ZONAMACO 2022

“…The photographs of the Huichol by Pablo Ortiz Monasterio—taken on some twenty trips over the past three decades—reveal abundant evidence of cultural survival (what the Huichol call “la costumbre”), made possible by their extraordinary resistance to the religious, nationalist, and economic forces that have long assaulted—and that continue to assault—Indigenous communities everywhere. Though Ortiz Monasterio is also an outsider, he does not operate—like the anthropologist Lumholtz or the etnographer Diguet—as an old-fashioned preservationist, nor is he confident in the superiority of Western culture, nor is his work only destined for museum vitrines or archives. Rather, these complex images are the result of long and patient attempts at negotiation and collaboration, of working with the Huichol, amongst them, and ultimately making pictures as much for them as for audiences far from the Sierra Madre. In 1996, Fernando Ortiz Monasterio, an ecologist and engineer, was invited to design a bridge to allow the Huichol to safely cross a deep riverbed that became an impassable and dangerous torrent during the summer rains. An image by his brother Pablo records the bloody sacred sacrifice that celebrated its completion, just as he later documented a Huichol pilgrimage to another suspension bridge, in distant Brooklyn. Perhaps the only ethical position of the contemporary photographer engaged with Indigenous subjects is to work as a bridge or conduit, as a sanctioned recorder of sacrifices, pilgrimages, and other ceremonies—some more secret than others. These remain in the hands of the Huichol, and none of us will ever truly comprehend their spiritual meanings.” James Oles, Phd. Art Historian

“…The photographs of the Huichol by Pablo Ortiz Monasterio—taken on some twenty trips over the past three decades—reveal abundant evidence of cultural survival (what the Huichol call “la costumbre”), made possible by their extraordinary resistance to the religious, nationalist, and economic forces that have long assaulted—and that continue to assault—Indigenous communities everywhere. Though Ortiz Monasterio is also an outsider, he does not operate—like the anthropologist Lumholtz or the etnographer Diguet—as an old-fashioned preservationist, nor is he confident in the superiority of Western culture, nor is his work only destined for museum vitrines or archives. Rather, these complex images are the result of long and patient attempts at negotiation and collaboration, of working with the Huichol, amongst them, and ultimately making pictures as much for them as for audiences far from the Sierra Madre. In 1996, Fernando Ortiz Monasterio, an ecologist and engineer, was invited to design a bridge to allow the Huichol to safely cross a deep riverbed that became an impassable and dangerous torrent during the summer rains. An image by his brother Pablo records the bloody sacred sacrifice that celebrated its completion, just as he later documented a Huichol pilgrimage to another suspension bridge, in distant Brooklyn. Perhaps the only ethical position of the contemporary photographer engaged with Indigenous subjects is to work as a bridge or conduit, as a sanctioned recorder of sacrifices, pilgrimages, and other ceremonies—some more secret than others. These remain in the hands of the Huichol, and none of us will ever truly comprehend their spiritual meanings.” James Oles, Phd. Art Historian

“…The photographs of the Huichol by Pablo Ortiz Monasterio—taken on some twenty trips over the past three decades—reveal abundant evidence of cultural survival (what the Huichol call “la costumbre”), made possible by their extraordinary resistance to the religious, nationalist, and economic forces that have long assaulted—and that continue to assault—Indigenous communities everywhere. Though Ortiz Monasterio is also an outsider, he does not operate—like the anthropologist Lumholtz or the etnographer Diguet—as an old-fashioned preservationist, nor is he confident in the superiority of Western culture, nor is his work only destined for museum vitrines or archives. Rather, these complex images are the result of long and patient attempts at negotiation and collaboration, of working with the Huichol, amongst them, and ultimately making pictures as much for them as for audiences far from the Sierra Madre. In 1996, Fernando Ortiz Monasterio, an ecologist and engineer, was invited to design a bridge to allow the Huichol to safely cross a deep riverbed that became an impassable and dangerous torrent during the summer rains. An image by his brother Pablo records the bloody sacred sacrifice that celebrated its completion, just as he later documented a Huichol pilgrimage to another suspension bridge, in distant Brooklyn. Perhaps the only ethical position of the contemporary photographer engaged with Indigenous subjects is to work as a bridge or conduit, as a sanctioned recorder of sacrifices, pilgrimages, and other ceremonies—some more secret than others. These remain in the hands of the Huichol, and none of us will ever truly comprehend their spiritual meanings.” James Oles, Phd. Art Historian

“…The photographs of the Huichol by Pablo Ortiz Monasterio—taken on some twenty trips over the past three decades—reveal abundant evidence of cultural survival (what the Huichol call “la costumbre”), made possible by their extraordinary resistance to the religious, nationalist, and economic forces that have long assaulted—and that continue to assault—Indigenous communities everywhere. Though Ortiz Monasterio is also an outsider, he does not operate—like the anthropologist Lumholtz or the etnographer Diguet—as an old-fashioned preservationist, nor is he confident in the superiority of Western culture, nor is his work only destined for museum vitrines or archives. Rather, these complex images are the result of long and patient attempts at negotiation and collaboration, of working with the Huichol, amongst them, and ultimately making pictures as much for them as for audiences far from the Sierra Madre. In 1996, Fernando Ortiz Monasterio, an ecologist and engineer, was invited to design a bridge to allow the Huichol to safely cross a deep riverbed that became an impassable and dangerous torrent during the summer rains. An image by his brother Pablo records the bloody sacred sacrifice that celebrated its completion, just as he later documented a Huichol pilgrimage to another suspension bridge, in distant Brooklyn. Perhaps the only ethical position of the contemporary photographer engaged with Indigenous subjects is to work as a bridge or conduit, as a sanctioned recorder of sacrifices, pilgrimages, and other ceremonies—some more secret than others. These remain in the hands of the Huichol, and none of us will ever truly comprehend their spiritual meanings.” James Oles, Phd. Art Historian

“…The photographs of the Huichol by Pablo Ortiz Monasterio—taken on some twenty trips over the past three decades—reveal abundant evidence of cultural survival (what the Huichol call “la costumbre”), made possible by their extraordinary resistance to the religious, nationalist, and economic forces that have long assaulted—and that continue to assault—Indigenous communities everywhere. Though Ortiz Monasterio is also an outsider, he does not operate—like the anthropologist Lumholtz or the etnographer Diguet—as an old-fashioned preservationist, nor is he confident in the superiority of Western culture, nor is his work only destined for museum vitrines or archives. Rather, these complex images are the result of long and patient attempts at negotiation and collaboration, of working with the Huichol, amongst them, and ultimately making pictures as much for them as for audiences far from the Sierra Madre. In 1996, Fernando Ortiz Monasterio, an ecologist and engineer, was invited to design a bridge to allow the Huichol to safely cross a deep riverbed that became an impassable and dangerous torrent during the summer rains. An image by his brother Pablo records the bloody sacred sacrifice that celebrated its completion, just as he later documented a Huichol pilgrimage to another suspension bridge, in distant Brooklyn. Perhaps the only ethical position of the contemporary photographer engaged with Indigenous subjects is to work as a bridge or conduit, as a sanctioned recorder of sacrifices, pilgrimages, and other ceremonies—some more secret than others. These remain in the hands of the Huichol, and none of us will ever truly comprehend their spiritual meanings.” James Oles, Phd. Art Historian

“A photographic series that introduces us to the Afro-descendant that has lived in Mexican territory since the time of the conquest. The project speaks allegorically about the past of this black community and its members’ journey through the fluctuations of colonial history, their integration into the Mexican territory, and their sense of identity within it. Yet that past isn’t merely a descriptive historical concept; it is, above all, a definition of the present. A present, in the case of their Afro-Mexican descendants, that remains marginal, unstable, and immemorial.” International Center of photography IPC NYC “Beginning in 1570, enslaved blacks were brought in large numbers from Africa to Mexico as the principal workforce in various domains, such as mining, cattle-raising, and fishing, but also housekeeping and other occupations. Today, about ten percent of Mexicans identify as black. After the struggle for independence had begun and slavery was abolished, blacks formed communities mainly in Veracruz and in the Costa Chica region of Guerrero and Oaxaca. It was in this region of the Pacific coast that I first encountered this culture of African descent. I understood its importance and realized how it had remained invisible throughout the history of Mexico. In spite of being the country's “third root”, it was not until 2015 that it even began to be acknowledged by Mexico’s constitutional laws. Spurred on by personal curiosity, I started researching what eventually led to The Maroons and Their Fandango, a project in which photography allowed me to translate into images certain historic elements that refer to the current construction of the identity of people who refer to themselves as Afro-Mexican.” Mara Sánchez Renero

“March 2020. The Eternal City; Rome is deserted, confined. Only four artists roam the Villa Médici in a foremost deep artistic confinement. Among them, the photography artists Edouard Taufenbach and Bastien Pourtout observe in this unprecedented episode of suspended time: the gradual arrival of the swallows. Intrigued by these birds —which do not exist in the wild but only in human coexistence— they decide to capture their flight, a movement of freedom both in this unprecedented period and forever. Above the fence, the moments stolen from these great migrants follow one another, sometimes cropped, blurred or detailed in what looks like a monochromatic sky, but the intense lavender blue turns to taupe, gold or fiery orange. The colors of the sky come as a call to better observe the granularity of our world. This body of work was awarded the prestigious “À quatre mains Swiss Life” award (SwissLife Banque Privée), which rewarded the photographic duo and the musician Régis Campo, who composed two pieces for the series. The intermittent sequencing of the circular flight of the swallows with swirling movements of a repetitive music, circulates and embraces the works…” Sara Huhounenq, Beaux Arts Magazine, Paris. Le Bleu du Ciel by Taufenbach has been exhibited in Roubaix, Arles, Bordeaux and recently at La Galerie Nationale Jeu de Paume in Paris, as part of the oeuvre recently included in the prestigious Thomas Walter MoMA NYC collection.

“Upon two recurring elements: graphite —as a carbon mineral material— and drawing —as an expression of reality in two dimensions— Luis Canseco expands his artistic practice in a myriad of representations and images, as the constitutive instrumental conduits of the first act of his artistic production.… His work brings together drawings, sculptures, installations and intervened photographs inspired by his walks through the hills and mountains of Oaxaca as well as its surroundings. The works refer to the endemic nature of the region; such as the flowers of the guaje, de mayo, the bougainvillea and the magnolia, as well as his flowering... which bring to the artist the deep memory of his grandmother.. His sculptural objects go beyond the bidimensional practice appropriating the space as the graphite expands to dimensions equivalent to a mountain. Drawing, multi-representation, polarity and scale; conspire to expound the artist’s ideological interests. Adorno and Flusser agree that "Technique is a prison that limits the environment and conditions its ideology." Luis transmutes said condition and uses those elements, imprinting on them an almost metaphysical presence, to give the viewer the possibility to appreciate his work as a positive or negative representation and revealing processes that are reminiscent of magic, in order to generate images allegorical to poetry…” Dulce Pinzón, curator.

“After years of research, Edouatd Taufenbach was able to work with an exceptional collection of anonymous images that director Sébastien Lifshitz has been gathering over several decades… By selecting with obsessive care, coherent corpuses of rare snapshots of leisure, pleasure and desire; he multiplied these silver on gelatin plates to be then fragmented and manually rearranged, sometimes using different scales, in a composition stemming from a rule of mathematical nature [that refers both to digital and the beginning of the cinema]. The latter is specific to each one of the original images which, in a way, impose it. It points to, highlights and amplifies a formal or narrative aspect. The curves of a body here, a gesture there… Conversely it also allows the complete reinterpretation of the image, the invention of a new one: Who would suspect that this bouquet of feminine silhouettes comes from a horizontal image featuring a rather sensible farandole of bathers? In any case Édouard Taufenbach has worked with an open jubilation. —I inject cinema, time and rhythm to my images. The viewer is the one who operates the fi lm strip— he says”. Étienne Hatt, Curator

“After years of research, Edouatd Taufenbach was able to work with an exceptional collection of anonymous images that director Sébastien Lifshitz has been gathering over several decades… By selecting with obsessive care, coherent corpuses of rare snapshots of leisure, pleasure and desire; he multiplied these silver on gelatin plates to be then fragmented and manually rearranged, sometimes using different scales, in a composition stemming from a rule of mathematical nature [that refers both to digital and the beginning of the cinema]. The latter is specific to each one of the original images which, in a way, impose it. It points to, highlights and amplifies a formal or narrative aspect. The curves of a body here, a gesture there… Conversely it also allows the complete reinterpretation of the image, the invention of a new one: Who would suspect that this bouquet of feminine silhouettes comes from a horizontal image featuring a rather sensible farandole of bathers? In any case Édouard Taufenbach has worked with an open jubilation. —I inject cinema, time and rhythm to my images. The viewer is the one who operates the fi lm strip— he says”. Étienne Hatt, Curator

“After years of research, Edouatd Taufenbach was able to work with an exceptional collection of anonymous images that director Sébastien Lifshitz has been gathering over several decades… By selecting with obsessive care, coherent corpuses of rare snapshots of leisure, pleasure and desire; he multiplied these silver on gelatin plates to be then fragmented and manually rearranged, sometimes using different scales, in a composition stemming from a rule of mathematical nature [that refers both to digital and the beginning of the cinema]. The latter is specific to each one of the original images which, in a way, impose it. It points to, highlights and amplifies a formal or narrative aspect. The curves of a body here, a gesture there… Conversely it also allows the complete reinterpretation of the image, the invention of a new one: Who would suspect that this bouquet of feminine silhouettes comes from a horizontal image featuring a rather sensible farandole of bathers? In any case Édouard Taufenbach has worked with an open jubilation. —I inject cinema, time and rhythm to my images. The viewer is the one who operates the fi lm strip— he says”. Étienne Hatt, Curator

“After years of research, Edouatd Taufenbach was able to work with an exceptional collection of anonymous images that director Sébastien Lifshitz has been gathering over several decades… By selecting with obsessive care, coherent corpuses of rare snapshots of leisure, pleasure and desire; he multiplied these silver on gelatin plates to be then fragmented and manually rearranged, sometimes using different scales, in a composition stemming from a rule of mathematical nature [that refers both to digital and the beginning of the cinema]. The latter is specific to each one of the original images which, in a way, impose it. It points to, highlights and amplifies a formal or narrative aspect. The curves of a body here, a gesture there… Conversely it also allows the complete reinterpretation of the image, the invention of a new one: Who would suspect that this bouquet of feminine silhouettes comes from a horizontal image featuring a rather sensible farandole of bathers? In any case Édouard Taufenbach has worked with an open jubilation. —I inject cinema, time and rhythm to my images. The viewer is the one who operates the fi lm strip— he says”. Étienne Hatt, Curator

“…just like László Moholy-Nagy conceived in the 1920's his photograms to challenge the socalled optical truth requested to the photographers of that time, the Metagraphs of Carlos Aguirre, allude from their title to the intention of transcending disciplinary artistic production, insinuating a guide that is also a provocation. Composed of an accumulation of photographic fragments, meticulously assembled in collages that would look like utopian architectural models or the Metaverse’s scaffolding whose basement is barely built today; his Metagraphs are inherently unclassifiable. These works, in addition to constituting an accumulation of fragments and photographic materials, exist as unique objects that refuse the ad-infinitum reproductivity proper to the photo. In them the domain of photographic, sculptural and installation techniques coincide. The viewer observes them inside a box hanging on the wall, as if it were a painting that, without being exactly one, suddenly went from a two-dimensional plane to the third dimension; just as the digital reality promises us that the future will be in a virtually parallel world. Due to the way in which they are constructed, Aguirre's Metagraphs reveal themselves as sculptures or encapsulated installations to portray a Whole from fragmentation. In this body of work we have access to entire trips, from takeoff to destination; to domestic spaces viewed from different planes; or to confinement and its various possibilities of freedom as some kind zen digital landscapes to guide us in chaos. Its folds, images, textures and scales generate shadows, lines, rhythm and perspectives with movement, like a living imaginary resisting to be captured.” Arturo Delgado founder of ALMANAQUE

“…just like László Moholy-Nagy conceived in the 1920's his photograms to challenge the socalled optical truth requested to the photographers of that time, the Metagraphs of Carlos Aguirre, allude from their title to the intention of transcending disciplinary artistic production, insinuating a guide that is also a provocation. Composed of an accumulation of photographic fragments, meticulously assembled in collages that would look like utopian architectural models or the Metaverse’s scaffolding whose basement is barely built today; his Metagraphs are inherently unclassifiable. These works, in addition to constituting an accumulation of fragments and photographic materials, exist as unique objects that refuse the ad-infinitum reproductivity proper to the photo. In them the domain of photographic, sculptural and installation techniques coincide. The viewer observes them inside a box hanging on the wall, as if it were a painting that, without being exactly one, suddenly went from a two-dimensional plane to the third dimension; just as the digital reality promises us that the future will be in a virtually parallel world. Due to the way in which they are constructed, Aguirre's Metagraphs reveal themselves as sculptures or encapsulated installations to portray a Whole from fragmentation. In this body of work we have access to entire trips, from takeoff to destination; to domestic spaces viewed from different planes; or to confinement and its various possibilities of freedom as some kind zen digital landscapes to guide us in chaos. Its folds, images, textures and scales generate shadows, lines, rhythm and perspectives with movement, like a living imaginary resisting to be captured.” Arturo Delgado founder of ALMANAQUE

“…just like László Moholy-Nagy conceived in the 1920's his photograms to challenge the socalled optical truth requested to the photographers of that time, the Metagraphs of Carlos Aguirre, allude from their title to the intention of transcending disciplinary artistic production, insinuating a guide that is also a provocation. Composed of an accumulation of photographic fragments, meticulously assembled in collages that would look like utopian architectural models or the Metaverse’s scaffolding whose basement is barely built today; his Metagraphs are inherently unclassifiable. These works, in addition to constituting an accumulation of fragments and photographic materials, exist as unique objects that refuse the ad-infinitum reproductivity proper to the photo. In them the domain of photographic, sculptural and installation techniques coincide. The viewer observes them inside a box hanging on the wall, as if it were a painting that, without being exactly one, suddenly went from a two-dimensional plane to the third dimension; just as the digital reality promises us that the future will be in a virtually parallel world. Due to the way in which they are constructed, Aguirre's Metagraphs reveal themselves as sculptures or encapsulated installations to portray a Whole from fragmentation. In this body of work we have access to entire trips, from takeoff to destination; to domestic spaces viewed from different planes; or to confinement and its various possibilities of freedom as some kind zen digital landscapes to guide us in chaos. Its folds, images, textures and scales generate shadows, lines, rhythm and perspectives with movement, like a living imaginary resisting to be captured.” Arturo Delgado founder of ALMANAQUE

“…just like László Moholy-Nagy conceived in the 1920's his photograms to challenge the socalled optical truth requested to the photographers of that time, the Metagraphs of Carlos Aguirre, allude from their title to the intention of transcending disciplinary artistic production, insinuating a guide that is also a provocation. Composed of an accumulation of photographic fragments, meticulously assembled in collages that would look like utopian architectural models or the Metaverse’s scaffolding whose basement is barely built today; his Metagraphs are inherently unclassifiable. These works, in addition to constituting an accumulation of fragments and photographic materials, exist as unique objects that refuse the ad-infinitum reproductivity proper to the photo. In them the domain of photographic, sculptural and installation techniques coincide. The viewer observes them inside a box hanging on the wall, as if it were a painting that, without being exactly one, suddenly went from a two-dimensional plane to the third dimension; just as the digital reality promises us that the future will be in a virtually parallel world. Due to the way in which they are constructed, Aguirre's Metagraphs reveal themselves as sculptures or encapsulated installations to portray a Whole from fragmentation. In this body of work we have access to entire trips, from takeoff to destination; to domestic spaces viewed from different planes; or to confinement and its various possibilities of freedom as some kind zen digital landscapes to guide us in chaos. Its folds, images, textures and scales generate shadows, lines, rhythm and perspectives with movement, like a living imaginary resisting to be captured.” Arturo Delgado founder of ALMANAQUE

“…just like László Moholy-Nagy conceived in the 1920's his photograms to challenge the socalled optical truth requested to the photographers of that time, the Metagraphs of Carlos Aguirre, allude from their title to the intention of transcending disciplinary artistic production, insinuating a guide that is also a provocation. Composed of an accumulation of photographic fragments, meticulously assembled in collages that would look like utopian architectural models or the Metaverse’s scaffolding whose basement is barely built today; his Metagraphs are inherently unclassifiable. These works, in addition to constituting an accumulation of fragments and photographic materials, exist as unique objects that refuse the ad-infinitum reproductivity proper to the photo. In them the domain of photographic, sculptural and installation techniques coincide. The viewer observes them inside a box hanging on the wall, as if it were a painting that, without being exactly one, suddenly went from a two-dimensional plane to the third dimension; just as the digital reality promises us that the future will be in a virtually parallel world. Due to the way in which they are constructed, Aguirre's Metagraphs reveal themselves as sculptures or encapsulated installations to portray a Whole from fragmentation. In this body of work we have access to entire trips, from takeoff to destination; to domestic spaces viewed from different planes; or to confinement and its various possibilities of freedom as some kind zen digital landscapes to guide us in chaos. Its folds, images, textures and scales generate shadows, lines, rhythm and perspectives with movement, like a living imaginary resisting to be captured.” Arturo Delgado founder of ALMANAQUE