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Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana

Volatile Bodies: The Photographs of Flor GarduoAuthor(s): Concepcin Bados-CiriaSource: Chasqui, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Nov., 1997), pp. 15-25Published by: Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericanaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29741350 .

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VOLATILE BODIES: THE PHOTOGRAPHSOF FLOR GARDU?OConcepci?n Bados-Ciria

University ofWashington

Windows on Latin America?edited by Robert L. Levine in 1987?is the first work whichexamines ways that analysis of visual images can aid social science and the humanities in under?standing contemporary and past societies. Throughout the anthology, several scholars addressthe need to encourage the use of representative photographs and photographic history in differentcountries such as Peru, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Brazil and Mexico, among others. Obvious?ly, the camera?even more than any other technical apparatus?has inmortalized events that haveshaped Latin American cultures and history. Mexican photographers have contributed largelyto the circulation and dissemination of Latin American images. It is universally known that

Mexico has an extraordinary literary tradition, nevertheless, the cultural profile of this countrywas not built by writers: from the codices tomuralism, from the death's-heads of Jos? Guada?lupe Posada's prints to the pictorial representations, including the "comic", from the artisanalmarkets to the bigmuseums, the celebration and conservation of theMexican cultural patrimonyis primarily a visual undertaking. Photographs are an important element of anthropological andsociohistorical information, and, following the approach stated by N?stor Garc?a Canclini in

Hybrid Cultures, theymake possible the insertion of the cultured traditional intomodernity intwo ways: on the one hand, through aesthetic spiritualization and, on the other hand, throughhistorical and ethnographical ritualization (118).1 Garcia Canclini asserts thatboth policies havecontributed not only to bring people closer to traditional cultures but also have created a senseof monumentalization and nationalistic ritualization of culture. The National Museum of Anthro?pology and The National Museum of Cultures?both in Mexico?are good examples of howinstitutions stage the cultural patrimony. My objective is to show that theworks of Flor Gardu?oshare the approaches promoted by Garcia Canclini. Nevertheless, her main concern is photogra?phy as away of artistic representation in search of beauty and harmony.

Photography has a dominant place in the history ofMexican art.Mexico was no exceptionin the general boom of photography. By 1858 the brothers Levenger had opened the doors toa business and an art form that have since revealed to the world many aspects of M?xico. Manyphotographers of renown were forged in this country:Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Edward Weston, for example, as well as photography studios like those of the brothers Casasola or the

N?stor Garc?a Canclini explains in a note to the first chapter ofHybrid Cultures the difficul?ties of dealing with new terms such as cultured, popular, and massified. He adds: "The mostuncomfortable is the first: It is preferable to speak of cultured, elitist, erudite, or hegemonic?These terms overlap each other to some extent and none is satisfactory" (Hybrid Cultures 11).

15

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16 Volatile Bodies: The Photographs of Flor Gardu?oBrothers Mayo. During the last ten years, and especially since the Instituto Nacional de Antropo?log?ae Historia founded itsCenter for Photography, cultural authorities have provided theneces?sary framework for the preservation, indexing and promotion of various archives, obtained bymeans of acquisitions, many donated by photographers of recognized prestige. Moreover,

Mexican cultural identity, the sign of mexicanidad is closely tied to thedevelopment of photogra?phy inM?xico. In the 1940s and 1950s the aesthetic approach promoted by Manuel AlvarezBravo prevailed. He was acclaimed by Andr? Breton and the surrealist movement as the para?digm of the ideologically committed photographer. Alvarez Bravo stressed images of the uncan?ny, crucial to surrealism while, at the same time, attempted the reflection of a social conscience.Alvarez Bravo's 1934 photograph "Obrero en huelga asesinado" is a politically charged imagethat depicts a dead worker whose face is covered with blood. Undoubtedly, the interchangebetween artistic purposes and social or political ones has been a constant in the work of most

Mexican photographers during the last thirty years. Among them, women photographers suchas Tina Modotti, Lola Alvarez Bravo and Kati Horna are great precursors of Graciela Iturbide,

Mariana Yampolsky, Lourdes Grobet, Yolanda Andrade and Flor Gardu?o. All these womenplay a most important role in the recuperation and recognition of women's lives, not only in

Mexico but also in Latin America and other countries around the world.Flor Gardu?o is one of the younger links in this extraordinary chain of Mexican women

photographers. She was born inMexico City in 1957.When she was 5 years old, her familymoved to an isolated farmwhere her childhood and youth took place. She studied Visual Artsin theUniversidad Aut?noma deMexico, andwas especially attractedby theworkshops directedby Kati Horna in the Academia de San Carlos. The personality of her maestra, Kati Horna, aHungarian photographer exiled inMexico since 1939, has influenced thework of Flor Gardu?oto a great extent. Born in Budapest in 1912, Kati Horna, whose work spans photojournalism,photomontage, collage and portraiture has had a long and distinguised career inMexico, whereshe settled inOctober 1939, after the defeat of the Spanish Republic. Kati Horna and her hus?band, the Spanish sculpturer and painter Jos? Horna were part of a close-knit group of Europeansurrealist exiled artists in that country, a groupwhich includedRemedios Varo, Benjamin Peret,Leonora Carrington, Emerico Weisz, Edward James and Roger Von Gunten, among others. Amost important chapter inKati Horna's production was during the Spanish Civil War, when sheregistered events in Aragon, Valencia, Madrid, Barcelona and towns that

werestrategic pointsfor Republican Spain. Since she was linked to the Spanish Civil War by means of ideological

affinities, these images did notmake theirway into international circuits, which iswhy they arepractically unknown. After Franco's death, when democracy was reinstalled in Spain, KatiHorna offered the Spanish Ministry of Culture 250 negatives she had managed to take with herwhen she had to leave the country in 1939. In Mexico she worked as a teacher, and the imagescreated by Horna and her students at The Academia de San Carlos constitute a special chapterin the history of photographic education inMexico. Today, The Fondo Kati Horna (KatiHornaArchive) holds more than 6,000 indexed negatives depicting a variety of subjects, a result of thephotographer's work for more than fifty years. In an interview, Flor Gardu?o told me manyanecdotes, and she explained Horna's interest in psychoanalysis and surrealistic aesthetics whichlead her to emphasize the artificiality of photography and its metaphorical relation to death.

According to Gardu?o, the main influence of her maestra would be the fact that she gives freerein to her obsessions, erotic fantaisies, secret dreams and inhibitions. Therefore, the photogra?pher will reveal through photography what she/he sees in theworld. In 1979 Flor Gardu?o

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17

Sol y Tabaco" (Chiapas, 1982)

"Ofrenda de ma?z" (Guatemala, 1989)

"El ?ngel herido"(Guatemala, 1989)

"Mujer toro"(Santa Clara del Cobre, Michoac?n, 1987)

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"Guardi?n del camposanto" (Guatemala, 1990)

"Polvo ser?n, mas polvo enamorado"(Bolivia, 1990)

"LaMalinche"(Chiapas, 1990)

'Torito" (Guatemala, 1989)

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Concepci?n Bados-Ciria 19became an assistant in the laboratory ofManuel Alvarez Bravo, and between 1981 and 1982 sheworked forthe Secretar?a de Educaci?n P?blica in a project coordinated byMariana Yampolsky.Her work has been exhibited in numerous museums such as The Museum of Modern Art inMexico, New York and Chicago, as well as other museums in America and Europe. She haspublished four books: Magia del juego eterno (1985), Bestiarium (1987), Testigos del tiempo(1992), andMeste?os (1994)?taken among the Native Americans inWashington State.2This paper elaborates the fact thatGardu?o's photographs emphasize lyrical aspects of theIndians of Mesoamerica, the ones whose roots should be found in themagical and mythicalwhich wrap the pre-Columbian cultures. Her photographs, even if they incorporate graphicdocument, do not insist on social or political concerns; more precisely, they point towards apoetic interpretation and amystical conception of a reality which remains timeless. It does notmean, however, that her work is excessive in romanticism or sentimentalism, although it stressesemotional and sensitive features. Gardu?o questions photography as an objective way of reflect?ing reality, suggesting instead, that photography pursues the expresi?n of a conscious and amental state of the photographer towards the photographed subjects: a search for recognition andidentification with them.3

I should note that Flor Gardu?o "does belong", paraphrasing Elena Poniatowska, to thecultures and traditions she photographs.4 The economic, racial and generic disparities existingbetween the photographers and the subjects of their artistic task have been widely discussed. Inmy opinion, the fact thatGardu?o feels herself to be a constituent of the peoples and culturesof Mesoamerica, allows her to textualize a lyrical and poetic vision of the subjects she haschosen to represent. Another innovation of Gardu?o is that her work does not limit itself toMexican themes; Testigos del tiempo includes sevety-two photographs taken between 1988 and1992 in several Latin American countries. During these four years Gardu?o traveled throughGuatemala, Bolivia, Ecuador andMexico, not only taking photographs but also living togetherwith the subjects of her work, sharing with them some of themost extraordinarymoments ofher life. Gardu?o idealizes the past and proposes it as a sociocultural paradigm of the present;she chooses to see the witnesses selected by her as authentic and as keepers of a unique andirreplaceable magical power. Her work is a result of election and selection. It is, as well a

product of a mise en scene, in which the photographer chooses and adapts what is going to berepresented according to a personal and authorial criteria.InCamera Lucida, Roland Barthes points out that "Photography only gains its full value withthe irreversible disapearance of the referent, with thedeath of the photographed subjectwith the

2A11photographs are by Flor Gardu?o and have been provided courtesy of the artist. In thispaper I do not analyze the pictures taken inWashington State, and published under the titleMeste?os. I concentrate on the photographs taken inLatin America.

3InMarch 1996, I had several conversations with Flor Gardu?o, at her home in Tepoztl?n(Mexico). Some of the opinions in this paper reflect those conversations.

4Elena Poniatowska while writing Hasta no verte Jes?s m?o (1969), went through a crisisof identification with Jesusa Palancares, the main character of the novel. Poniatowska, born inEurope and from European descendants, affirms of own her Mexican identity while writing andinterviewing the real protagonist of the novel. In an interview for the magazine Vuelta, sheaffirms: "One night, after identifying myself with Jesusa and reviewing one of her images afteranother, I was able to declare to myself 'I do belong' " (Poniatowska 8).

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20 Volatile Bodies: The Photographs of Flor Gardu?opassing of time" (23). Obviously, photographs have a historical value because they represent

moments of frozen time, static glipmses of a world inhabited by beings sharing certain attitudes,experiences and values. Photographs are concrete snapshots whose images persist beyond thestillness of time allowing the viewers to take possession of the past. Barthes also asserts that"Photography is an 'uncertain' art, as would be (were one to attempt to establish such a thing)a science of desirable or detestable bodies" (18). Undoubtedly, bodies?particularly human

bodies?are one of the main targets of photography, just as words are the focus of texts. We areliving in a space where postmodern culture dominates, a space where bodies and words aresimultaneously existing and non-existing. Therefore, I would suggest that the photographs ofFlor Gardu?o textualize volatile bodies, that is to say: throughout her work she displaces thecentrality of the mind, the psyche, the interior, or the consciousness and even the unconsciounessby means of reconfiguring bodies.

Following the phenomenological approach, Hugh J. Silverman declares in Textualities, that"thephotograph of a body is a visible thatmarks the place of a visibility which remains virtual"(153). Doubtlessly, the photograph can not fulfill all the expectations onemight have of itwereit a living body. Yet, the photograph renders visible what is unavailable tomemory, imaginationand, even construction. The visibility of a living body?seeing and seen, touching andtouched?appears as a text in the photograph. The picture of the body is a picturing which holdsin abeyance the impossibility of it seeing as it is seen. However, the possibility that the body inthe photograph might see, touch, hear, smell and taste is never realized. As a result, the visibili?ty of the body in the photograph is an unrealized possibility which becomes a text.

The fact that Flor Gardu?o focuses on bodies does not mean she abandons the interior andthe consciousness, on the contrary, by rescuing multiple and various bodies she challenges thedominant binary opposition body/spirit and, at the same time, she remaps a material which iscultural, historical, anthropological, sexual and racial. She seeks to invert the primacy of psychi?cal interiority in photographs by demonstrating its necessary dependence on a corporeal exteri?ority. A photograph is an emanation of the referent; it is flesh and blood; it gives the spectatorsinformation about its referent; its identity, civil status, dates, and ethnographical features amongothers: "Matrimonio zinanteco" (1987) andMarcos y Simona" (Bolivia, 1990) are photographs

which document important ceremonies of all cultures: a wedding photograph is a graphic ratifi?cation of an event which suggests the desire of inviting love to remain beyond time and death.Underlining the importance of photography as valuable historical document, Robert M. Levinepoints out in "Stillness and Time: Glimpses of History" that in Latin America "since late nine?teenth century, family picture has been a ritualistic exercise, memorializing ceremonial familyoccasions but overlooking the ordinary, even banal, aspects of every day life" (2). Evidently,Flor Gardu?o avoids the tradition of family-picturing. Her photographs, although they reflecttraditional social values and attitudes, emphasize more lyrical aspects of the photographedsubjects. That is obtained through the manipulation of dark colors and light in the picture, andthrough the pointing out of some delicate features, individualized ornaments, and particular

belongings that mark and underline identity. Last but not least, by calling attention to vulnerableexpressions in the faces of the posing bodies.

I have divided the photographs of Gardu?o following four main narratives of the body: thedeath body, themasked body, the ritual body, and thephotobiographical body. The photographstaken inEcuador, "Falleci?Mar?a Ver?nica" (1988) and "Camino del Camposanto" (1988) aregraphic documents of a terrible fact such as the death of a little girl. Gardu?o interchanges lifeand death, nature and culture, always emphasizing the lyric above the tragic. The visualization

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Concepci?n Bados-Ciria 21can be allegoric, but the approach of the author and her explanation aremythical, according tothe conception of death among indigenous people. As Octavio Paz explains inEl laberinto dela soldad, to Christians death is a transition between the temporal and the otherwordly: "Paralos antiguos mexicanos la oposici?n entre muerte y vida no era tan absoluta como para nosotros.

La vida se prolongaba en la muerte. Y a la inversa. La muerte no era el final natural de la vida,sino fase de un ciclo infinito. Vida, muerte y resurrecci?n eran estadios de un proceso c?smico,que se repet?a insaciable" (49). The same thing happens with "Guardi?n del Camposanto"(Guatemala, 1990)?where the combining of theatrical elements desacralizes the cemetery as theplace for sorrow. The abundance of white graves, which remind the viewers of the presence ofcorpses and skulls is attenuated by the imposing figure of the guardian of theCemetery?disguis?ed as a dancing animal that is wearing a mask?thus inviting the observers to visualize thecemetery as a familiar site. The photograph entitled "Polvo ser?n, mas polvo enamorado"(Bolivia, 1990) quotes a verse from the Spanish poet of theXVII century, Francisco de Quevedo, suggesting a d?mystification of the horror of death by celebrating the victory of Eros overThanatos. Yet the titles and texts which accompany the photographs are transformed into anarrative, as if the bodies in the photographs were the source of plural and simultaneous dis?courses. This converts Gardu?o's photographs into an artistic expression that dialogues not onlywith disciplines such as history, sociology and anthropology, but also with poetry.The mask is an inherent element to pre-Columbian cultures. In El laberinto de la soledad,

Octavio Paz affirms that Mexicans are the eternal bearers of masks, and points out that "ladisimulaci?n mim?tica, en fin, es una de tantas manifestaciones de nuestro hermetismo" (44).Also, Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida affirms that "Photography can not signify except byassuming amask, and yet themask is the difficult region of Photography" (36-37). Flor Gardu??o feels comfortable picturing masked bodies?as Carlos Fuentes asserts in the Prologue toWitnesses of Time. In a poetic tone and focusing on lyrical aspects, Fuentes affirms that "sinti?n?dose abandonados por sus dioses, personifican un teatro de la naturaleza en el que, disfrazados,los indios convocan a los dioses...pero en realidad los sustituyen" (no pag.). "Torito" (Guatema?la, 1989), "Don Perro" (Ecuador, 1988), "Caballero ?guila" (M?xico, 1986), "El t?o Jorge"(Bolivia, 1990), "Sixto" (Bolivia, 1990), "Lani?a y la bestia" (M?xico, 1985), and "Zopilotes"(M?xico, 1982) are paired bodies chosen by Gardu?o to reveal a performance of sacralizationthat shows itself, not only as an artifice but also as a way of becoming someone else; one hasto erase his/her own face or body, in order to have other faces/ bodies; all the faces, all thebodies. The theatrical and dramatic drive of these compositions is combined, nevertheless, withthe lyricalwhich is linked, inevitably, to themagical andmythical functions of themask in preColumbian cultures. Most of the time themasks take thebodies or faces of dogs,eagles, jaguars, bulls, and other creatures which have shared the destiny of the human beingssince their birth. As Eraclio Zepeda asserts in the Prologue of Bestiarium (1987), according topre-Columbian mythology, "es la suerte del reci?n nacido estar ligada toda su vida con la buenabestia o la mala fiera que le corresponda. Podr? ser ?guila o tigre o zorro o coyote o puma otoro o tapir o gavil?n o venado. Estos son buenos gemelos, buenos espejos para que tu hijo se

mire en sus ojos o se nombre con sus palabras secretas. Puede ser tambi?n caballo o tigrillo occonejo o perro o gato o gallo o ganso que ya no son tan buenos, pero es posible vivir con ellosa trav?s del tiempo y el mundo. O puede ser peor: gallina, pollito, sopilote o marrano. ?Que diosni el diablo lo permitan!" (8). However, Gardu?o includes photographs representing the crowin "Al acecho" (Veracruz, 1987), the hawk in "La espera" (San Luis Potos?, 1980), the roosterin "Gallito" (Chiapas, 1987). They are photographed alone, and the photographs are introduced

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22 Volatile Bodies: The Photographs of Flor Gardu?oby pre-Columbian texts making reference to the necessary existence of these animals in thecosmos. Yet, according to the beliefs of the indigenous cultures, a person will bear the sign ofbad lack if she/he is born under the negative influence of such animals even if they are her/histwin animal soul.

The religious/ritual body is the narrative underlined in photographs such as "OfrendadeMa?z" (Guatemala, 1989), "Venado de ma?z" (Guatemala, 1989), "Ofrenda: fetos de llama"(Bolivia, 1990), and "Huilancha. Sacrificio" (Bolivia, 1990). Ren? Girard explains inLa Vio?lence et le sacr? that ritual ceremonies in which sacrifice enters as an essential ingredient ofrecognition of the gods are as old as human beings (37). The llama, the corn and the deer, thatis to say, the most revered creatures in pre-Columbian cultures are offered as a gift to the godsto pact with them, to thank them, and to beg them for their approval, and thusmaintaining thecosmical order in theday life space. Other religious ceremonies related to healing andmagic aredocumented in "Limpia" (Ecuador, 1991) and "Yatiri"(Bolivia, 1990), texts where the sacredand the profane share the same space. Yet spirituality andmysticism firmly built on faith andtraditionmake itpossible to visualize theharmony desired by those bodies inwhich the abolitionof evil takes place just because they believe in the power of their rituals and religious practices.The photographs which document sacred rituals and sacrificial ceremonies incorporate ethnohistorical and ethnographical discourses, butmost important: inFlor Gardu?o a double experienceoccurs: the exterior one, as she considers herself witness of the reality of her photographedsubjects and, the interior one, in which she accepts the existence of the magical and mythicalrationally unexplained. InFlor Gardu?o's photographs neither the religious belief nor themythi?cal one are explained: they are simply exhibited and, made visible in a poetic and lyrical man?ner, thusmaking visible the sensitive and emotional character of the indigenous rituals withinthe Western tradition.

Many of Gardu?o's photographs bear witness to the religious syncretism which began withthe Spanish/ Catholic colonization. The bodies of these photographs are surfaces for simulta?neous inscriptions of resistance and aceptance. "La Santa Iglesia Cat?lica" (Ecuador, 1991),"Los crucificados" (Guatemala, 1990), "Cantadores" (Guatemala, 1990), and "Mujer-toro"(M?xico, 1987) interchange icons, animate and inanimate bodies which include elements of thecolonized and the colonizer. We witness the acceptance of other beliefs among the Indian'scultural heritage which was transformed by imposition of these beliefs. Nonetheless they havemade them their own. In "El?ngel herido" (Guatemala, 1989) and "Divino rostro" (Guatemala,1989) the fragmented bodies are visualized inharmony with the human subjects who share theirlives. There is no place in these photographs for a psychoanalitic or hermetic interpretationrelated to confusion of perturbation, yet Gardu?o gives free rein to her most secret obsessionsand hidden fantasies in the composition of her ritual and religious photographs. Nevertheless,the poetic and the lyric impregnate the faces and bodies who live togetherwith different religiouspractices, in a peculiar polytheism. Obviously, a technical apparatus imposed by the Westerntradition?such it is the camera?has been accepted by Indigenous people as way to perpetuate,and to bear witness of their traditional way of living, dressing, celebrating or dying. Moreover,according to Octavio Paz in El arco y la lira, "El tiempo de la t?cnica es, por una parte, rupturade los ritmos c?smicos de las viejas civilizaciones, por la otra, aceleraci?n y, a la postre,cancelaci?n del tiempo cronom?trico moderno" (262). Nevertheless, the camera, which has beenassimilated by a process of syncretism, allows Indigenous peoples to inmortalize glimpses oftheir old rituals and their ancient mythologies.

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Concepci?n Bados-Ciria 23A discourse of gender identification is the one documented in the photographs I have named

photobiographical. Female bodies are the center of the photographs of Gardu?o. She proposesan allegory of thewoman through the various steps of her life: especially her childhood, adoles?cence and youth. Most of her photographs point out the identification between the artist and thephotographed female bodies. As she confessed tome in an interview with her inMarch 1996,most of her work is a result of encounters which subsequently lead to a personal interactionbetween herself and the photographed women. This intimate and emotional relationship isreflected in her particular apprehension of the subjects' gaze. They lend themselves to thephotographers' game: they pose, they know they are posing, and they are aware of becomingimages-bodies for another: the photographer. Yet, these appropiated bodies by Gardu?o become

mirror-images of herself: her volatile selfportraits. Undoubtedly, visual images can be read froma psychoanalitycal point of view, and we would discover in a photograph a narcissistic genesisof the ego of the photographer, an ego that is the result of a series of identificatory relationswith other subjects, particularly the mother?in the case of women?or even its own image onthemirror. As Elizabeth Grosz suggests inVolatile Bodies, upon studying corporeal feminism,the identifications with other subjects "are introjected into the ego in the form of the ego ideal,the idealized model of itself forwhich the ego strives" (32). It is following this approach thatI have analyzed the photographs of feminine bodies taken by Gardu?o.She pictures childhood as ametaphor for innocence in "Suaveviento" (Mexico, 1982), "Ni?aVenus" (M?xico, 1984), "Santo reposo" (Guatemala, 1989), "Ni?amariposa" (M?xico, 1987;adolescence is reflected as themoment of budding of femininity in "Cari?tide (M?xico, 1984),and "Canastade luz" (Guatemala, 1989); young women display the erotic body in "Purificaci?n"(Mexico, 1983) and "Agua" (Mexico, 1983), "Hoja elegante" (Mexico, 1984) and "Lamujerque sue?a" (Mexico, 1991); maturity reflects motherhood in "Reina" (Guatemala, 1989) and"Virgen" (Bolivia, 1990); the old woman represents accomplishment in "Naranjas dulces"(M?xico, 1982). I consider this photograph Gardu?o's particular vision of her own old age.In any case, Gardu?o's photographs of women are the reflection of an eloquent interiorworld which manifests its own powerful expressiveness. In "Angustia" (M?xico, 1984) and "Ladue?a de la gran mesa" (Guatemala, 1989) the two women are portraited looking deeply andfirmly to thephotographer's eyes, of course, through amachine which is the camera, with whichthey are not familiarized. Nevertheless, they allow the photographer to recapture theirmostrelaxed and poetic expressions, as if they wanted to communicate to their viewers their desireto show the world their most intimate and secret feelings. Moreover, the feminine imagery ofGardu?o is essentially poetic, because the photographed bodies occupy a spatiality where the

maguey, the corn, the water, the iguanas, the trees, the earth, the fruits, the vegetation, thewind, the textiles, and the flowers live together with these women, making of them witnessesand, at the same time, vehicles of transmission for mythical and magical traditions.

Gardu?o affirms the synchronization existing between women and nature as visualized in"Sol y tabaco (Mexico, 1982), "Trenza" (Ecuador, 1991), "?rbol de la vida" (Mexico, 1982)and "Lamujer" (Mexico, 1987). What makes her photographs original is thatGardu?o bringsashining light out from the dark and the shadows. A dramatic element inwhich the brightnessof the sun light dominates?combined with the shining of the flowers and clothes?prevails in

the picture. A standing white lights out a corporeal element, both poetically and lyricaly, abovethe rest of the composition, whose goal is to certify the emotions and sensations these bodies

have communicated to the artist; not only by chance, but also because she has looked for them,has believed in them, and has desired them.

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24 Volatile Bodies: The Photographs of Flor Gardu?oThere are three photographs which are particularly loved by Gardu?o as she declared to me

in the interview. This has to do with her personal experiences during the process of obtainingthem. She spent more than a week in Chiapas, observing the preparations for the commemora?tion of The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. After waiting for hours, shewas allowed totake the photograph "LaMalinche" (Chiapas, 1990). The picturing of that event had beenforbidden for centuries. The photograph represents aman embodying Do?a Marina, considereda traitorby her own people. The artifice of the photograph leads to a textwhich exhibits parodyand sarcasm, yet thatphotograph might be considered one of themost relevant anthropologicaland sociological witnesses of the collection. It was taken during a "fiesta"?the ideal space toabolish rules and regulations. As Octavio Paz asserts inEl laberinto de la soledad, anything ispermitted in certain fiestas "Los hombres se disfrazan de mujeres, los se?ores de esclavos, lospobres de ricos. Se ridiculiza el ej?rcito, al clero, a la magistratura. Gobiernan los ni?os o loslocos. Se cometen profanaciones rituales, sacrilegios obligatorios. El amor se vuelve promiscuo.A veces la fiesta se convierte enMisa Negra" (45). That iswhy Flor Gardu?o did not hesitateto wait until she was allowed to photograph "La Malinche", a picture-text that corroboratescenturies of Mexican identity.

When Carlos Fuentes saw "Reyesde bastos" (Mexico, 1981), he decided towrite a prologuefor Witnesses of Time. There, he comments that these two boys are the profiles of the aristocracyof theAmericas. Flor Gardu?o confessed tome that the discovery of the two boys collecting

mezcal from the magueyes with their primitive tools was an incomparable moment in her life.The encounter took place in the middle of nowhere, and she remembers as an extraordinaryexperience, both the process of taking the picture and the subsequent relation with her photo?graphed subjects. Undoubtedly, the uniqueness of the two faces, and themanipulation of thelandscape framed by an astonishing emptiness where everything is erased but the two boys andtheir tools, makes this photograph an example of the beauty and poetic harmony thatGardu?ostrives for in her work.

Finally, "Gobernador tarahumara" (Mexico, 1991) is the photograph which closes the bookWitnesses of Time. Again, Gardu?o loves this photograph because of the remembrances whichconnect her profession as a photographer to the periods of time she lived together with theTarahumara tribe, in theNorth of Mexico. As always inGardu?o's photographs, the shiningwhite

emergingfrom the dark and from the shadows astonishes the viewers. A singular manipu?

lation of the light leads to a personal touch that adds cinematic features to her photographs, andthis is the essential quality thatmakes her pictures distinctive. Inwriting they call this qualityof distinction, of separateness, voice?meaning that the writing is unique. As a result, Gardu?o'sbodies are volatile, because they come from a time and a space which are, simultaneously,existing and non-existing. Yet they are both rich in symbolism and poetry, as well as magnifiedby the artifice and technology of the camera.

Flor Gardu?o has always been very conscious of her own heritage and, therefore, has wantedto offer an homage to the peoples of the Americas, especially the most ancestral and isolatedfrom Western civilization. The texts coming from her photographs are lyrical and poetic, as ifthey were created from dream images, personal fixations, and intimate emotions liberatedthrough the cathartic task of photographing. It could not be any other way, since Gardu?o hasapproached photography believing in bodies which share a reality made of the magical and

mythical. Her photographs take us to a circular time where mysticism and spirituality are inher?ent to the corporeality of bodies that manifest themselves through deep gazes, harmonious

movements, emotional poses, personal interactions, and sensitive attitudes. All of them remain

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Concepci?n Bados-Ciria 25alive thanks to the photographic art, which goes beyond eternity and which lasts forever. Ulti?

mately, as Roland Barthes asserts "Photography has something to do with Resurrection . . .every photograph is a certificate of presence ... in absence" (82). Cameras like computers andcommunications technologies, have been revealed as mechanisms that make sense of the eventsthat shape our time. Even though some people might resent the processes of globalization andtransnationalization of culture that we are suffering nowadays, it is clear that the constructionand emergence of national identities inLatin America cannot be understood without referenceto the role of communication and visual technologies, among which the photographic cameraplays an important and decisive role. Unquestionably, the photographs of Flor Gardu?o standas witnesses to the poetry, the harmony and the beauty of Indigenous cultures thatwill remainalive in spite of the passing of time, as an affirmation of identity, traditions and beliefs. Thisextraordinary phenomenom occurs thanks to the magic art which is photography.

Translated by Isabel Anievas Gamallo

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Christopher L. Chiappari and Silvia L. L?pez. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1995.Gardu?o, Flor. Bestiarium. Zurich: U Bar Verlag, 1987.?. Magia del juego eterno. Juchit?n: Guchachi'Reza A.C., 1985.?. Testigos del Tiempo. M?xico D. F. :Redacta, 1992.Girard, Ren?. La Violence et le sacr?. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1972.Grosz, Elizabeth. Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana UP,1994.Levine, Robert M. "Stillness and Time: Glimpses of History". Windows on Latin America. Ed.

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