“While there has been talk of the ‘anthropology of art’ and the ‘art of anthropology,’ in this exhibition, the artistic duo Margarita Martínez and Abraham Gómez complete the circle — (a de a)² — with an experiment in Maya art in which the socio-analytical confronts the gloriously aesthetic.

Challenging, this is art whose privileged audience is not the galleries (not even), but the Tsotsil people (and, of course, the rest of us are cordially invited). Focusing on the Carnival celebration in a Huixtecan community whose participation in it has fluctuated, this exhibition sparks reflections among Tsotsiles about the (re)valuation of tradition and ancestral knowledge. Huixtán is a special town, known for its independence (since it took up arms against the conqueror Luís Marín), resisting the forces of colonial assimilation, and at the same time, as the birthplace of great schoolmasters historically working throughout the state, as well as recognized professionals. It is a town defining its own process of negotiation between the traditional and the ‘modern’ with great creativity.

Martínez & Gómez challenge the limits of time and space daily. Photographer-artist Margarita Martínez has inspired young photographers in the Tsebetik Bolom program for six years. She holds a PhD in linguistics and is a professor-researcher at UNICACH in Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Together with her life partner Abraham Gómez, they live in his hometown, Ichinton, Chamula, and frequently visit Huixtán, Martínez’s native town, where they engage in professional-community work. Gómez fulfills community duties, without neglecting his successful career as a sales representative at Nissan, while studying conceptual photography and being an essential figure in new Mexican photography, offering a distinctive multicultural proposal, in whose practice Martínez always participates.

This exhibition has many levels. The active collaboration with the group of musicians and dancers Sakji’ in the ‘Tanchak’ project is essential, as Sakji’ is almost an institution of carnival art-knowledge, and this collaboration could only have occurred by arranging it ‘between fellow countrymen,’ creating an authentically Tsotsil dialogue. Thus, the use of Tsotsil—especially in the sacred jokes—reaches its rightful and natural dimension of importance and fun (different from when the language is reduced to exemplification, for example).

The visual language of ‘Tanchak’ forms an epic narrative made up of a whirl of colors of the visual phonetics characteristically Maya, the worthy and extravagant costumes, as well as serio-comic clownery, with bodies transformed into jaguar-men and whitened all over, expressing the creative chaos of Tanchak-Carnival, interpreted by the photographic duo specialized in semiology and conceptualism. Finally, the accompanying text by Martínez/Gómez—fundamental for understanding this proposal—explores what festive performance is (in contemporary art jargon). With the elements presented here, we appreciate the sociocultural-linguistic process made into community and procedural art, soaked in the values and codes of Maya culture.”