The camera turns

Photographic Work by Genaro Sántiz, Abraham Gómez, and Marco Girón, Based on the historical work of Vicente Kramsky

Galería MUY is excited to invite the public to enjoy this photographic exhibition by Genaro Sántiz, Abraham Gómez, and Marco Girón, reflecting on the work of legendary photographer Vicente Kramsky, focusing on the indigenous Chiapaneco communities.

The three projects consist of selecting images from Kramsky’s collection to create thematic projects in the hands of each artist, juxtaposing or combining their own work to invite reflection on the transitions and reaffirmations of the culture of their indigenous communities: Sántiz and Gómez on San Juan Chamula, and Girón on Tenejapa.

We compare the movement of this exhibition to a “Möbius strip”:

We travel from the present to the past, arriving back at the present and future. The selected works of Kramsky generally date back to the years between 1950 and 1970. The works of the artists from Chamula and Tenejapa are contemporary, and the “multi-aesthetic” collages impact us with their interplay of time, leading us to consider the future of the Mayan people in the Highlands of Chiapas.

In La Cámara Gira (The Spinning Camera), the viewer is drawn to look through the “window” of the photographic frame, seeing the staged themes, subtly yet powerfully guided by the artist’s own physical, emotional, and moral positioning. The creativity of the artist shifts the point of view, from the outsider looking at the indigenous community, to the indigenous people observing their own community, the other, or themselves.

The Maya artist may have taken the photograph, selected it from Kramsky’s archive for their purposes, or fused images from different periods and perspectives to create a composite of gazes that speaks to the moving cultural identity, based on memory and current creativity.

Exhibition Projects of La Cámara Gira:

“Transition” – Genaro Sántiz’s project stems from a reflection on the foot: its form, function, contact with the earth, and its aestheticization. It reflects on the huarache, which becomes a shoe, which becomes a boot; and what it says about the redefinition of gender, the relationship between genders, power, poverty, and spirituality.

“The Mirrors of Carnival” – Marco Girón’s project revolves around the infinite expression of the face, the solemn portrait of the authority figure in the village, the freedom of the smile, the possibility of equal gender respect, not dreamed of in capitalist Western cultures. And the oppression of gender and class systems; all within the framework of the Carnival celebration.

“The Same Gaze” – Abraham Gómez’s project explores the public aspect of the festival and market, and the private world of the home and intimacy of the couple. In the end, it affirms the renewal processes of young indigenous people’s identity, who recreate themselves through multiculturalism, while intrigued and dedicated to the ancient people that are their distant or direct heritage.

The four photographers reveal the millennia-old Mayan culture, which imposes itself with great dignity captured in the faces, landscapes, and homes of the people. Poverty is confronted, provoking consternation, and at times it disappears, serving as a backdrop to the superior simplicity of life as an active custom.

In this exhibition, the curatorial function was dispersed among the authors of the three projects, as well as John Burstein and Genaro Sántiz, who acted as co-curators. Emilia Kramsky and her family contributed to the conceptualization of the project with its historical element and made Kramsky’s work available for this exhibition. Jessica Luna (“Lola Laser”), from Mexico City, did the printing with her wonderfully calibrated eye. We also thank Rufino Sántiz and Josué Gómez from Galería MUY for their logistical support.

As a final note, it’s important to point out that Vicente Kramsky’s photographic work was analog in format and later digitized. The contemporary photographers used digital cameras.

Genaro Sántiz

Genaro Sántiz (Cruzton, Chamula, 1979): a formalist experimenter who seeks beauty in the simple and powerful. He learned photographic technique at a young age in San Cristóbal de Las Casas through a free sociocultural expression project (Indigenous Photographic Archive of Chiapas), and transformed his practice by experimenting with semi-abstract images, blending nature and culture themes. He published the book Pox (2005) and has exhibited his work in Mexico, the United States, and Europe.

[Sántiz writes:]

Historical and contemporary photographs transmit dreams, thoughts flowing from within to the outside. They incorporate themselves from the very heartbeat in our veins.

My photographic work interacts with the work of the late photographer Vicente Kramsky from San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Thanks to him and his family, along with my work, we can enter a world, visually relocating ourselves, evoking the transition to the past world of our grandparents.

With the black-and-white images, contrasting with the world we live in, filled with colors, I seek an energy of commotion in very different ways.

Through my gaze, I try to introduce another perspective, provoking a sensitivity, the aesthetic freedom in these times that have been changing the society of indigenous peoples. The images I selected from Kramsky’s work, the ones I created myself, and the ones I composed from both our images, have feet as the central theme, which is one of the most important parts of the body. This especially because of their supportive function and their gift of movement. Thanks to the feet, we jump, dance, and run. I saw human strength before and now through the movements of the feet.

Other elements I emphasize in this project are the clothing mixed with Western styles. This argument of transition doesn’t lose the origin of the people, which remains dignified in the interior of each individual.

These interpretations of the work, combining the reality of the present and the past, create an interconnection that provokes its own magical moments. Visual creation never has an end, as, if that were not enough, it can be printed and exhibited in as many different forms as the technique offers, and can be interpreted in multiple ways. An image that represents a moment, which is not always a representative image but always manifests itself as social, philosophical, psychological, poetic, religious, and political.

Art is an emotional food that is born in the heart and mind, from relationships, transmitting messages like happiness, sadness, anger, loneliness, bitterness, and melancholy.

All art is a light that contemplates its own value; it creates a bond of harmony, enriching the sense of living.

Marco Girón

Marco Girón (Tenejapa, 1983), a colorist of great humanistic sensitivity, seeks to reformulate the visual culture based on his traditions. A professional in the science/art of multicultural communication, a member of the Tragameluz photography collective, and founder of the first gallery in Tenejapa, Xojobal Sit-elewil. He is knowledgeable about and has studied the photography of non-Tenejapaneco participants in the famous Carnival of his town, using this information in this project. Girón has shown his photography in Chiapas, Veracruz, and other parts of Mexico.

Tajimal k’in, which in Spanish means Day of play, is the day when laughter, jokes, and pranks dominate the Carnival celebration of Tenejapa.

In the small valley, you can hear the sound of the flute, the drum, and the trumpet, as well as the hum of singers to the rhythm of the music, making the arrival of the carnival evident, the thirteen days of jokes and laughter.

On one side, the solemnity, the respect for authority that Vicente Kramsky’s gaze presents, and on the other, the joy, the essence of the carnival with laughter, mockery of life, and the rulers who have disappointed the people. It is in these moments that time becomes an accomplice in the meeting of two gazes, coming together to dialogue.

The exploration of the change in the woman’s status is an opportunity to make space for laughter, joy, and pranks.

Marco Girón’s Biography:

Born in Tenejapa, Chiapas; 1983.

Education: Higher Technical University in Informatics and a degree in Intercultural Communication (Universidad Tecnológica de la Selva and Universidad Intercultural de Chiapas, respectively).

Nature photographer, member of the Tragameluz photography collective (San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas). He has participated in collective exhibitions as part of the Tragameluz photography festival for seven consecutive years.

He has had solo and group exhibitions in Tenejapa, contributed to the nature photography exhibit at Galería MUY, and worked as an art critic for the photographic exhibition Photographic Interactions of Chiapas, presenting an installation of images on nature textures.

He works at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur in the Department of Diffusion and Communication, in charge of the Audiovisual Media area, conducting the ECOSUR Photographic Archive project and as photographer for various research projects in southeastern Mexico where ECOSUR has a presence.

Marco Girón is a cultural promoter for his town, initiating the use of technological tools to preserve the common good.

He is currently the director of Tenejapa’s first gallery, Xojobal Sit-elawil, a project born out of the need to preserve the collective memory of this place in the Highlands of Chiapas.

He initiated the Tenejapa Photographic Archive in 1999 due to a personal need to maintain family memory, and over time, this need became more general, as Tenejapa needed to preserve its collective memory through invaluable historical images.

Abraham Gómez

Abraham Gómez (San Juan Chamula, 1977), a conceptual artist using innovative techniques, seeks the truth in multicultural reality. He first picked up a camera professionally during a diploma course at the Chiapas Art Gymnasium (2012), and continued at the San Agustin Art Center (CASA) in Oaxaca, and the Center for the Image in Mexico City (2013). Since then, his works (both still and video) have been featured in the Indómito exhibition in New York and in the book Develar y Detonar: Contemporary Photography in Mexico (2015), presented in Madrid, Spain, and Mexico City.

The Same Gaze, Since I was a child, my grandmother and the elders of my community used to tell me about their lives, their homes, their landscapes, and their festivals. I always imagined what the past was like and wondered how much it had changed compared to the present, and I wanted to discover those moments. I began creating my own mental images to recreate the story of my grandmother.

Now, I discover in the photographs of a non-indigenous (kaxlan) Vicente Kramsky the present-past of my grandmother and the elders of my community. Through these images, I get to know part of what daily life was like for my ancestors.

My works show part of the daily life of the present and, with this, they engage in a dialogue with Kramsky’s works in a space that is both intimate and public at the same time. His gaze and mine merge with the images to create a single gaze that tells the everyday life, suffering, collectivism, transformation, and history of the people of San Juan Chamula.