37 Citas Que NO Son ni Auto Ayuda ni Superación Personal (recopiladas por otros)

Exoneración:

Nada de esto es mío.

1."El homicidio siempre es un error. Nunca se debe hacer nada de lo que no se pueda hablar después de la cena."
Oscar Wilde

2."La cosa más difícil de comprender en ste mundo es el impuesto sobre la Renta"
Albert Einstein

3."Hijo, este mundo es tan raro que hasta es posible que exista El Espíritu Santo..."
Jorge L. Borges

4."Mi cerebro es el segundo de mis órganos favoritos"
Woody Allen

5."Si se pudiera morir de vergüenza, yo ya no estaría vivo"
Miguel Angel Buonarroti, al terminar las pinturas dentro de la Capilla Sixtina


6."Cada vez que pino un retrato pierdo un amigo"
John Singer Sargent

7."Aunque la vulgaridad se intelectualice, no deja de ser vulgaridad"
Norman Mailer

8."Es mejor mantener la boca cerrada y parecer idiota, que abrirla y disipar toda duda"
Mark Twain

9."Me gusta vivir pobre, pero con mucho dinero"
Pablo Picasso

10."Alguna películas acaban bien, simplemente porque acaban"
Federico Fellini

11"Duda de todo. Encuentra tu propia luz"
Buddha

12"Cuando el pueblo es difícil de conducir, es porque sabe demasiado"
Lao Tse

13"La sabiduría nos llega cuando ya no nos sirve para nada"
Gabriel García Márquez

14"Siempre he sido un payaso, eso me sitúa en un plano superior al de cualquier político"
Charlie Chaplin

15"Todas las cosas buenas son pecado o engordan"
Vox Populi

16"Por qué lo llaman amor, cuando quieren decir sexo?"
Groucho Marx

17"Mi pintura es una mierda"
Salvador Dalí

18"Yo no sé nada de música; en mi profesión, no lo necesito"
Elvis Presley

19"Presume de gavilán y no llega a zopilote"
Refrán mexicano

20"Necesitamos gente creyente"
Adolfo Hitler

21"No busco a Dios, mejor que El me busque." 

Sanai, Maestro Sufi

22"Soy como cualquier hombre: todo lo que tengo que hacer es satisfacer una demanda"

Al Capone

23"Quisiera hacer retratos que dentro de un siglo la gente viera como apariciones"

Vicente Van Gogh

24"Pintar es fácil cuando no se sabe como, pero muy difícil cuando si se sabe"

Edgar Degas (they should put this one on my tombstone)

25"Quiero asesinar a la pintura"

Joán Miró

26"Contra toda opinión, no son los pintores quienes hacen los cuadros, sino los espectadores"

Marcel Duchamp

27"Mi vida ha sido un fracaso. Mejor hubiera sido un pintor de flores"

Claude Monet

28"No mentí, simplemente dije cosas que no eran ciertas"

Richard Nixon

29"A muchos de los oprimidos les gustaría ser los opresores"

Napoleón Bonaparte

30."La verdad es tan rara que es una delicia decirla"

Emily Dickinson

31 "La mayoría de los tontos piensa que solo son ignorantes"

Ben Franklin

32 "El artista solo puede ser revolucionario o plagiario"

Paul Gauguin

33 "Hablo mucho de mí porque soy el hombre a quien más tengo a mano"

Miguel de Unamuno

34 "La violencia es profundamente moral"

Benito Mussolini

35 "Cuando la sangre corre por las calles hay que comprar en La Bolsa de Wall Street"

John D Rockefeller

36 "Normalmente no rezo, pero si estas ahí...sálvame Súperman!"

Homer Simpson

Remembrance of Things Present

-You more have to come at the aesthetic stuff obliquely, to talk around it, or — as Aquinas did with his own ineffable subject — to try to define it in terms of what it is not...genius is not replicable. Inspiration, though, is contagious, and multiform — and even just to see, close up, power and aggression made vulnerable to beauty is to feel inspired and (in a fleeting, mortal way) reconciled.

-David Foster Wallace

It took me several tries to actually get through the first ten pages or so. The book looked awesome.  Its size (that of a large dictionary or a smallish encyclopedia) alone could do that. One of the reasons I bought it was as to make a sort of dare, if you will, to myself, as I had read "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men" and was still not completely convinced of Wallace's prowess. I suppose I felt I didn't really get it, the hullaballoo, but was sure this was not going to stop me from finding the chinks in the invincible man's armor. The plot to Infinite Jest, when all is said and done, sounded not only interesting, but fun (entertaining art! what a concept!), and it had the critical praise from high ranked pundits plastered on it like decals.
The opening scene to the book, however, proves more difficult to read as time goes on, since the prose is  abstract and weird (a dictionary/thesaurus is a must when reading this book, unless you are in MENSA). Therefore, I hunted less experimental prose until I was really ready. That day came until about a year later. It took me several months to read it cover to cover. Someone (a critic, of course) claimed to have read it in a day, which must surely mean he must have invested some serious money on a phenomenal  speed reading course (I am pretty sure he was lying, though). Or he read it the way one reads the newspaper, skipping about 80% of it. To which I can only say: I have also done that to impress peers, especially if they are sexually attractive.
Roger Federer, Michael Jordan, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Pablo Picasso, Miles Davis, Jimmy Hendrix, and Muhammad Ali, and yes, David Foster Wallace are similar in that at one point in their careers, there simply wasn't any competition for them. They were supremely far and away. Sure, Federer now has Nadal, as Ali had Frazier, Picasso his Matisse, Wittgenstein (ok, Wittgeinstein never had competition), but there was one point were they dethroned everything, and no one knew where the chink was.
DFWallace certainly enjoyed this status for a time. Anything you did as a writer, essayist, novelist, or journalist, Wallace simply did better (and usually funnier). While that is certainly not true now, it was true at one point. It must have sucked ass to have been his contemporary, I imagine.
For example, the publicity juggernaut that was Damien Hirst demoralized many an art student at the time (90's to 'noughties). "How could I do that?". Jonathan Franzen reminisces how DFWallace's brilliance overshadowed whatever he was doing at the time. Which is surely some sort of sportsmanship thing but is probably more than partly true.
The problem with David, of course, was his illness. Probably not the whole fame, too fast too much, or dramatic fall from grace. He kept writing until his (never a word so eerily well suited) untimely death in 2008 by suicide. He kept writing well, it seemed. The successor to Infinite Jest had not arrived, several story books, essay collections, and projects seemed to keep him in the 'active writer' section.
His depression, however, had other plans. Reading several articles about him later on, it is surprising how little we knew about his illness. He had been on suicide watch as early as undergraduate studies. He had been on anti depressants for more than half his life. A surprise to find such a funny, witty, confident writer is in fact such a fragile psyche.
But so he was.
A talented tennis player, David showed promise early in his teenage years, going on to win several regional tournaments. Tennis would prove to be one of his fascinations inside and outside the text ("Federer as Religious Experience" probably his most revelatory). Yet he never made it to "the show", that is, he never got past the stage where you go from promising athlete to career athlete. The whys are somewhat nebulous. But the point is that for David, this seemed to be a demon to haunt him throughout his life: the idea that his potential by far outweighed his actuality.
Which is something of a thing about taste (or perception), in the end. Sometimes, it seems we prefer, as writer Roberto Bolaño (another untimely death) says, "complete works", tiny masterpieces that are self-enclosed, like Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" to "Moby Dick", Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" to "Blood Meridian". The imperfect, unfinished masterpiece seems self indulgent, vain, and puerile. Which earned DFWallace a nasty (false) reputation for being vain, arrogant, and puerile (a writer once pointed out how he had acne cream among his toiletries, as if this indicated his huge, vain, ego--apparently, a real writer would let acne suppurate into boils, and sleep in his ragged coat like Franz Kafka or live off prison soup like Jean Genét). Whether this did in fact affect him is largely unknown, but it could be annoyingly flattering at its worse. Yet the transition from great promise to fascinating careers is one of the maladies of our time. We are not content with just being good or great at something. We need to make a fucking star career out of it. The pleasure principle is largely controlled by how much media and attention you generate. Which of course, sucks. Especially if you are into fine arts, literature, or an obscure sport like, say, badminton. Which is again, a thing about preference. Why soccer is more popular than ping pong would yield an objective, yet false, answer. The fact is we don't know. We just like soccer more, and that's pretty much its own reason. Of course you could give a sociological, psychological, and geopolitical argument as to the whys, but that would be, aside from a grand waste of time (in which some people indulge in), untrue.
And but so...
While the demise of DFWallace is a great, tragedy, it is also human. His death is more painful because it happened while he was still so young. But he was desperately ill, and suffering from the greatest maladies that haunt the artistic temperament: depression and mental illness. Peter Schejeldahl, the art critic, correctly pointed out that having an artistic temperament is only a boon for fools and dilettantes. The whole artist-as-crazy-genius is not applicable here, though. There was no agony, no ecstasy, no filth and fury for DFWallace as opposed to say, VincentVG. Just a sickness. The "sickness unto death," as Soren Kierkegaard would say.
Yet DFWallace's presence is still felt. From Dave Eggers to Jonathan Franzen to Zadie Smith to Men's Health columnists, Wallace's style, and his canniness about human behavior can be read far and wide. Many times unconsciously, as if it is just something that writers do. Consider the stream of consciousness. How many writers are thinking about the concept while doing it? Or abstraction? or syncopation? Nowadays so many writers, perhaps unknowingly, sound just like David. Now that is surely genius.
xF

Isis - Celestial (The Tower)

the women (comayagüela)

A

An edit of a video, shot in Honduras, Central America.

2010

fr

We Will, We Will Fuck You

Here we are.
And where are you?
Are you nowhere too?
We are such old idiots you and I.
That is why we bear the same name.
Our faces are different, surely,
and maybe you live in other places,
sleep in other beds,
but here!
We are not what we used to be.
You are neither an opposite,
nor a sameness.
We are our parasites,
and our hosts.
Live long day we fight,
torment,
reconcile.
(Fall asleep)
We are Job, Leviathan,
God and Satan.
We wear a crown of thorns
and one of gold, full of jewels huge like candy.
We bleed,
we spit.
We believe, but we are liars ourselves!
Signs and omens of things to come are true,
as true as me and you.

Felix Stum vs. Oscar de la Hoya [1/6]

Felix Stum vs. Oscar de la Hoya [1/6]

Semiotics and Post Modernism: Breeding Clichés in Art

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying".
Woody Allen


I saw the Sacramento Bee photographer's work (Reneé C. Byer). I am usually kind of offended by this kind of work, as it seems somewhat vampiric or vulture-esque, and maybe at first, I just thought it was interesting but still awful as a premise, but then I felt miserable, nauseated, and very depressed. It had been a rough two days, but rather silly compared to what this family went through. I sat down to try and read something and forget the whole thing, perhaps avoiding art questions at all, and sure as shit I picked up the wrong thing. "Can you think of occasions when your first response to an artwork has been immediately and overwhelmingly physical instead of intellectual?" (Ben Brantley, quoted by Peter Schejeldahl in "Let's See").
I immediately then thought of an Anselm Kiefer painting in a room of his and other artist's work which was hanging, at the at the National Gallery of Art in London, the first day I got there (I had decided for the last time to try and go to art school, way back in 2001), and it was the first place my lovely sister took me, and I couldn't believe it was really Kiefer's work hanging, as I had only seen it in books before as photos, and that moment, to this one, and all those aspirations I had and thought impossible, conflated with the feelings I had or have about those photographs of Byer and the child dead from cancer, thinking of all those moments, collapsing into one another, devastated me. Post modernism has taught us to hate  emotions, almost like the religious dogma of hating the sex, but I would not even conceive of my life had it been not for those Kiefers and what they meant to me (they were, after all, about stars and the cosmos, and they reminded me of all the times I tried so hard to come up with different things to make in my silly little room I had made into a studio, in the improbable place of Tegucigalpa, with the same pathetic H.W. Jansen art book second volume, and all the cheesiness was just too much for my overdramatic heart). But that is undeniably real. As real as the deaths of children by cancer, and as real as shitty work posing as a political message posing as artwork. William T. Vollmann's explanation of a forensic doctors' (in his nonfiction book "Rainbow Stories") rather cold humor as a reaction/defense mechanism developed from working for too long in a children's cancer ward, where the mortality rate reached about 80%, made perfect sense.
I might not visit those photos of Byer again for a while, but I certainly won't need to. Right now just being alive seems like such a privilege! I don't care if they are high, middle, or low art. They might be tragic, overdramatic, etc. But they also give you a lot to think about, at least,  if you are cold-hearted, emotionless postmodern.
If work (art) is apathy producing, or very easily understood and digested as a socio-political message which can be clear-cut, separated, packaged, and consumed, never even thought of again, like a pair of trendy shoes, then it is not really worth seeing. If you saw it and nothing happened, you didn't even get annoyed at having to pay the ticket for watching a piece of pseudo marxist propaganda or some weak interpretations about the Iraq War or whatever, it probably is not worth trying to decipher "why is this art or not?" or get involved in such silly dilemmas. Facts are facts, life is what it is. Using cheap semiotics tricks of turning objects into symbols and fancy wordplay in order to make 'political art' is like sticking feathers up your ass in order to fly, if I am allowed the cliché. Which is fair enough, but don't try to make me watch you doing it, please.
You know who you are you pseudo artists! And you are too boring to even mention. So I will not.

Q.E. fucking D. assholes.
X

Scraping The Ground Where The Bottom Of The Barrel Used To Be

We have not seen the sun in a long time. The roads are overflowing, tumbling down like plaster.
The few ones that do work are jammed with traffic, and everything is complicated by continued protests by people that think protesting is still necessary for socio-political dialogue.
Among the latter is the so-called left wing in Honduras. Like in so many impoverished Latin American countries, it is a bastard chimaera of the Cuban Revolution, The Civil Rights Movement, and Marxist-Leninist social theory, all great landmarks of western civilization. Spearheading this movement, if it could be classified as one, is the Teachers' Syndicate, which has government appointed chiefs in the 18 state departments of the country, and paid by the same government. Strikes by unions are nothing new in Latin America, yet tend to remind one more of Steinbeck's Great Depression Era strikes, or the Teamsters' bloody affairs than of a civilized, pro-socialist movement.  But neopopulism, the great political trend of Latin America's left,  is always about a violent, bloody overthrow of the proverbial "powers that be" by the true owners of the land, or so we are told. Belgian or Canadian types of socialism are never discussed, rarely engaged or scrutinized, because they are too peaceful, to tranquil, and too even. No one pays. There isn't any reckoning, there is no revenge. But revenge for what? You could ask, and the answer is: Revenge for their wretchedness. They want someone to pay. Pay with blood.
We see pathetic graffiti on the walls, written with embarrassing grammar, painted with spray cans bought from the capitalist shop owners they claim to hate, asking for justice by means of such original slogans as: 'People Unite!',, 'Fatherland or Death', and "The People Rule The Streets".
Who are these idiots? We often ask. We try not, too, out of respect. We know they are angry, frustrated or both,but they are still idiots, and it is hard to empathize with their plight. One one wall, they praise Palestine, and chide Israel yet, on another wall, they call for the deaths (literally) of palestinian immigrants who have flourished economically in Honduras, obviously their marxian enemy.
Apparently, no one has ever read "1984". Or, wait,  seen "The Matrix"? We read: "Jesus belongs to The People" next to "Abortion should be legalized". Controversial, to say the least, from The Nazarene's point of view. It seems that, contrary to what intellectual modernists would like, intelligent people are certainly not left winged in Latin America. As a matter of fact, we may forward the proposition that there isn't a left wing in Honduras. The left wing is an amalgam of "Communism for Dummies" combined with something else: German National Socialism. Neopopulism is more similar to German National Socialism with its xenophobia, hatred of the bourgeoisie, the return to the original owners of the land, and such a radical conservatism which is not part of an egalitarian socialism.
We can now count as a national malady these seemingly perennial teachers' strikes, especially since these teachers seem to be trapped in what appears to be a dramatization of the the Cuban Revolution, and the Spanish conquest combined into one horribly long and painfully boring opera with Riot Police included; a weird haze of neopopulist verve that has all but obliterated any chance of progress for this country. Not that neoliberalism has been inspirational, far from it, but these teachers still love their cell phones. You can see them through the TV, chatting away, sending texts, reloading their balance, etc. Even while getting clobbered by police.
There is something's very wrong with that, sure, and police can be awful people. But so are these teachers, one may argue. They can barely speak, let alone write, which is somewhat strange for a teacher, who is supposed to speak in public all day and correct what you write. It just seems that they are begging to be fired. Parents are tired of this and are taking action, opposing the strikes, and suing the teachers' unions for damages. The mostly male teachers did not count on the fact that women single mothers could do that. From monday, these women are empowered to hire new teachers. It sounds fair, if not just.
Why not? Because the teachers deserve a chance. A chance for what? Parents want education for children, and these people are not giving it to them for reasons that could easily be disputed in a courtroom, or with more organized strikes that show the rest of the people that they mean well, are looking for compensation, but not at the expense of others. When you do not take into account harm done to others, it is very hard to empathize with your cause. That said, these teachers are not up to task, badly need more education themselves (they cannot put a single, coherent sentence together), and they muddle their needs and demands with political events, such as that of June 28th, 2009 (The Manuel Zelaya Affair), at which point they were still on strike anyway, but who cares?
So perhaps finding an alternative to under-qualified, confused teachers would probably be a worthier task than beating the shit out of them daily with billy clubs. There are roads to fix, engineers to properly educate so they can fix these roads. If the teachers do not want to teach that is fine. That does not mean people do not want to learn. Teaching is the passing of knowledge from one generation to another. That is possible in any type of society, certainly a socialist one. It does not seem that probable in a neo-populist one, because everything is dependent upon demands, not needs. Teaching is a low paid job, and benefits should be afforded to those who take on the challenge, and the government should respond to those seeking help, compensation or both, but not at the expense of students. Those that do not, should simply find another occupation. The country's mothers are taking over eduction, and a few half-literate stragglers will certainly not stop them.
All the more power to them.


Federico Rosasuazo

This Be The Verse

This Be the Verse

BY PHILIP LARKIN

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

Hacia El Salón des Refusés

"En este lugar que hemos creado para nutrir a la cultura y estudiar como funciona, la cultura no funcionaba...porque pertenece a alguien"
-Dave Hickey


"Es obvio que ya nada es obvio en lo que concierne al arte..."
-Theodore Adorno

En el Paris de los 1860, había cerca de 5,000 escritores y críticos de arte, pero a esto le imponemos una cifra, posiblemente apócrifas ambas, de 14,000 artistas trabajando y viviendo en el país, tan engolosinado de arte como pocas veces se ha visto en el mundo. No obstante, es una gran cantidad, correcta o no, de personas escribiendo y haciendo arte. 

¿Quien tiene la autoridad, la responsabilidad de escribir, criticar y analizar arte? ¿Quien es el que decide que arte es "bueno" y cual "malo" o, sin preferir palabras tan moralmente cargadas, arte de mejor calidad, versus peor calidad? 

La respuesta, como es de esperarse, es una que por sencilla es complicada. En una democracia, cualquier persona pueda escribir sobre lo que quiera y se le escucha o no, dependiendo de nuestras opiniones sobre éste. En una dictadura, es la voz del líder a través de sus críticos, avalados por el estado, quien dicta lo bueno o lo malo, como el Social Realismo de la era Nazi. En una oligarquía, no obstante, es más complejo, porque el poder yace sobre unos pocos, enmascarados usualmente dentro de una democracia, una especie de plutocracia. La dinámica de estos pocos, entre sí y con su público, define o más bien complica la relación entre público y crítico o público y artista.

Lo más notable es que al crítico, en una plutocracia, no se le cuestiona por sus méritos, aparte de aquellas virtudes superficiales como si trabaja en un museo en el extranjero, si hizo estudios de posgrado, si ha escrito libros, etc. Muy pocas veces vemos cuales en realidad han sido las ideas o las razones por su crítica o análisis. Tal vez lo han advertido: en Honduras vivimos en una plutocracia. 

Existen muy pocos artistas activos, menos escritores y críticos, somos carentes de galerías, y quienes terminan con el poder en un vacío es una o tal vez dos entidades que delimitan los parámetros del buen o mal arte. Controlan, de manera Orweliana, toda la información sobre los artistas, promueve a los que desea, ignora a los que no. Habría una cifra más alta de artistas activos, pero al tener pocos espacios donde exponer, éstos se ven compitiendo por pocas plazas en 'bienales'(eventos cada dos años, por alguna razón alguien decidió que esto es mejor que cada año) de arte, concursos uniformes, tediosos y estandarizados, pero que al fin y al cabo, son la pequeña tarima para artistas nacionales. Más aún, tal vez sin que se sospeche, la manera de que el status quo se forma es a través de estos eventos, no lo opuesto.

Lo curioso, en Honduras, a diferencia de la mayoría de las bienales del mundo, es que la misma gente concursa y gana cada vez, es decir, los mejores artistas del país, a criterio de la fulana que vino de Los Angeles o el fulano de Miami, los que compiten en el concurso y luego ganan, son los mismos. ¿Por qué? Tal vez las mismas personas que son elegidas para exponer y ganar son las mismas precisamente porque son las mejores. Pero, ¿se puede tener una segunda opinión? ¿O una  tercera? Al parecer, no. La palabra de las bienales es final e indiscutible.

La ideología política es algo que es muy relevante en estos concursos de belleza, por extraño que parezca. Como un disidente soviético no podía tener opinión en contra del estado, un artista hondureño no puede tener una opinión en contra de las ideologías del status quo cultural. 

Nos afirman, no obstante, que el arte tiene méritos, calidad y relevancia o no los tiene y el resto es sin importancia. Algo hace sentido en términos lógicos, tal vez, si la misma gente gana porque simplemente son mejores artistas, como que Brasil haya ganado la Copa del Mundo de fútbol 5 veces no significa que hay una conspiración, pero en el arte estas coincidencias infunden, sino sospecha, al menos tedio, ya que siempre, por más que se diga que no, la opinión es una opinión y esta también puede ser cuestionada y entre más uniforme sea, menos interesa. 
El problema es que nos damos a pensar que lo que el "experto" dice es la palabra final, aunque un experto de arte puede significar muchas cosas.

Por otra parte, se limita la posibilidad de otras alternativas, otras opiniones en cuanto al arte se refiere, ya que al menos, hay diversas opiniones de lo que es arte o no, de lo que nos trae placer o no, de lo que nos gusta o no. Es más, podríamos debatir sobre el arte y la subjetividad. No obstante, solamente en manos de un grupo pequeño, la subjetividad en el arte es igualmente injusta que los golpistas que tanto dicen odiar (pero a quienes no niegan su patrocinio monetario). La verdad no está ahí. En el arte, solo tenemos versiones de la verdad, no una verdad absoluta.

Como bálsamo, como antídoto a este tipo de evento, que no es negativo, y a más de alguien le cuesta mucho realizar, es que se forme un "Salón de Rechazados", de la vieja tradición francesa del Salón de Refusés. Artistas rechazados no en el sentido estricto de la palabra. No, al contrario, solamente objetos de arte que no están al estándar de las bienales y concursos. Un tipo de arte alternativo, que pueda disgustar, que pueda ser en realidad arte de "mala calidad", que pueda ser pero que podamos juzgar libre y democráticamente, sin necesidad de tener la fe ciega en críticos que, por ser extranjeros, han de ser buenos. Antes se hablaba mucho de transparencia en materia política, creo que ahora se necesita hablar ésta en el contexto de diversidad en el ámbito artístico y cultural, ya que, si no se hace nada, veremos a los mismos artistas concursar y ganar la misma competencia. Menos personas atienden estos concursos cada vez. Hay aquellos que creemos, soñamos con el progreso cultural de nuestro país. 
Por muy buenos que sean los artistas ganadores de las competencias, los artistas emergentes y jóvenes deberían de tener una oportunidad igual, así como los artistas considerados desfasados, distintos, o no populares.

La cultura, cabe decir, es un arma poderosa. Hay que alimentar al país de más opiniones, dejar al crítico como otra opinión y crear poco a poco nuestro criterio para dar más campo fértil para artistas nuevos. El salón de rechazados es una institución mundial, no solo un hito histórico. Es una forma de expresión social, colectiva, con un espíritu de democracia y justicia. Es aprender a ver por qué el artista crea, a pesar de que no se le dará ningún premio, por qué se arriesga, a pesar de perder su reputación. Si lo más importante es crear y no ganar, tendríamos una pluralidad de formas de arte. Tendríamos objetos de belleza.
Hoy en día, vemos muy pocos artistas en nuestro país que se arriesguen a tomar un cauce distinto, al menos por una vez, aunque no se participe en un concurso o se gane un premio. Ganar preseas se ha convertido más que importante que crear. Muchos artistas hacen trabajos solamente para las bienales y el resto del tiempo padecen inactivos. Además, ¿Por qué siempre es el mismo discurso ideológico impartido a personas que piensan exactamente lo mismo? ¿Acaso todos pensamos igual? Las competencias se han convertido en algo completamente seguro, sin nada que sea un reto.

En Honduras existen artistas de calidad mundial y son más de seis o siete. Hay que darles espacio. Un espacio sin política dominante, descentralizado y justo.
 Los críticos, pues eso ya es otra cosa. 

Federico R

Infinite Crisis in Finite Worlds

I always like to think there is a point to what we do. Sometimes it's hard to see it, or even talk about it, because we all have so many ideas about how we should even talk about it, that just having a conversation about how awesome you think an artist is or how great you think an artwork looks, is difficult to manage. At least in graduate school, the least creative of environments I have ever been in, that kind of talk was considered a little inappropriate, the same way eating your boogers or urinating in public is inappropriate. 

It seemed everyone despised a lot of things, but not everyone really liked something, which was a shame, because there was a lot to like. Even other students' work was interesting (!), but a lot of people, and who could blame them, just stayed away, dropped out, or merely furnished a thesis show with the requirements. It was not that hard. Not easy, certainly, but not that hard. 

There were some people that forgot what they liked in terms of art, so much so, that I remember going to art shows with fellow students, and for the most part we didn't agree, which should have made for great conversation, but it only generated silence. Why was that? It seems nobody was allowed to say "Say what you will, but Gerhardt Richter is the shit". That was kind of socially reprehensible. You had to stick more with the sort of company Donald Judd, Charles Ray, or Dan Graham made; neutral, solid, male. I was in the sculpture program myself but I could not really understand those dudes. I still don't. I saw Dan Graham talk once and he just seemed like he needed to be in a nursing home, that was about it.

Oh and what the hell is so good about Richard Serra? I don't understand it. Don't even star with the Matthew Barney business. I was obsessed with his stuff, it seemed so...expensive.

For me, sculpture was at its best when it was either telling a story or making fun of itself. Otherwise it is just a marble bust. Which, great, but really? Juan Muñoz I think tells great stories. David Shrigley is funny. Both were totally frowned upon in art school.  Whatever happened to Mike Nelson, I wonder? He is fabulous.

Nobody could decide who was right. The things we read, mainly french post structuralists, seemed very far removed from what art really is or talks about, but there it was; to be 'unpacked'. But nobody had a requisite reading list, like Kant or Plato or Hegel or Aristotle, guys who wrote about aesthetics, and nobody had ever read them. For some reason, Derrida was more important. Every now and then you heard about Wittgenstein and we can definitely see that relation but, who the hell really knows about Wittgenstein? It just seemed so random, yet so exclusive. 

It was like the being in Iraq's green zone. No one really knew what the hell was going on. But they put you in your place if you asked too many questions or if you seemed to be doing too many 'experimental' or unfinished things and no finished product. People wanted finished ideas, objects they could see and touch, and move on. That was that. Yet there is no barometer or anything by which to measure if something works or doesn't, it just sort of was liked or disliked. There was no way to gauge effectively, like a plumb and level sort of theory. Were they trying to tell us something? Probably "I am as confused as you are, son".

The works themselves seemed so small. Even the tutors work was terrible when placed in this grueling, emotionless context. Nothing could be seen for the awesome or even yes, inspiring and creative artwork it was or could be, that didn't exist, that was vulgar, crass, it was always a faraway object that didn't have any real value and had no chance of acquiring it. Then why make it? You could ask. There would probably not be an answer...
Make objects, and if they find a reason to be in the world, soon enough some asshole will write complex, unreadable things about it. That sounds somewhat medieval-religious doesn't it?

And how they bitched about spray paint. Oh the fumes! Those were certainly unhealthy. A fellow classmate bitched about the fumes for like an hour to me and how I should be more considerate to other artists. What can one say to that?

-F

La Furia, La Peste

"must we dream our dreams, and have them too?"

-Elizabeth Bishop

"That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger"

-Friedrich Nietszche, "Beyond Good and Evil

"Yo siempre he escuchado decir que el dinero no produce la felicidad; pero cualquier televidente pobre tiene motivos de sobra para creer que el dinero produce algo tan parecido, que la diferencia es asunto de especialistas"

-Eduardo Galeano, "Patas Arriba:La Escuela del Mundo al Revés"

"En el futuro, una ciudad sin embotellamientos resultará aburrida"

-Luiz Paolo Conde, Alcalde de Rio de Janeiro

La ciencia ficción tiene un nombre extraño, porque no es ciencia, ni es ficción, es más como una fábula con seres humanos en vez de animales. He visto muchas películas de ciencia ficción, pero las que tratan de mundos post apocalípticos definitivamente son las que mejor caben bajo el género de la fábula, aunque este sea, valga la redundancia, un término literario y no cinemática.

No obstante, muchas veces estas imágenes de mundos podridos, destartalados y abnegados son tan similares al sur del mundo, al llamado oficialmente Tercer Mundo, que parece difícil creer que los directores de fotografía de estos filmes no sean inspirados por imágenes del África, America Central, el sudeste de Asia o El Medio Oriente. 

Para complicar más las cosas, el film Sector 9 (District 9) tiene la puesta de escena en Johannesburgo, Sudáfrica, sede de la más reciente sociedad abiertamente racista. El director, jactándose de esta confusión de significantes, hace a los africanos de piel oscura quejarse de los invasores alienígenas como no perteneciendo a la sociedad, similar a lo que nos imaginaríamos a un Afrikaans decir sobre un negro en tiempos del Apartheid.

No se si a alguien se le ha ocurrido, pero últimamente (tal vez de hace seis años para acá), Tegucigalpa parece la puesta en escena de una película de ciencia ficción:

Los niños se ganan la vida, entre otras cosas, tragando gasolina y escupiendo fuego como entretenimiento en los semáforos, los adolescentes se la ganan cobrando impuestos de guerra a mano armada a los sectores más pobres de una ciudad que no tiene ni principio ni fin ni hoy ni mañana. Los pandilleros se tatúan la cara y el cuerpo con símbolos tribales y protegen su pedazo de tierra, su territorio, a capa y espada. Los jóvenes adultos, diríamos, pueden aspirar a ser sicarios por contrato y hasta por acuerdo, dependiendo del empleador.

Pero no nos olvidemos de las docenas de personas mutiladas, nacidos deformes, enfermos y demás que se viven pidiendo en los semáforos de la capital. Se les dá o no? La respuesta es muy incierta, ya que hay unos, según fuentes, que hacen esto como trabajo, no como último recurso. Terminan la jornada como burócrata y entran como tal, marchándose a casa a ver televisión. 

El embotellamiento de hoy, como es usual, es causado por un reparo,llamado "bacheo", que consiste en parchar un pedazo de asfalto ya descompuesto en un orificio hacia el centro de la tierra. Ese parcho se descompone en un mes por mucho, y hay que taparlo de nuevo. Pero es una excelente oportunidad para que el alcalde o aspirantes a puestos políticos muestren los slogans nuevos del gobierno, como "Los pobres son lo mejor" o "Viva la Capital". Estos lemas muestran como son de benevolentes nuestros líderes, que a ellos si les importa nuestra ciudad, tienden a se más tarde un pedazo de memoria de un gobierno que tal vez no dejó mucho por que recordar.

Un vecino del barrio no pudo salir ayer, ya que los albañiles que trabajan para la alcaldía solo trabajan por la mañana y le dejaron de regalo un túmulo de tierra de la altura de su portón, cosa que no le permitía sacar su automóvil. Los trabajadores se habían marchado hasta la siguiente mañana, dejando un abismo en medio de un barranco pavimentado. Parecía que estaban haciendo una operación a corazón abierto de una bestia gigantesca, moribunda y vieja.

Hay fanáticos de fútbol que por razones desconocidas, han adoptado a Jack Skellington, el personaje de "La Pesadilla Antes de Navidad", un muñeco alto, esbelto, que le encanta cantar, rey de la tierra del Halloween, en su mascota oficial. Estos fanáticos son una pandilla de un club de fútbol a quienes les encanta patear cabezas más que balones. Ninguno ha visto la película ni saben quien es ese tal Jack Skellington, pero les gusta mucho que es una calavera sonriente.

Estamos en pleno invierno, llueve, hace poco sol, se nubla, caen tormentas, aguaceros, diluvios, se llenan de agua todos los agujeros y se rebalsa la basura y escombros por todos lados. Las montañas crean deslices de lodo, se llevan casas y barrios enteros. Casas hechas con muy poca fundación, pero con un televisor plasma por dentro.

Los centros de salud están atiborrados de enfermos, medio muertos, con virus desconocidos, plagas de nuevo milenio, pero la salud pública es casi inexistente. Tienen que esperar en el piso, o en la calle para ser atendidos, tripas en mano. Dengue de cepas quiméricas, bronquitis, faringitis, rotaviruses, creo que nadie sabe como diagnosticar todo.

La morgue tiene un sistema de aire acondicionado fallido. No huele muy bien.

La antigua presidencia de la República mira ahora sobre un mercado de baratijas traídas de la China y una cloaca-río guardada por docenas de buitres negros como azabache, el ave nacional por excelencia de nuestra ciudad. El buitre cara negra. Estos buitres miran, a su vez, los partidos de fútbol de segunda y tercera división en una cancha al lado de la cloaca-río, donde el balón cae innumerables veces y un valiente jugador la tiene que recoger, procurando no hundir los zapatos en el agua pestilente. Quien sabe que tipo de infecciones podrían contraerse.

La actual presidencia de la República mira al costado de un Marriot y un McDonald's. Ronald McDonald se sienta y contempla a los mendigos desde su banca mientras los niños juegan en su patio con mercancias traídas desde Vietnam, hechas por personas igual o más pobres que los mendigos.

El tráfico se centra en las pocas calles y bulevares de la ciudad, pero es muy difícil saber que hacen cuando no están en las calles, porque ya nadie camina si no es obligado. Muchas veces se ven sus uniformes de banco, o de restaurante de comida rápida, o de algún negocio de electrónicos....

Estas bestias agresivas en la que se ha convertido nuestra ciudad son una voraz boca de león, filosa, áspera, de sálvese quien pueda, a la Mano de Dios, porque por otra parte, Dios está en templos de concreto y ofrece clases de auto ayuda y superación personal a costos de ganga, pero no gratis. Nada es gratis. El aire no es gratis. Tal vez tasa de interés manejable, pero eso es todo.

Nuestro templo de verdad: El Mall. Aquí si nos sentimos bien, porque las cosa no parecen estar tan descompuestas, tan usadas como afuera. Aunque al costado del mall hay una cloaca abierta, con un merendero al costado y un lote de lavado de autos el frente.

Dentro del Mall, todo es lindo! Por lo menos, todo es respirable, la felicidad está a la venta, hay música, electrónicos, ropa nueva, todo tan nuevo! Un café, una Red-Bull, una hamburguesa, o una dona sentados, platicando de la situación nacional o del partido de anoche.

Suave. Delicioso.

Por las noches, los sonidos de balas explotan, pero hacemos que son cohetes. O algo así. alarmas suenan. Coches chocan.

Los periódicos muestran mutilados y al Presidente dándole la mano a alguien importante. Pero no sabemos quien es.

Los policias se pelean con estudiantes, por razones no esclarecidas del todo. La universidad arde en llamas. 

Todo esto en un solo día. 

Que ciudad.

-f(x)

De Espejos y Símbolos

It is an object first, then a picture of something
-Mary Heilmann

Borges dijo que el mar era para los ingleses como un espejo, su símbolo; para los alemanes, entonces, el bosque, sus oscuridades y misterios. Para una generación tan corta y espasmódica como la hondureña (centroamericana es más apropiado a mi parecer, pero las fronteras son tan adictivas), una raza no-raza, un mestizaje de los más exquisitos, para nosotros, ni el mar ni el bosque. Podría decirse tal vez, la jungla o la montaña, pero estaríamos mintiendo. ¿Cuál es nuestro símbolo entonces?
La verdad es que el lago Yojoa, contaminado hasta el borde por compañías mineras internacionales (con mano de obra nacional) y la pesca desaforada, para merenderos asquerosos que han pasado de ser una atracción turística a poco más que una estancia de mala muerte para camioneros y matones de la carretera norte, no es nuestro símbolo. Nuestros ríos son más apestosos que la caca que los rebalsa, hediondos como solo ellos, con un color improbable de heces humanas, animales y bacterianas que podría ser parte de un episodio de un filme de ciencia ficción o terror. Las montañas, en tiempos de lluvia, tienen un verde espléndido, majestuoso y solo visto acá. Es una pena que sean víctimas de tanto incendio que no comprendemos por qué existe ni de donde sale. En mis 30 años de vivir en este país, nadie me ha dado una respuesta concreta de quien causa los incendios. ¿Será tan difícil de localizar el paradero de estas personas? Lo más que he recibido como respuesta es que son algunos desquiciados que les da por incendiar. Poco convincente, pero estamos, como se dice, en Honduras.
¿Y qué es Honduras? Pues a mi parecer, la selección de fútbol. Sus jugadores heróicos, sus partidos mitológicos, su entrenador paternal. No ha pasado un día en los últimos meses que no haya una noticia sobre la selección, desde su ropa y marcas preferidas, a las alineaciones, los partidos de fogueo, etc. La selección de fútbol nos identifica, más que los nacatamales, pupusas, la bandera o un tal Francisco Morazán. Además, Morazán está enterrado en San Salvador, a petición de él mismo o por nuestra indiferencia al menos. Las historietas falaces que nos cuentan en la escuela primaria son una travestía comparadas con los hechos reales de conquistadores desquiciados y sanguinarios, de un idiota genoés responsable por uno de los genocidios mayores de la historia humana que, por si fuera poco, tenía una estatua cerca de nuestro patético aeropuerto. Como decía Marx sobre la religión como opio, podríamos decir del fútbol para nuestro país, por suerte lo tenemos, porque la realidad allá afuera es un poco fétida. Somos junto con El Salvador, el país que tiene más homicidios per capita del mundo, solo para que veamos la fealdad de la realidad.
Entonces, la muerte en realidad es el espejo de nuestras vidas. La muerte, la miseria y la posibilidad de entrar a un mundial de fútbol.
Al menos.