In this series of photographs, Lourdes Grobet portrays the appropriation of monuments and heritage elements of pre-Hispanic origin in different contexts of the country, from the southeast to Tijuana. These contemporary interpretations made in cement, fiberglass and other materials, interweave references from different cultures and periods.
The title of the series, in the form of a humorous neologism, refers to the ing of elements from the Mayan, Olmec and Aztec cultures, which are added to other architectural understandings. Among the photographs of the wide series that are part of the collection of the Amparo Museum, there is one where a pyramid, more miniature than monumental, is located in the courtyard of a house undoubtedly built in the twentieth century and covered with a kind of mural painting that could not be described as pre-Hispanic. In another, a large-scale Chac Mool rests on a building with large windows. Furthermore, the head of a feathered serpent looms as a decoration above a bar and the steps of another domestic pyramid—which we see behind a disco ball—lead to a second level more like a castle. Finally, the artist frames the Monumento a la Raza, located in Mexico City and completed in 1940, in which we find it strange that, despite being a pyramid, it is shaped by elements subsequent to the construction of Mexico as a modern nation (it is covered by the colors of the flag) and is surrounded by sculptural groups conceived in a European tradition.
Beyond the humor suggested by the images of these dissonant scenarios, it is interesting to situate them in the light of the discussions on national identity in Mexico during the 20th century: from the cultural mestizaje of the post-revolutionary project—with its indigenist discourse—to the postmodern environment of the 1980s, where the emptying of historical narratives and the cultural effects of the avalanche of images brought about by the neoliberal and globalized period were discussed.
“I succumbed to the call of pre-Hispanic Disney. The extraterritoriality of pre-Hispanic monuments, popularly reinterpreted today, makes me think about the precariousness of national identity. It is like a future foretold," the artist wrote about this set of images in 2005.
Lourdes Grobet has become deeply involved with the environments and processes she portrays. As in other series, in this one the framing presents us with unprecedented relationships with the everyday, the popular and, more broadly, with culture. In that sense, it shows us references that operate, rather than as a false past emptied of its ritual dimension and historical precision, as a dynamic present in a world undergoing transformation.
CGV- January, 2021
References:
https://lourdesgrobet.com/neolmayaztec/
Various authors, Lourdes Grobet, Conaculta/CENART/Centro de la Imagen/Turner, Mexico, 2005. See illustrated catadex, p. 468.
https://avinvestigacion.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/av09-luiscarlos.pdf
https://lourdesgrobet.com/conquista/
