to have a continual presence at fairs, festivals and cultural events," he said.

The Pasagüero director noted the value such events have for Mexico's once-booming tourism industry, and he added that for this reason the Mexico City's Tourism Secretariat helped partially fund DFTokio.

"They understood the benefit of promoting the city to young cultures around the world, who aren't as afraid to come visit as others," he said.

For more info on DFTokio, visit http://mexcofest.com

Renau exhibit unusually relevant in Mexico

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Oct. 21, 2009

The graphic prints, provocative collages and eccentric murals of Spanish artist Josep Renau have had impeccable timing in Mexico.

As Mexico City's electricians continue to contest recent actions by the Mexican government to dissolve their union, Renau's messages of syndicate strength and systematic struggles have been born anew, finding an unintentional contemporary context for the artwork's latest exhibit.

Nearly 300 pieces by the Valenciíborn artist have traveled to the Tlatelolco University Cultural Center (CCUT) as part of the display "Josep Renau 1907-1982: Compromiso y Cultura," or "Commitment and Culture," up through Jan. 10, 2010.

But part of his art is already on display in Mexico. Renau, after all, helped Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros complete his 1939 mural at the Mexican Syndicate of Electricians building.

"Renau is an example of what is the political commitment of artists and intellectuals, a theme that in this moment is not touched on as much," said curator Jaime Brihuega of the Complutense University of Madrid.

"Every time art is called 'political' in our days, it is just another marketing tool. That is why it is important to have this exhibit, because Reanu is an artist that teaches that there are always problems around us, and that we should talk about these problems."

"He fought against the world's injustices every moment that he lived," he said of the communist-allied artist.

Brihuega added that the CCUT exhibit aims to resurrect the work and history of an artist who was fundamental in Spanish and Mexican culture.

The display was first assembled in Valencia in 2007 to celebrate what would have been Renau's 100th birthday. The exhibit also traveled to Madrid, Sevilla, Las Palmas and Zaragoza before moving to Mexico City this past Oct. 14, kicking off a world tour organized in part by Spain's State Society for Cultural étion Abroad (SEACEX).

At the CCUT's Salón Juárez gallery, the Renau exhibit is divided into four parts; the circular display is a timeline of the artist's often controversial works in relation to the historical events that served as his muse.

"Times of the Republic: Between Formation and Commitment" spans the years 1926 to 1936, when Renau came of age as an artist and a political activist during this pre-war period. The exhibit opens with ink-on-paper sketches of shapely women, aged prints of magazine covers and minutely detailed lithographs.

During this period, the republican-socialist government of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931 replaced the monarchy while nationalist and fascist tendencies strengthened. At this time, Renau was creating his infamous graphic designs and photomontages of sensual yet tasteful nudes, prominent political figures and cultural references.

A 1935 cover of the Valencia magazine Nueva Cultura, for example, is a lithograph detailing the horsemen of the apocalypse, including the Pope, dollar sign-toting bankers and well-heeled politicians. Renau founded and directed the magazine, and he also designed and edited for political periodicals like Estudios, Octubre and "Orto."

The exhibit section "Spain in War: 1936-1939" marks Renau's rise as a prominent intellectual and a renowned artistic director during the Spanish Civil War.

The war ended in 1939 when General Francisco Franco and the nationalist and fascist movements overthrew the Republic and instated a right-wing dictatorship, over which Franco ruled until 1975.

Renau worked tirelessly during this period to publish posters, photomontages and murals dedicated to "agitprop," a term that blends "agitation" with "propagandO and is used to disseminate the communist agenda.

His 1936 photomontage "7 de octubre. Una nueva era en el campo" ("October 7. A New Age in the Field") pictures a man's fist clenched tightly and tinted red as it grips the handle of a curved sickle, with golden stalks of grain illuminating the background.

That same year, Renau was named the General Director of Fine Arts for Spain, and he oversaw the National Orchestra, the National Committee of Music and the Spanish Pavilion in the 1937 World Fair in Paris. He also commissioned fellow artist Pablo Picasso to paint his well-known cubist mural, "Guernica."

The sequence "Crossing the Ocean: Exile in Mexico" follows 1939 to 1958, when Renau sought refuge from the Franco dictatorship in Mexico. Here, Renau absorbed the influences of famed Mexican muralists like Diego Rivera and Siqueiros, and Renau continued writing about his political leanings for leftist publications.

Curator Brihuega noted, "In every place that he visited, he has had this duplicity - he opens his life to influences, while at the same time creating his own school of art."

Handwritten papers at the gallery document Renau's 1947-48 stance in Cuernavaca, where he carried out the intricate and vivid mural "Casino de la SelvO ("Casino of the Jungle").

Impressive oil paintings capture traditional scenic landscapes interpreted through an avant-garde eye; reeds and conch shells on a beach, for example, are presented with sharp angles and stark contrasts.

Renau in 1954 also began his highly celebrated photomontage series "American Way of Life," a 12-year project mixing vanguard photographs and graphic designs and that later helped fuel the Pop Art movement in Spain.

The exhibit's final chapter "Images éross the Wall" includes artwork produced during Renau's second exile period in East Germany from 1958 to 1982, including his second photomontage series "Sobre AlemaniO ("About Germany").

The artist's political poignancy at this time was influenced by the so-called Cold War, and his art reflected constructive realism, a philosophy that emphasizes science in the political realm.

His 1969 large-scale mural "El futuro trabajador del comunismo" ("The Future Worker of Communism") paints a bare-chested man bent over a control panel as stars and grids swirl behind him. Beneath his desk, colorful geometric shapes circle forcefully, reflecting Renau's artistic ability to put powerful motion into stagnant images.

Renau's anthology ends with a series of 1970s-era collages heavily focused on the female body. "Madre TierrO ("Mother Earth"), for example, is a 1975 portrait of a single breast emerging over the horizon as if it were a hill surrounded by an oasis of firs and field grass.

The polemic artist traveled numerous times to Spain throughout the six years preceding his 1982 death. There, he published various books and hosted many exhibitions on his work. He continued creating his posters, designs, collages and murals until he died in Berlin.

García Márquez exhibit recounts a legendary life

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Oct. 13, 2009

Celebrated author Gabriel García Márquez has become a household name among literary circles, college classrooms and generations of bibliophiles worldwide, but most people just know "Gabo" through his captivating tales across the Colombian landscape.

Now, however, the story of the magic realist's life has emerged from behind the texts as part of a multimedia exhibition dedicated to the author's past 82 years.

"Una VidO ("A Life"), on display through Monday, Oct. 26 at the Palacio del Bellas Artes in Mexico City's Centro Histórico, culls together black-and-white photographs, yellowing manuscripts, personal letters, battered book covers and audio archives in the Adamo Boari basement gallery.

The exhibit also coincides with the Oct. 19 Spanish-language release of U.S. author Gerald Martin's biography "Gabriel García Márquez: A Life," first published in English in May. Martin will give an official presentation at Bellas Artes on Oct. 26 alongside Mexican writers Elena Poniatowska, JosAc Agustín and Gonzalo Celorio.

Both events were coordinated by the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA), the National Council for Culture and Arts (Conaculta) and the biography's publisher, Random House Mondadori.

"This exhibit is an invitation to rediscover the universe of García Márquez," curator Gerardo de la Cruz told The News at the Oct. 8 inauguration.

"This is what interests us... the magical, the political, the experimental, the surrealist and the journalistic," he said. "This is an attempt to give his own version of himself."

De la Cruz said that García Márquez's family donated part of the exhibit's materials while other components were already on-hand from a recent exhibit on the author's 1967 bestselling novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude," which he penned in Mexico and largely contributed to his winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982.

Considered García Márquez's magnum opus, the book has since been translated into more than 27 languages and is the bestselling Spanish-language book in modern history, second only to "Don Quixote."

Pedro Huerta, general director of Random House Mondadori in Mexico, said that the pre-book launch exhibition follows the 17 years of research that Martin committed to the biography.

"García Márquez is a highlight and key figure in Latin America, and I think it is very important to celebrate his life," he said after the ceremony.

"This is the only biography that García Márquez says he 'tolerates' because it's as accurate as he thinks it can get in a complicated life like he has had."

Huerta noted that English-language copies of Martin's biography should already be available in any of Mexico's major book retailers as well as online.

Down the steps and into the Adamo Boari gallery, the exhibit opens with the first of three stages structured after the biography's chapters.

"The Seeds of Writing" begins in 1899, tracing his family roots from various regions in Colombia to Aracataca, the town where García Márquez was born in 1927 before his family moved to Baranquilla.

The exhibit starts with an enlarged copy of his parents' aged wedding photo and a 1928 picture of the author in his wide-eyed infancy. The first period marks his initial exposure to poetry and storytelling and his eventual departure from home to pursue traveling adventures, journalistic opportunities and to publish his first stories.

The second section "From Europe to Mexico" chronicles his journeys from 1955 to 1967, including his 1958 marriage to Mercedes Barcha and the birth of his two sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo.

García Márquez during this time traveled to Geneva and Rome, where he began his foray into experimental cinematography. He wrote the novella "No One Writes to the Colonel" while living in Paris. The 1961 book was published the same year the author and his family moved to Mexico City, where García Márquez currently resides.

The final and largest stage "Many years later." covers the years 1967 to 2000, the period when the author rose to mainstream recognition and consolidated his place in the literary world with "Solitude" and by winning a Nobel Prize nearly 20 years later. He also penned the 1985 tragicomic drama "Love in the Time of Cholera," a complicated love story based on his parent's complex relationship.

Photographs capture García Márquez in a white Panama hat saluting his fans on his 80th birthday celebration in Cartegena; smiling with Poniatowska as she wraps him in a hug; and buried by reporters and surrounded by microphones.

García Márquez has continued to write in recent years. Following his 1999 diagnosis of lymphatic cancer, the author wrote "Living to Tell the Tale" in 2002, the first of a projected three-volume autobiography, as well as his 2008 novel "Memories of My Melancholy Whores."

Morelia film fest calls it a wrap

THE NEWS/WIRE REPORTS

The latest projects of Oscar-winning film directors Quentin Tarantino and Pedro Almodóvar have made their Mexico debuts at this year's highly anticipated Morelia International Film Festival (FICM).

The festival's seventh edition wrapped up this weekend after nine days of premieres, presentations and awards in the capital city of Michoacán. Featured flicks included 45 shorts and six feature films, along with the presence of various well-renowned filmmakers.

U.S. director Tarantino kicked off the festival on Oct. 3 with a screening of his controversial-as-usual film "Inglourious Basterds" ("Bastardos sin Gloria"), the violent story of a Jewish refugee in Nazi-occupied France. The film opened last Friday in Mexico, following a U.S. release on Aug. 21.

The director in his first visit to Mexico defended his project at a FICM press conference by explaining that not all of his films "are for everyone, and those who don't want to see them don't have to watch them."

On turbulence in Mexico, he added, "The violence that you live with because of the cartels, the mafia and kidnappings...here violence is not a question of esthetics, it is something that you have to face every day. This situation also happens in the U.S., Japan and around the world; I know it and I see it. For this reason I am empathetic with what is happening in Mexico."

Tarantino said his next project would likely be a Western or a 1920s piece inspired by the 1960s gangster film "Pretty Boy Floyd."

Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar's "Los abrazos rotos" ("Broken Embraces") received both praise and criticism at the festival. The film also screened at this year's Cannes International Film Festival and the 47th New York Film Festival.

The film's protagonist Mateo Blanco is a writer and film director who 14 years earlier lost his sight in a brutal car accident that killed Leña, the love of his life. Before the accident, Blanco employs the pseudonym Harry Caine to sign his literary works, stories and scripts, and uses his real name to sign the films he directs. After the accident, he drops the name Blanco and lives his life as Caine.

"Abrazos," set to release in Mexico mid-November, features Almodóvar's favorite muse Penélope Cruz, as well as actors including Luis Homar, Blanca Portillo, JosAc Luid Gómez and Rubén Ochoandiano.

"It's a very literary movie in its style, as the characters talk often and there are authentic monologue sequences," the director said about his seventeenth film before its Spain premiere in March.

Back in Morelia, Mexican director Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio's opera prima "Alamar" ("To the Sea") won the best picture prize and the audience award for best Mexican feature film.

The documentary-style drama, produced by Mexican companies Mantarraya Producciones and Xcalakarma Films, follows the relationship between a young Mexican man and his half-Italian son as they travel to the coral reefs before the son's departure. The film is set to release in Mexico next year.

The prize for best documentary went to "Presuntos Culpables" ("Presumed Guilty"), an in-depth look at the Mexican judicial system during a murder case proceeding. Filmmakers Roberto Hernández, Leyda Negrete and Australia's Geoffrey Smith ("The English Surgeon") received a standing ovation for the film at its Oct. 9 presentation.

Hernández told the Mexican press that, "The happiness of a community and each one of its citizens means enjoying equality, security, ownership and liberty. The integral conservation of these rights is the main objective of governmental institutions and their political associations."

"These words will be forgotten today, but they must always be remembered in Mexico," he added.

He said that while the documentary is not necessarily looking to point fingers at certain officials, the film seeks to spread the message that the Mexican penal system is in need of change and reform to improve transparency in the judicial process for those presumed guilty.

"Culpable," along with Rigoberto Perezcano's immigration-themed dramedy "Norteado" ("Northless") were presented last month at the Toronto International Film Festival. "Norteado" had garnered much pre-festival buzz in Morelia but ultimately walked away empty handed.

Mercedes Moncada's "La sirena y el buzo" ("The Mermaid and the Diver") took home the prize for best documentary directed by a woman.

The audience award for best international feature went to "Soundtrack for a Revolution" by Dan Sturman and Bill Guttentag. The story recounts the U.S. Civil Rights movement and its freedom songs through the music of current artists and archived protest footage.

For more details, visit www.moreliafilmfest.com/en/

Pepa Pombo's return to textiles

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Oct. 9, 2009
[The story appeared in today's edition of the Global Village supplement]

Fashion designer Pepa Pombo and her daughter Mónica Holguín have been busy lately adding the finishing touches to their ultrafeminine, super-chic, upcoming collection.

Pombo, a favorite on Mexico´s high-end fashion scene for more than two decades, now has boutiques in Bogotá, the United States and Mexico City, along with markets in Paris, Italy, Hungary and Saudi Arabia.

Today, Holguín handles the design and style aspects of the label while Pombo works exclusively with the textures and textiles - her true passion since her fashion beginnings.

This fall´s collection promises to be "very exquisite," Pombo told The News, just days after flying back to Mexico from a trip home to Bogotá.

Taking a turn away from the flowing fabrics and eccentric shapes of her most recent "arobatique" collection, Pombo said the newest line will offer an impeccably close fit with stitched details and 1950s flair.

"You are never going to see anything more divine in your life," she said, alluding to the painstakingly intricate threading that will dazzle the ensemble of dresses, whose collective title has yet to be named.

One particular garment, she added, took six entire months just to embroider. The collection will consequently offer fewer pieces than last season´s to compensate for the meticulous attention to detail.

As if to underscore the contrasts between collections new and past, Pombo traipsed over to the sampling racks and pulled a knee-length violet dress from last season´s 19th-century, circus-inspired theme.

On the dress, tiny, curving ripples flow steadily down, while the bust is covered in petal-like fabric strips - both trademark looks of the simple yet romantic "érobatique" garments. The elegant waves come from Pombo´s handcrafted manipulations of the "cintilla," or silk threads, which creates a sheen and nearly transparent effect.

Pombo then removed a similarly rippled pale pink shawl from a nearby rack, the cloth made of velvety-smooth raw silk, "the finest material that exists," Pombo said.

The wrap, she explained, is part of her latest in-store offering: garments that for the first time have been made not in Bogotá, but here in Mexico City.

The retail collection is comprised of vests, shawls, capes and scarves, all featuring the classically Pepa Pombo undulations and a versatile look perfect for casual daywear or to top off evening cocktail attire.

"It´s important to create, not to copy," she said. " In today´s vocabulary, there is a serious confusion between the two."

But for all the exciting new shapes and designs hung up in the Polanco showroom, Pombo is most enthusiastic about one primordial element - the fabric.

"Textures are very crucial, more so than the design, because they are the start," she said. "Textures are my greatest beginning, my base, my spinal column."

And now that Holguín handles design, Pombo can focus her attention wholeheartedly on textiles.

"When I was creating designs, I always saw the texture as more important than the shape, so I sometimes didn´t know how to make it work," she confessed. "Today, my favorite textures are combinations of fabrics."

Working between Colombia and Mexico, however, has been a much easier feat for the designer.

"The Colombian woman is like the Mexican. They´re very similar," she said.

"I feel that we have this gift of sensibility to call attention to what we wear, and that the most important thing for Latin American women is the sensation of femininity."

Young writer talks poetry in Mexico

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Oct. 9, 2009

While paintings, drawings, designs and sculptures often flourish throughout Mexico City museums, galleries and bar-cafAcs, literature has often been the silent cousin to the city's fine arts scene.

But despite a lower profile in the public eye, Adriana Irais Dorantes assures that the poetry, narrative and short story communities are strong.

Round-table discussions, poetry readings, online forums and international contests - like the one Irais Dorantes just won - are continually hosted throughout the city to give writers the inspiration to keep working.

The 24-year-old poet said she felt invigorated to keep pursuing her poetic side after earning high-profile praise for her poetry collection "Silencio del tiempo" ("Silence of Time"). The young writer last month took home the top prize at the 2nd Bernardo Ruiz Poetry Contest, which drew more than 50 Mexican and international contestants.

The contest was sponsored by literary magazines Tinta Seca, El Uniocaso, and El universo del Búho of the RenAc AvilAcs Fabila Foundation. Other sponsors include the Casa del Poeta JosAc Revueltas, the National Fine Arts Institute (INBA) and the National Coordination of Literature.

Irais Dorantes, a recent creative writing graduate of the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, sat down with The News to discuss her award-winning work and today's poetry scene in Mexico.

What inspired you in writing your poems for "Silencio del tiempo," and what does the collection talk about?

More than inspiration, I think I have some obsessions. For example, the collection's title explains much about the content of the poetry book. With time, I obsess a lot in the sense that it is not something you can measure, even though we say when do; time also includes what is remembrance and memory. I also include a lot of references to silence.sometimes we want all the words, but we realize that the more that we look to find them, they're not sufficient to express what we want. So, we remain in silence. The collection also talks about loneliness and the absence of someone that you love.

I have always written, but I've just recently learned the poetic form; the rhetorical figure, how to use language, rhythm.things that make poetry. I try to express what I have inside, so that it doesn't just stay there and that the rest of the world can know it. If you're a writer, the things that you write aren't just for you, they're for others who can appropriate what you've said. It's very transcendental.

My poetry book is pretty small, but I'm working on a bigger collection separated by chapters. The fact that I've won this contest is a kind of incentive to keep going. Some people say that you can't live off writing, but there are poets who do. I know people who live off their writing and they're doing well.

What is today's poetry scene like in Mexico?

In school, they'll give you Homer up to the 20th century, but it's more interesting to go to round-tables, poetry readings, talks with people who are publishing now - to not just read the canonical, but to see what is going on right now.

There are many people [on the scene], but sometimes they're hard to find, because there isn't much cultural diffusion for new poets. But if you go looking, you will find them. I've gone to book presentations where only a few people came, but it's a start. You have to fight if you want to be published, if you want a space in a magazine. You can achieve it, but you have to work at it first.

Magazines like Alforja and El Perro are dedicated just to poetry, but there are also many literature magazines that will make a space for poetry. Lenguara, for example, or La Jornada de Aguascalientes. They're giving opportunities for new poets to submit their work.

Some good places to hear or talk about literature are the poetry series at Palacio de Bellas Artes [in the Centro Histórico]; the Casa del Poeta; and the Centro de Lectura Condesa [in the central neighborhood of the same name].

How has the Internet influenced local poets and their work?

The Internet can be a very powerful weapon, because today so many people have blogs; you can post your work on a blog, and if someone who sees it likes it, you can get in touch that way. In Facebook, you can post a link, and there are many more chances that people will see your work.

It also helps so that you're not solely fighting to be published or to enter closed circles. It's important to use technology and these new tools that help to advance poetry and literature.

Read Adriana's blog at www.delailusionalcaos.blogspot.com

Art Objectified

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Oct. 8, 2009

Imagine a spare button as a shimmering cascade, the light bouncing off its plastic veneer as it hangs from a string with millions of others. Think of a balled up pair of pantyhose as a sheer labyrinth of nylon legs stretching up and down.

Once an unconventional artistic alternative, the reinvention of ordinary household items has permeated the Mexican contemporary arts scene, creating a virtual renaissance of objects for the past three decades.

"Hecho en casa" ("Made at Home"), an exhibit at Mexico City's Museum of Modern Art (MAM) through Jan. 15, 2010, is what the curators call an "approximation" of modern objectual practices. While the display can't promise a complete historical study on this artistic tendency, it does offer an intensive overview on how the movement has influenced Mexican artists.

"Many important artists have been devoting part of their artistic production to this reflection over the objectification of art," said Victor Palacios, who is curating the exhibit alongside Javier Espino and Valentina García.

Palacio said his team and six other researches scoured over private collections and the MAM's assets for nearly four months to compile the 57-piece exhibition, although four works were created exclusively for the event.

"Here, we're not focusing on 'object art' but rather 'objectual practices,' which is much more open," he said, adding that while the former category refers to a specific physical object, the latter can refer to photographs, videos or actions in which "the object still plays a primordial role."

The exhibit, which went up Oct. 2, features the works of more than 40 Mexican artists, with artwork dating from the early 1970s and up to the present.

At the museum, the second-floor showroom looks as if a child's toy box or a storage closet imploded, the contents changing in midair and landing in a completely refigured form.

In "Vestido" ("Dress"), the 2008 work by Xavery Wolski takes an infinite number of dried squash seeds and strings them together into a long-sleeve, turtleneck dress pegged to the wall as if hanging in a closet.

Parblo Vargas Lugo's 2008 piece "Chiquihuite I" takes several thin metal music stands and positions them together like rooftop antennas suspended from the ceiling, the ends illuminated by small blinking lights.

Palacios said the exhibit could also show the humorous side to contemporary art.

"One of the characteristics of objectual practices is that it has an implicit irony and a playful character," he said.

The exhibit is loosely divided into seven categories, each reflecting various interpretations of objects. Some divisions overlap and theoretical lines are often blurred, so each section is equipped with bilingual fact sheets.

Pieces in the section "The object as a form; the form as a sculpture" take an everyday object and give it a new function - like the seed dress and music stands, for example.

The movement got its start in the late 1950s, though it really took off with Andy Warhol's 1964 "Brillo Box," a simply presented package of the coarse soap pads. By modifying elements like scale, color, texture and material, the artist creates a confrontation between the represented object and its cultural representation, according to the MAM curatorial team.

In another instance, Miguel Monroy's 2008 piece "Legolego" takes hundreds of cherry-red plastic Lego cubes and connects them all into one giant Lego brick.

The category "What is a Readymade?" includes pieces that turn prefabricated objects into works of art simply by selecting them for exhibition. "Readymade," a term assigned by artist Marcel Duchamp in 1913, has been reinterpreted for generations by schools such as neo-Dadaism, 1970s-era pop art and post-conceptual art from the 1990s.

At the MAM, Thomas Glassford's untitled 2009 piece stacks small beige plastic saucers and bowls and strings femur bones and gold orbs on a thick chain to create a continuous line from floor to ceiling.

"The Found Object," also known by its French name "objet trouvé," refers to an object's liberation from its daily functions. Similar to Readymade, the artist chooses a pre-made object, but in this instance takes the item out of reality and into art by assigning a new use.

Diego Teo's 2002 "Torre B" ("B Tower") takes a multitude of pink chewing gum pieces and stacks them like the bricks of a castle turret, with yellow gum cubes forming a spiraling path up the side.

Eduardo Abaroa's 2008 work "Sólo necesitamos un mundo más grande" ("We Only Need a Bigger World") is a dizzying collage of map cutouts glued to a giant globe in non-corresponding places; Hungary, for example, takes the shape of Australia.

In the exhibit section "Assemblies," the artwork reflects a hybrid of painting, collage, sculpture and the "objet trouvé." Here, the artist will often juxtapose objects, techniques and materials to create a piece with associated meanings and iconography, according to the MAM team.

Mexican painter Alberto Gironella's 1971 eclectic ensemble "Homenaje a Picasso" ("Tribute to Picasso") honors the Spanish artist who in 1914 gave the "assemblies" category its start with his three-dimensional constructions.

Gironella's piece includes black-and-white photos of Picasso surrounded by a velvet tapestry, old boots, canned food, a trumpet and an actual lion's head protruding from the faded lace background.

"The Documented Object as a Sculptural Gesture" includes mostly photographs of installation pieces with an esthetic purpose; the artist can change the position of an object or modify its visual surroundings.

Mauricio Alejos's "Soñar" ("To Dream") is a 2004 photograph of pillows and folded blankets stacked from the green carpet up to the ceiling of an empty bedroom.

Pieces in the "Objectification of Space" category are mostly large-scale installations. This particular movement took off in the second half of the 20th century and is less about modifying an object and more about objects that modify the space.

Benjamin Torres' 2008 work "Guía de campo" ("Field Guide") takes the pages of a birdwatchers' book and explodes them into the third-dimension by cutting out pictures of birds and sporadically pinning them to a mint-green, L-shaped wall.

In the seventh and final category "Processes," objects become a vehicle or witness to the artistic method.

Gonzalo Lobrija covers all meanings of the category with his multimedia installations. The first, "Psychoplane," is a video that captures the flight of a paper airplane soaring across the city. "Extensions 1 and 2" include a metal sculpture shaped like a paper airplane, as well as 24 black-and-white photos documenting the origami of paper airplanes.

Curator Palacios said, "There is a huge universe of objects and shapes that we can use, and so it's difficult to lose this freshness or ability to surprise."

"There is a a capacity for surprise in contemporary art."

Jordan pushes pilgrimage

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Oct. 6, 2009

[Not included: My info box of pilgrimage places]

AMMAN, Jordan- Swatting flies and kicking up dirt on a 2,000-year-old path, overheated tourists suddenly slow their steps with a revered hesitation. In a site once pocked with landmines and still couched precariously between the West Bank and Jerusalem, the visitors have reached ancient baptismal pools where, according Jordanians, Jesus was baptized along the Jordan River.

In the heart of a predominately Muslim country and in a region best known for its conflicts, Christian tourists worldwide are discovering that the paths to their religious heritage are not so hard to reach.

And while international travel destinations have seen tourism dollars plummet due to a global economic downturn and the outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus, Jordan's figures have grown as tourists uncover the country's lesser-known secrets.

The country has seen small but significant growth from January to June this year. The number of total visitors grew 3 percent and overall revenues grew 1.9 percent, compared with 2008 figures. Tourism officials note that a small but growing portion of these numbers are Christian pilgrims, many of whom are Europeans.

"We rely on our faith during economic hardships, and that's why faith-based tourism is stepping up," Jordanian senator and former tourism minister Akel Bijltaji recently told the Mexican media.

"Like Muslims to Mecca [in Saudi Arabia], Christians must go to Jordan to the Holy Land," he said. "People will find the financial means for faith tours. It's a sustainable, ongoing tourism."

The Jordan tourism industry in recent years has actively pushed to develop its pilgrimage appeal by distributing multimedia promotional materials and working closely with the Vatican to attract more faith-driven tourists to Jordan's holy sites.

Overall tourism efforts have also seen a much more aggressive approach following a 1994 peace treaty with Israel, particularly in travel areas like adventure, wellness, history and ecotourism.

Barbwire fences have been rolled back to make way for paved roads, visitor centers and five-star resorts. Yachts cruise across the Red Sea and tourists float belly-up on the Dead Sea, both once off-limit destinations with sweeping views of Israel.

Jordan society as a whole has begun adapting to an influx of visitors bringing clicking cameras and hefty coach buses - "Tourism is our oil," local tour guides reason.

Today, the tourism sector comprises 14 percent of Jordan's gross domestic product and generates more than $3 billion each year, according to the Jordan Tourism Board (JTB). The nation of nearly 6 million inhabitants brings in around 5 million tourists each year, only 300,000 of which hail from the Americas.

Bijltaji told reporters that private Arab investors are set to spend approximately $10 billion over the next decade in building infrastructure, hotels, spas, shopping plazas and constructing inland beaches to potentially quadruple the number of international tourists in Jordan to about 4 million visitors.

But Jordan's biggest marketing success has not come from the well-lined pockets of Middle Eastern businessmen - it came from the Vatican, with a highly publicized visit from Pope Benedict XVI in May.

JTB managing director Nayef Al-Fayez said that the papal visit has brought significant attention to Jordan as a prominent stop on the trails of the Christian Holy Land. He also recalled visits by late Popes John Paul II and Paul IV as inspiring similar results.

Religious tourists, he explained, often mistakenly perceive Holy Land sites to be exclusively in Israel, with cities like Jerusalem and the 40-mile "Jesus Trail," and in the visitor-unfriendly West Bank, which houses Jericho and Bethlehem.

Jordan, however, is home to five holy sites designated by the Vatican as part of its 2000 Millennium Pilgrimage project. Sites include the Bethany Beyond the Jordan baptismal site, Mount Nebo, Tel Mar Elias, Anjara and Mukawir.

The papal visit also helped bring legitimacy to Jordan's position that Jesus was baptized at the border site Bethany Beyond Jordan, Al-Fayez said. The issue is hotly contested by Israel, who defends its Yardenit site just meters away as the true baptismal grounds.

Rif'at Bader, spokesman of the Vatican in Jordan, said that religious tourism is also important beyond just dollars and cents - it is also essential for destigmatizing Muslims and the Islamic faith.

Bader represents the roughly 180,000 Jordanian Christians living in the country, whom he said are generally not marginalized in this 95-percent Muslim country.

"It is important for any Christian in the world to see the fraternity and dialogue between Muslims and Christians here, and to not only hear about Muslims in the news and consider them all as terrorists," he said.

Back at the Jordan River baptismal pools, heat-dazed tourists dip their toes or wade through the water before silently shuffling back down the path.

Tour guide Armani Rustom said, "Through religious tourism, we can bridge the roads between love and peace."

He added that this site, once littered by 11 minefields, now attracts 100,000 visitors each year, and he estimated that recent tourism efforts should bring in around 1 million tourists to the site alone by 2020.

"This is the place where Christianity started, but it was protected by Islam," he said. "These are the fruits of peace."