In this series of snapshots, the artist appears with his naked body in diverse and unconventional positions. He does so in relation to a multiplicity of materials; among them, animal skins, such as a crocodile with which he seems to establish a link from the organic. It could be said that from this animality he has taken some of his physical postures (No. 62, No. 63); or, that it suggests or evidences some kind of kinship or familiarity. With frames that focus on parts of the body such as the legs or the genitals, underlining their enormous plastic potential, the self-portraits were also pictorially modified.
As in his pictorial, graphic and sculptural work, these photographic productions by Francisco Toledo configure a meeting space between materials and traditions of representation. Likewise, the series of snapshots can be situated as part of a constant exercise of self-representation through photography that lasted through the 1990s, which was widely known as the fascinating image Immobile Mues 1 (1993), where his body lying on a mat with its limbs extended hybridizes with - and in a certain way revives - the skin of a reptile in front of which his erect penis protrudes. Regarding painting, on the other hand, multiple essays on self-representation were brought together in the exhibition 'Naa Pia’, Myself' (IAGO, Oaxaca, 2017).
As the poet David Huerta has stated, in Toledo's self-portraits an overflow of an artistic genre typical of modernity is tangible. Very little remains of a mimetic or conventional representation centered on the face of the subject. On the other hand, he proposes to attend to his forays into the genre due to its characteristic mutability. “We witness how it is studied: Toledo looks into the mirror, into the water, looks into a glass and observes a face made with animal parts, covered with the epidermis of a reptile. He looks at himself, he paints himself, with an animal or with death on his head."[1]
Like other of his works, 'Woman Attacked by Fish' (1972), the relationships between the animal and the sexual are a possible angle of approach. However, it is pertinent to observe the tensions between the constructions of the natural and the cultural in what has been called their erotic, sensual ingenuity or the role of the sexual drive. In this regard, the response that the artist gave to the journalist Silvia Lemus in an interview for Channel 22 is of interest: “I make these images as part of a culture that exists in the town. I don't know if it is the special case of Juchitan, but in the towns of the Costa Chica they speak frankly about sex. As there is no force of religion, perhaps this has made us very loose at the mouth to talk about sex or treat it in a more relaxed, more natural way. In ours there is a tradition of rude, erotic tales, there are many plays on words. I think a little bit comes from that. In the Zapotec language everything is said, there is nothing that is hidden or that causes shame. That can happen in my painting and in my images.”
CGV- January, 2021
References
David Huerta, “Automímesis con iguanas en el trasfondo,” in Francisco Toledo. Obra 1957 – 2017, Fomento Cultural Banamex, México, 2016. Consulted in: https://www.proceso.com.mx/reportajes/2019/9/14/autorretratista-231092.html
https://issuu.com/lajornadaonline/docs/nuestro_toledo
https://museoamparo.noticiases.info/cultura/laberinto/el-genio-de-francisco-toledo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PNYv5ZUhJU
https://www.proceso.com.mx/nacional/2016/10/2/la-pasion-fotografica-de-toledo-171281.html
[1] David Huerta, “Automímesis con iguanas en el trasfondo”, in Francisco Toledo. Obra 1957 – 2017, Fomento Cultural Banamex, México, 2016. Consulted in: https://www.proceso.com.mx/reportajes/2019/9/14/autorretratista-231092.html
In this series of snapshots, the artist appears with his naked body in diverse and unconventional positions. He does so in relation to a multiplicity of materials; among them, animal skins, such as a crocodile with which he seems to establish a link from the organic. It could be said that from this animality he has taken some of his physical postures (No. 62, No. 63); or, that it suggests or evidences some kind of kinship or familiarity. With frames that focus on parts of the body such as the legs or the genitals, underlining their enormous plastic potential, the self-portraits were also pictorially modified.
