Cristina Rivera Garza

I don't recall how I discovered NO HAY TAL LUGAR, a blog by Mexican writer Cristina Rivera Garza--I think I was looking for someone else. I was immediately enchanted by her writing, especially when I discovered her collaboration with others on "la semana de la mujer invisible" (this reminded me of James Tiptree, Jr aka Alice Sheldon's classic story "The Women That Men Don't See").

Another collaborative project is "la semana inquietante (e internacional) de la mujer barbuda" which is documented at Un blog propio by Eve Gil.

CRG began blogging in 2003, in the beginning as part of a project for a novel, while teaching at UCSD, and continues now that she has returned to teach in Mexico. She has published poetry, essay and novels, for which she has won many awards, including the Premio Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz in 2001 for the novel The image on the cover of the Tusquets edition of her book is a painting by Frida Kahlo called The suicide of Dorothy Hale.

Today I read her contribution to a collective column, a collaboration of a group of writers called 'La primera dama' that appears in El Universal. Her latest contribution, La bolsa o la vida, is a prose poem and also very funny. I must find her novels and read them!

"Kahlo's Contemporaries" and the Blaisten virtual museum of Mexican art

The big Frida show at the Tate in London drew a lot of attention; part of its legacy is that it allowed feminist scholars of Latin American art to create a marvelous show called "Kahlo's Contemporaries: Mexico-Women-Surrealism" at the University of Essex in 2005. The goal was not to claim these painters for surrealism, but to use the work of these painters to think about surrealism and vice-versa. Maria Izquierdo, for example, had a friendship with Antonin Artaud, usually not mentioned in studies of his work. Their dialogue had an impact on his writing about Mexico, and their contact had an influence on some of her paintings. I have not been able to find out much about her yet, but I'm intrigued by her story.

When I clicked on one of the teeny-tiny links at the bottom of the page, I discovered a treasure: the Museo Blaisten. This is a private collection, but it has been made accessible to the public in this virtual museum. You can use a Spanish or an English version. The site is organized into eight "rooms" that are both chronological and thematic: if you click on an image of a painting or sculpture, a descriptive text appears, and if you click on the image to enlarge it, a beautifully digitized image is viewable.

Another Mexican art site, this one about an exhibition called "Retratos: 2000 years of Mexican Art" is also worth a visit. I've seen the gorgeous but very expensive catalogue for sale at the Walker book store, but refrained from buying it. I will go visit it in a library.

What's going on in Oaxaca?

There is a lot I want to write about Oaxaca, but work is relentless this week. So this brief post is a way of saving some links to news sources, and getting started.
If you read Spanish, Mexican newspaper La Jornada has a detailed report on the battle in the streets of Oaxaca between federal police (the PFP) and citizens. An editorial in La Jornada reports that the people of Oaxaca have united to repel the militarization of the struggle. But other sources from Oaxaca and in the mainstream press characterize the situation as the forces of law and order trying to quell a mob, stirred up by "outside agitators" who have taken over the city. Who to believe? Many people who have been to Oaxaca know it as a beautiful historically fascinating tourist destination. It is also one of the poorest states in Mexico, one in which indigenous people continue to suffer neglect and oppression at the hands of a regional oligarchy, that is supported by the PRI in alliance with the PAN parties on the national level. Over the last few years,those who have demanded change have been met with political assassinations, disappearances. Rape and torture have been reported at the hands of police and paramilitary thugs.

For the person who wants to know more about what is happening, and understand the context of the struggle, US mainstream media sources are useless because of the intense focus on the upcoming elections and the lamentable state of international reporting in general. The coded language of "anarchy" and "restoring order" along with the lack of context make it appear that violent protesters are disturbing the peace. So we have to turn to alternative sources such as Democracy Now! where we can read an interview with journalist and educator-activist Gustavo Esteva. Global Exchange publishes this timeline and information on how to take action.
Why are the teachers on strike? what is APPO? why do they want the governor to resign? what relation does this have to the recent elections? What role has the U.S. government taken in this situation? What do the people think?
The media sources in Mexico are also highly politicized and partisan, Global Voices has a good round-up on the coverage, including that of bloggers of various perspectives.


NarcoNews posts material in both English and Spanish and is a good place to return for ongoing coverage

IndyBay, a Bay Area independent media aggregator carries news about US solidarity actions in support of the people of Oaxaca, as well as news updates.

Tina Modotti

Well, I'm all excited that my mother will be visiting from SF, but now I've discovered that there is a fabulous show, Mexico as Muse: Tina Modotti and Edward Weston at the SFMOMA! Since I doubt I can sneak away before the show ends Jan 7, I will have to make do with this delightful interactive program, and look for this book in the library: Patricia Alber's Fire, Shadows,Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti. Albers uncovered a cache of letters and photographs which almost doubled the known number of photos by Tina Modotti. As with Frida Kahlo, for years Tina Modotti was primarily known for her beauty as a model for painters and photographers, for her love affairs, as a figure of scandal. The work of feminist art critics and scholars brought new attention to Modotti as an artist and photographer. The 1996 Tate Gallery show pairing Tina Modotti's work with that of Frida was a part of the revival of interest in the lives and art of both women, and in the Mexican artistic and intellectual world of the twenties and thirties.

Because Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera began their courtship at her parties, she appears in the film Frida in her "femme fatale" version, Ashley Judd dancing the tango with Salma Hayak. There are several biographies of Modotti, but she remains a controversial figure, and biographers are still having trouble seeing how the pieces of her life fit together.

The real Tina Modotti (1896-1942) was born in Udine, in the north of Italy. Her family was very poor, and Tina had to leave school to work in a factory when she was a child. Like so many Italians at the turn of the century, her family sought to survive through immigration, first to Austria and then to the US. Her father came over in 1906, and brought the family in stages later. This is more or less the story of both my great-grandfathers on my mother's side, who were stone masons working in Greenwich, Conn, and who brought my grandparents over when they were young children in 1905 and 1906. North Beach in San Francisco (my home town) was where Tina arrived in 1913 as a teenager. She worked in a shirt factory, and then as a seamstress but also joined the community of artists, acting in theater. My mother has a friend who has collected the oral histories of elderly Italians who lived in North Beach. I wonder where Tina lived in San Francisco?

Tina married an artist, and they went to Los Angeles where she acted in silent films, often having to supply her own costumes, typecast as the exotic femme fatale. She wanted to learn photography, and began taking lessons from Edward Weston. They became lovers. When her husband went to Mexico City, he wrote about the excitement and artistic ferment there. She was to join him, but he died before she arrived. Weston joined her there, and it was in Mexico- the "Mexican Renaissance"-- that she produced the body of her photographic work. Elena Poniatowska, author of a novelized version of Tina's life, writes about how Tina was scandalous to Mexicans, even among the scandalous Mexican artists and revolutionaries, because she lived with a man without marrying him, posed nude for artists, and went out with men to bars. When I first went to Mexico City, there were still signs prohibiting women from entering bars, and it was assumed that any women who did go in were there to do business of some kind.

Weston and Modotti were partners; in exchange for learning to be a photographer, she ran his studio, and eventually they were doing jobs together. Then she began getting her own jobs, and displaying her own work. Almost all of her pictures were taken while she lived in Mexico City. Albers was able to gain access to a set of photos and documents that were among the things kept by her husband's family; the number of her known photos has grown from around 250 to 400. This photo, of a puppeteer's hands, is on display in the Minneapolis Institute of Art. To look at more of her photos, check out this set of links on the OCAIW site.

After Weston's departure, she became involved with the Cuban JulioAntonio Mella, journalist, political organizer and communist party founder. One night as they were walking together, he was gunned down. Was he killed by Cuban dictator Machado's operatives, as is still claimed in Cuba today? Was he a victim of anti-Trotskyite purge? Was Stalinist agent Vittorio Vidali, whom Tina was later to marry, involved in his death? Tina herself was accused of Mella's murder, but the press attacked her as much for her sexual freedom as for her politics, publishing nude photographs taken by Weston, and she was forced to leave Mexico after a sensationalistic trial. In Europe, she stopped taking pictures, and worked as a spy/agent for the Soviet Union. She married Vidali, known to be a Soviet thug, and he apparently was abusive to her. This part of her life is subject to intense debate. She met La Pasionara in Moscow, and went to Spain during the Civil War she worked as a nurse with an ambulance crew. Forced to leave Spain after the defeat of the Republican cause, she returned to Mexico, where she died shortly after in circumstances that were surrounded, once again, by scandal and mystery. She was apparently quite ill, but others have claimed she was killed.

I've read many conflicting accounts. This article by Peter Byrne seems to me to synthesize quite well the the dilemma faced by the biographer of Tina Modotti: getting the history right while doing justice to the amazing drama of her life. He points to one of Diego Rivera's mural panels ,often called "In the Arsenal," as a symbol of this tension. That's Tina, in the corner, looking at Mella, while Vidali in the black hat looks at her.
Frida's in the middle, handing out ammunition.