Installation and photography by Cecilia Gómez and Margarita Martínez

While textiles are very ancient and art is timeless, textile-art is new: it dates from the mid-20th century. It is part of the experimentation with new media that is typical of modern and contemporary art, opening up new aesthetic experiences—this time based on the most artistic art of the Maya peoples: textiles.

Is it a coincidence that the artists around the world who work with fiber are almost always women? Clearly not; it is a conscious and political act of appropriation. These creators contribute to the interest in contemporary art in emphasizing the identities of artists. In textile art, then, “women’s work” becomes “art made by women.”

In this exhibition, Margarita Martínez and Cecilia Gómez each explore—each in her own way—textile art from both a personal and professional perspective, particularly through their belonging to and participation in the rich traditions of weaving, brocade, and embroidery of the Maya cultures of Chiapas.

They are steeped in the “language” of textiles, the “vocabulary” of figures—the frog, the serpent, the diamonds that are abstractions of worldview—and the narratives, which, as in Cecilia’s large backstrap loom piece, are restructured with a strong feminist message.

If in Western contemporary art the spotlight turns to creative process, in Maya art this is even more pronounced. The refined and arduous work of textile-making—deeply socialized, with dramatic gestures and almost ritual practices—is captured by Margarita’s camera with clarity and great dignity. It draws our attention to the dialogue between women and Mother Nature herself.

This is “social art.” In fact, both Gómez and Martínez are leaders in important weaving collectives in Chiapas. Nothing could be more natural: colleagues from Martínez’s collective contributed works to the installation built around her photography. And likewise Gómez, with her masterwork of the never-ending loom—like cultural life? like women’s work?

These pieces reflect a complex meditation on Maya textile craftsmanship and art, from the near-distance of professional women who have left their communities and family traditions only to return to them with both questions and profound admiration.

Margarita Martínez (Adolfo López Mateos, Huixtán, 1980; currently living in Ichinton, Chamula) is a native Tsotsil speaker, an embroiderer, and holds a PhD in linguistics. She is a professor and researcher at the University of Sciences and Arts of Chiapas (UNICACH). She is co-director of Club Balam (an international project of the Lower Eastside Girls’ Club, focused on photography with young people from Maya communities in Chiapas and New York). She is active in spaces for analysis and reflection on culture, language, and Indigenous and intercultural society (such as the Galería MUY itself). Margarita is a member of the collective Arte Yabtel Bats’i Antsetik, whose members are also featured in this exhibition. This series of photographs and its installation is an artistic work that is part of a research project in the Faculty of Humanities at UNICACH titled, “Between Lexicography and Ethnography: Linguistic Documentation on Wool Management and Backstrap Loom Weaving among Tsotsil Maya Women in San Juan Chamula, Chiapas”, also supported by Prodep/Promep of the Mexican Ministry of Public Education.

Cecilia Gómez (Chonomyakilo’, San Andrés Larráinzar, 1992; currently living in San Cristóbal de Las Casas), is a native Tsotsil speaker and a weaver. She founded and was the former president of the Kiptik weavers’ collective. She served as field coordinator with Aid to Artisans (an international organization that advises textile artisans on design, quality, and the global market). She has conducted backstrap loom workshops in collaboration with fashion designer Carla Fernández, both in the United States and at the Museo Jumex in Mexico City. Cecy has presented Chiapas textile art in various forums in Mexico and in countries such as Canada, the United States, and France.

Curating and exhibition design were carried out collectively by the staff of Espacio de Arte Galería MUY (John Burstein, Martha Alejandro, Rufino Sántiz, and Josué Gómez) along with the artists. Thanks to Abraham Gómez for his guidance and to Isaac Guzmán of Bats’i Lab for the photographic printing.

J. Burstein W

October 2018