Yik'al Xojobal, Abstract art

With great pleasure, we present to the public the exhibition “Yik’al Xojobal, Abstract Art in Chiapas” at the Galería MUY. (“Yik’al Xojobal” means “abstract” in Tsotsil.) The Galería MUY is dedicated to promoting contemporary Maya and Zoque art, and on this occasion, we bring together paintings and sculptures by four contemporary Chiapanecan artists, organized around an extensive selection of graphic works by artist Janet Marren. (Marren’s retrospective is simultaneously exhibited at Na Bolom and the Gallery.) In this Galería MUY project, we set up a dialogue between Marren and the late master Sebastián Sántiz, alongside artists Saúl Kak, Johana Uvence, and Gerardo K’ulej. All of them receive and channel strong inspiration from Chiapas, especially the indigenous Chiapas.

As part of the curatorial function of the Galería MUY, we were able to explore and select graphic works from Marren’s pictorial collection at Na Bolom, with the purpose of forming this exhibition. We engaged in conversations and selected works from indigenous and Chiapanecan artists who use the medium of abstract art. The juxtaposition of works by the four contemporary artists with those of Marren (who painted in Chiapas during the latter half of the last century) leads to a series of questions:

How does Chiapas affect the abstract art created here?
How is abstract art incorporated into Chiapanecan and indigenous art?

“Abstract”?

Abstract art always instantly confuses us, as we move from the use of the eyes to navigate the world to their metaphysical use. We blink, and we’re interested (not in what it represents, but) in what it makes us feel, think, and see in a new way.

Let the verse be like a key. Let it open a thousand doors. A leaf falls; something flies by; Whatever the eyes see is created, And the soul of the listener remains trembling. (Vicente Huidobro)

Yik’al xojobal: “dark shadow” in Tsotsil. It refers to the essence that is there but we do not distinguish, it is in motion, or abstraction.

We thank Na Bolom for the opportunity to show this work, and we acknowledge the immense contribution of its director, Patricia López, along with the director of the Gallery, Andrea Bentancour, in conceptualizing and organizing this joint retrospective, “Janet Marren, from New York to the Maya World.” Additionally, pieces by Marren from the private collections of Kees Grootenboer and John Burstein are also displayed. The works of Sántiz, Kak, Uvence, and K’ulej are from the artists or their families, to whom we are grateful for their generous contributions.

It is true that Maya and Zoque artists tend to paint figuratively. It is also not surprising that some are strongly drawn to abstraction. We consider that this reflects, in fact, something of the Maya-Zoque worldview: nature is alive; humans are part of it; their dynamic interpenetration blurs the difference between subject and object. Space, the material, the temporal transmit feelings. The abstractionists paint this.

In this way, we selected works with the goal of painting without representation. And without faces, trees, animals, or other representations suddenly emerging from these “abstract jungles,” for that is how it is. It could be more of a distraction than a discovery…

Janet Marren, Sebastián Sántiz, Saúl Kak, Johana Uvence, Gerardo K’ulej

We take advantage of a unique opportunity to immerse ourselves in the work of New York abstract school painter Janet Marren, who settled in San Cristóbal de las Casas from 1956 until her death here in 1998. (See attached curatorial text.) The Chiapanecan artists, except for Sebastián Sántiz, were just beginning their work when Marren passed away. But we found that the “pictorial dialogue” between all of them naturally and intensely occurs, because each artist, by freeing themselves from the mimetic, became a tracer of dark and bright shadows, consciously enriched by having something super-rational in common: “Chiapas.” (It’s in quotes because there is no exhaustive rational meaning.)

Invent new worlds and guard your word; The adjective, when it does not give life, kills. (Vicente Huidobro)

There is no metaphor or easy meaning, but by searching, questioning, and reencountering these meanings as a contribution from the viewer, the works acquire their own life. They make the works live.

Well, Janet painted abstractly before coming here (Chiapas). But she was influenced; that painting, for example, that’s Chamula. And if you look at it, those were the colors that people wore back then; and if you study it, you’ll see the flames of the candles…

So, of course, Chiapas impacted her. But really, I don’t truly capture the influences. I don’t know what was in her imagination, in her mind. (Marcey Jacobson)

Sebastián Sántiz (1955 – 2014) dedicated his life to painting and sculpture, and, while participating in exhibitions of his work in Mexico and Europe, he never left his hometown of Oxchuc, where he served for many years as the director of the Casa de la Cultura. He split his time between Oxchuc and Tuxtla, where he lived with his family and played a prominent role in the cultural life of the capital.

Sántiz explored his artistic skills in painting and drawing, encaustic, printmaking, and stone sculpture. In his figurative work, he used a style of emblematic brushstrokes, reminding us of Paul Klee’s work. In his abstract work, he allowed the canvas to darken, from which forms emerged with great subtlety.

We place a painting by Master Sántiz, referencing the Maya cross, next to one by Marren with a similar (non)reference, after its deconstruction and reconstruction.

Saúl Kak (1985; Esquipulas Guayaval, Rayón), a Zoque speaker, trained at UNICACH in Tuxtla, is a multimedia artist and activist. He frequently creates paintings in which he dominates abstraction, even though figurative figures painted in a figurative style occupy niches within the predominant abstract space. We point out that both Marren and Kak can create color planes that somehow play with the force of gravity by challenging it.

Johana Uvence (1977; Comitán), a prominent abstract painter with sensuality and strength thanks to her invented brushstroke application, perhaps designed to evoke thunder and tire tracks on airplane runways. Uvence studied visual arts at the University of Montemorelos, Nuevo León, from 1999 to 2003. She has been living in San Cristóbal for more than five years.

We very much hope the public takes advantage of the broader exhibition of Sebastián Sántiz’s work currently displayed at Na Bolom, curated by CELALI.

Her self-assessment as “more Chiapanecan than anyone” – with a smile and pride – is recognized in her palette selection with dark blues, greens, and reds, splashed with lighter shades. Marren makes a record of her own confrontation with the extreme climate of the Highlands of Chiapas and the dramatic shadows of this region.

Gerardo K’ulej (1988; Chilil, Huixtán), is an emerging sculptor, a resourceful explorer of the scientific mind applied through abstraction to the construction of artifacts made from natural materials and debris, with a concern for the manifestations of science by Maya communities and civilization. K’ulej studied biochemical engineering at the Tuxtla Gutiérrez Technological Institute at both the undergraduate and master’s levels. Since 2015, he has taught mathematics and science at the American School Foundation. He was introduced to sculpture through instruction by Swiss artist Federico Burkha; he is now a resident at the Galería MUY.

Marren was also concerned with the constructive physical mentality, as seen in her early work, when she still lived in New York, as seen in the selection of this exhibition.

Welcome to the participatory creation, between artist and audience, of the nonsensical cry: abstract art.