H ow to begin thecomments aboutan artist of zapotec

origin when various criticsof art have already definedhim as part of a surrealistmovement, as a figure ofmagic realism or as onewho has given to his art amystical vision of theworld?. We know that anyclassification runs the riskof eliminating much of therich content that we mightfind in the different expres-sions of his art—engraving,painting, ceramics, sculp-ture , on the one hand, onthe other, it would mean todispossess him of his histo-rical dimension. Making ananalogy with literary move-ments, any new genre orany new style results fromthe combination of pre-vious manifestations withmovements of the writer’stime. Octavio Paz said so-mething similar with res-pect to Tamayo—also of In-dian origins, from the stateof Oaxaca:

Francisco Toledo.1

Creator and re-creator of aNew CosmogonyAdr ia n S. Gima t e -We lsh H 2

UAM . Méx ico

CERRAR/CLOSE/FERMER

The style of an epoch is asyntax, the sum of cons-cious or unconscious ruleswith which the artist canexpress everything thathappen around him, ex-cept common places .What count is not the regu-larity with which the syntaxfunctions, but its variations:ruptures, deviations, excep-tions and everything tEat

artist with lndian roots, but withvast experiences in Paris, NewYork and Barcelona, which un-doubtedly somehow are presentin different expressions of hiswork. In Toledo’s own words “ Iam juchiteco but my life is Paris inthe 60s is also present in mywork,”4 which reminds me of Ta-mayo’s own comments when su-me of his critics have underlinedthat his work is an expression ofthe Mexican identity:

In any part of the world I paintas I am myself, Tamayo the Mexi-can, the Indian... Mexican I am, Ido not need to think about it, for Iwas boro in Oaxaca, because myparenis were lndian... this is not adefect nor a merit, it is a fact...I aman Indian when I work, the terriblething is to repeat oneself. Did Cé-zanne make to much effort to beFrench. What he wanted to be wasto be a good painter and since hewas a good painter his work wasalso very French. For this same rea-son. For this same reason my workmy work is very Mexican.5

Both painters acknowledgetheir Indian origin, both recognizethe presence of their local roots intheir work as critics also point out.Fernando Gamboa says, for exam-ple: “his myths have their roots inprehispanic Mexico and in his Ju-chiteco origins,”6 though Toledosays that his “images might ormight not be juchitecas, theymight come from other places;

makes an artistic object unique.The combination of these ele-ments is equivalent to the trans-formation of a syntax which is im-personal, historical in a uniquelanguage.3

It is true, Toledo begins his ar-tistic formation at the age of 14 atthe School of Fine Arts of the Uni-versidad Benito Juarez of Oaxaca.And later at the School of Art andDesign of the Fine Arts Institute inMexico City, but in 1960 he conti-nues his formation at the StanleyW. Hayler Engraving Shop in Paris,and in 1977 he spends some timein New York. Toledo is a Mexican

Aut orret rat o, 19 9 2 , óleo y t emple con hoja de oro sobremadera, 38 x 31 cms.

miotic constellation wheresemiotic functions of diffe-rent nature come togetherto arouse different sensa-

my images are a mixture of in-fluences, it is the result of expe-rience.”7 Francisco Toledo, like Ta-mayo,8 goes much deeper thanthe simple topic. He calls to In-dian roots, to traditions, but his artis a mixture of two culturas: theMesoamerican and the Occidentalcultura. He has a profound know-ledge of the Mexican cultura, butalso a deep knowledge of univer-sal art, of universal aesthetics, reli-gious and ethical values as well aspolitical dogmas. He himself hasrecognized the influence of PaulKlee, Picasso, Tamayo, Joan Miró,Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet andAntonio Tapies. His artistic work,then, has that aesthetic back-ground9. His art has a Mexican ac-cent but it is done with a universallanguage, as we can see also inTamayo’s work.

What is then Toledo’s artisticwork? I would soy, and in this res-pect there would be a similaritywith Tamayo’s paintings, that it isa kind of poctry with a messageand human quality, there is a kindof a chant to natura by means ofmetaphors. Teresa del Conde saysin tLis respect: “Until now everyauthor, myself included, who haswritten about the Juchitan bornartist Francisco Toledo, has beendazzled, primarily, by his unusualinventiveness, a blossom of ima-ges so thoroughly interwoven asto form a metaphor ofthe creationitself.”10

There is no doubt a constantmetaphoric expressive strength th-roogh out his work, syntagmati-cally or paradigmatically. Every ele-ment of his creative forms is a vi-sual poetic image. One sees meta-morphic elemenis everywherewhich transport ones senses into auniverse of meanings, into a se-

tions—sphere of firstness, ifyou will—. This is so if weconceive the artistic workas an opera aperta, in termsof Umberto Eco. The ele-

cus is a forgotten universe: man’smicrocosms. There is, in sum, aconstant lyrical celebration of lifein its various and multiple forms.We find here, no doubt, the in-fluence of Paul Klee who says:“Dialogue with nature continuesto be for the artist a conditions si-ne qua non. The artist is a man, hetoo is nature, a chunk of naturewithin the area of nature.”11

What we have just said, howe-ver, has to do with semiotics in sofar we try to restitute sense intoToledo’s artistic work. Our inter-pretation, product of particularreadings and readings of differentcritics of art, can only be seen asmere working hypothesis of anunlimited semiosis, where a figu-re becomes the center of a semio-tic constellation: one figure evo-kes a figure, an other figure andso on. In the end, it is the singlespectator who from various an-gles of seeing and sensing has thefinal word, for he is the one whowill receive the signal from thework of art.

The conception of space is nolonger the one we have had fromtraditional times. The Aristoteliandistinction up vs. down, wilh itsreligious counotations — relatedto a conception of superiority andinferiority, linked to the notions ofgood and evil and to the distinc-tion of rationality and irrationa-lity—, loses its value. What comesinto play instead is rather the no-

ments that constitute every pieceof art as a whole create a scenariowhere every actor occupies a mo-vable place in nature. And everypart maintains a metonimic rela-tion with the rest of the players, forthey occupy the same space, thesame world. Thus, matter, formand color create and recreate anecological scenario, where the fo-

mask. And this goes alongwith popular beliefs, foreach man and woman sha-res a common destiny withan animal counterpart: “ifthe animal suffers injury,the human being will beco-me ill, if the animel is killed, the human beingwill die.”14

Man as a glyph says Oc-tavio Paz. If you decode theglyph, you decode man. Th-rough the glyph you create,recreate and relive myths.Past, present and future ina synchronous manifesta-tion. This is what Francisco

tion of movement and transfor-mation: the metamorphosis. Theplace of man, of animals and ob-jecis in the universe is only a con-tinuum. Even death is a conti-nuum of that process of move-ment. This is why in Toledo’s workone finds that the form of objects,of animals and humans are onlyapparent, for there is no form thatis invariably related to livingthings. Thns, Toledo’s work is notseen as art of reproducing reality—a reflection process—but as a pro-cess of creating new worlds, newways of seeing the world, it is con-sequently a rupture, a postmo-dern expression of our times. Inthis sense, his work shares a simi-lar tendency that we have seen inRufino Tamayo and in Pablo Picas-so. Paraphrasing Octavio paz12 andCarlos Fuentes13, it is the idea thatthe bourgeois world of our time isclosed and sterile because it canno longer create myths. Myths areconsidered indispensable meansfor man’s spiritual regeneration.To survive in such a world onemost resort to a metamorphicthinking, one must appeal to theuse of masks. The mask as a stra-tegy for transformation. They mayrepresent human beings, male orfemale—conveying the essentialcharacteristics or simply sugges-ting them: violence, virtue, ambi-tion, simplicity, sympathy, terror—,animals or supernatural beingsthat embody religious concepts or

simply imaginary. In Indian tradi-tion, zoomorphic masks permittedthe personification of jaguars,monkeys, dogs, serpents, eaglesand all kinds of birds. But their in-terpretation should be done inthe context of nature, in the con-text of the natural chain. Lé-vi-Strauss says in La Voie des Mas-ques “Masks, like myths, cannotbe interpreted on their own andin their own right, as if they wereisolated objects”. And in Mexicothere are 56 indigenous contextsfor there are 56 ethnic groups,each one with its variations. Whatwe seem to see in the enormousvariety of masks in terms of perso-nification and transformation, wealso see in Toledo’s iconography:a human being behind a fishmask, a man behind a monkeymaski and man behind a female

variation or constancy generate afigurative syntax. In all these se-ries—rabbits, elephants, insects,shit, etc—the title of the art pieceis a symbol—an index—whose se-mantic existence comes intobeing by its integration to thepainting, rather, to its plastic code.In these pieces one finds figuresof amplification or, in classicalrhetoric, espolitio. As a whole the-se figures constitute a poeticstructure of the kind:

A rabbit is a rabbit, is a rabbit, is a rabbitA bee is abee, is abee, is a beeA shit is a shit, is a shit, is a shit

Sequence that reminds me ofthe recursive rules in grammar,only in this case with much moreliberty. These icons in their para-digmatic and syntagmatic organi-zation they project a theme and astyle. Each of the figures finds itselfin a contiguous representation. Inthe Shit series, animals as well ashumans are in the same level.Again, life and death is only a con-tinuum of the same natural pro-cess. The title then, is a figure in adouble sense: rhetorical and plas-tic. A seductive strategy which isachieved by plastic variables—co-lor and texture—. The figure of thetitle is a designatum, a simile. Theart piece is a figuration of figures.

Toledo does in the multiplemanifestations of his artis-tic work.

We might define Tole-do’s work as creative liberbwhere one shall find a ree-valuation of the notion ofspace. Form, color andmatter, fundamental unitsof his language, coexist tocreate an ensemblei theyall provide support—theybecome new interpretants-—for projecting other newvalues, for projecting a newinterpretation of the world.

Francisco Toledo postu-lates, in fact, a new cosmo-gony, as we can see in TheRabbits, The Elephants and

The Insecfs, each one being apoetic text in itself—if we agreewith Salvador Elizondo’s15 ideaswhen he proposes that there is anarrative nature in Toledo’s art.16

Rational thinking is opposed tomythical thinkingi normative be-havior is opposed to feeling, emo-tions and bodily vibrations, spaceis the extension of corporal move-ments’ which is a form of commu-nication among living beings—hu-man or non-human—. The ani-mals body is an extension of mybody, man within nature is onlyan other living being. Thns, eachone of these figures— symbolic fi-gures: the rabbit, the elephant,the insect—become paradigmaticfigures with a mnemonic function.The figures constantly remind usof our basic nature and our basicinstincts, as we can see in the va-rious works of the Book of Shitwhere the figures—icons—in their

ting or a watercolor? Eachtexture, form or color varia-tion becomes an hummoloquens which comes intoa dialogue with the other

Thus in Toledo’s art there is adialogue with nature and vvithinnature What one might see as au-to-referential is not only theself-recognition but also an ex-pression of the condition of hu-man beings in general, a sort ofsynecdoche. For he speaks ofequality among humans and therest of living beings within nature.Modern culture is thus questio-ned, modern values are also putin doubt.

Reality and imagination, the te-rrestrial and the cosmic, they allcome together to release the crea-tive energy in Toledo. His sense offreedom takes him into a fantasticworld, much the same as Borge’sFanfastic Zoology where imaginedbeings wonder through differentregions and different epochs of ti-me to create illusions and terror.Borges and Toledo, poesis ef pic-tura coming together: twin brot-hers converging into twin arts. He-re again the horacian analogy thatwe find in Arte Poetica17 which re-fers to human relations with natu-re. But it refers also to the conceptof totality within nature. Ut picturaet poesis18 points to the sense thatan image or figure may project in-side as well as outside a text. Thusan image may refer to a constella-tion of prehispanic senses or tomodern meanings. An image maythos rec~ l contents which belongto different semiotic domains—dif-ferent semiotic paradigms, in

terms of Hjelmslev—. If the natureof Toledo’s artistic work is thenthe convergence of different se-miotic systems, our question isthen, the variations refer to theplane of expression or to the pla-ne of content? What kind of func-tion does an image—figure in rhe-torical terms~ can we find in anengraving, a gouache, an oil pain-

El Cant ar de los Peces (19 71). Lit ografía 5 3,5 x 4 1.5 cm.

elements of a piece of art.Let us say, in terms of Lé-vi-Strauss, an expression isa content.

His metamorphic princi-ple is the constant tEroug-hout Toledo’s artistic work:a goat becomes a pump-kin, a saint is an extensionof a fish—fertility symbolthat refers to the sexual act,origin of creation of allsorts of living beings. TheDivine is, at the same time,part of this fertility ritual.Holiness is the other sideof fertility, as we can see inNew Catechismfor Remiss

What we gather from tLis, onceagain, is the uniqueness of onesingle being.

But this metamorphic principleis not really new, its roots go backto Indian Mythology. It is some-how a return to a harmoniouscosmos where man and the restof nature wore organically integra-ted. But with the arrival of Chris-tianity —the humanization of theIndians would say the eYange-lists-—and modernity, the oldequilibrium is broken. Primitivethinking leaves its place to ratio-nal thinking. The natural balanceis broken. We see it in the ancientgods, in the masks of modern ri-tuals where the mask stands foran animali it is the opening of atheatrical representation. Each ofthe mask’s lines constitutes a na-rrative text, each gesture refers toa wide semantic field. The inter-pretant will result of an imaginaryworld: a dream, as Paul Kleewould say: ‘Dream about me... Iam my own style,”19 an experien-ce, a habit. All of them, in differentlevels of semiosis, but the com-mon trait is the search for a newharmonious balance in naturewhere sexual and religious valuesare one and the samei where et-hical and social values unitearound man and nature, and re-gulations are but processes of in-tegration and communication.

In the different expressions ofToledo’s art, each of the icons gi-

Indians . From this transformationa new single being emerges. Thisis what allows us to understandany transformation from animalsto humans and form humans toanimals. Non-humans are theulter of human beings. In this cos-mogony, Occidental values losetheir validity, for Toledo questionsold structures, he ridiwles mythi-cal symbols, as we can see in hisvarious works about an other Za-potec Indian: Benito Juárez—Mexi-can symbol par excellence, or mo-dern rituals like contemporary ce-meteries. An example of this canbe seen in his Cemefery of Ani-muls which we find in the back-yard of his house in Oaxaca. Lifeand death side to side, for thephallic symbol projects the mea-ning of fertility. Life aPter deathone would say in Christian terms.

of an analysis of the mostrepresentative art pieces.However, considering thetime available, I shall pass

ves birth to others or is devouredby larger ones. Some are inhabitedby other beings. The recurrent to-pic seems to be birth and death.Giving birth and transformationare the frequent themes. In short,the permanent question appearsto be our origin. The mouth, theanus or the vagina?20 Where arewe coming from? What are wemade of? We are dust, seems tobe the message. We see it in thematerials he uses, in the color va-riationsi the sand in its differenttextures and tonalities What is ourplace in nature? Furthermore, hisicons do not seem to have a be-ginning, they start from somet-hing: an animal, a texture, an ob-ject and human being. The themesand characters of his scenario dohave continuity, like in a narrativetext. And he seems to agrce withthis idea when he says: “In theprocess of creation, the artist uni-tes his sequences. What he doesin a disorderly way in the end hasan order and he sees f~ nally a co-herent body of ideas.”21

The universe is in constanttransformation. Tt is no longer fi-xed, it is in movement. An animal,an object or a man may be muta-ted into almost anything: a livingbeing comes out from an other li-ving being to find shelter in an ot-her one.

The constant movement thatwe see in Toledo~ s art besomesan allegory. lt can be a journey

from the known to the unknown,from the real to the fantasy. Rea-lity and fantasy interwoven, likeBorge~ s Fantastic Zoology. Chainsof metaphors that arouse our sen-ses into our history, our present orour expectations.

What l have said up to now canonly be seen as the prolegomena

La olla de la madre de los camarones, 19 9 0 , cerámica alalt o fuego.

review of a couple of themto highlight some of theideas that we have alreadyput forward in lines before.Let us look in The Visit(1970).

First of all, what we seeis an illogical and irrationalrepresentation of reality Aman in a duality of nature:the fish is a man, is a man,and is a man. Or, the manis a fish, is a fish, and is afish. What is la head of thefish, is also the head of theman. The man is sitlingdown and leaning over ca-ne. A woman is undressing,without shoes. There is a

nes with a metaphor—the fish’shead—to rehumanize the man sit-ting in the chair, who, by the pre-sence of the cane we get the ideathat he is a very old man. An oldman contrasting with the youth ofthe man in the mirror. Old agemeans death, but also signifies li-fe Man within mani restitution ofthe human spirit and vitality to oldage. By beheading modern man,Toledo reintroduces the animalnature in old age which in mo-derr1 times it means retreat andself-communion. This reminds meof Luis22 Zarate’s Ar~ cfud as Pe-nis.23 The rafio loses before theanamal instinct. Nature triumphsover reason. An aesthetic messa-ge is projected by the grotesque.Old age suffers a metamorphosisbut it is done in communion withother human beings: the womanand the young man. We find so-mething similar in the watercolor

bed and a washstand. The firststands as a symbol of sexualityand the second as an emblem ofthe origin of life, for water standsfor life. The glass of closet reflecisan other man who is dressing orundressing. On top of the closethere is a dog watching with amalicious smile. The floor of theroom seems to be inclined. Theman with the cane exhibits anerected penis. What we have hereis the theme that the human figu-re is deeply united to nature andits manifestations which in thiscase it is the fish which symboli-zes fertility—new life—but also thebeginning of life. It is the integra-tion of the human world and na-tural world. It is also a questioningof rationality and certain religiousvalues. We see nature re-humani-zing man. The old and traditionaland ideological structure whichunderlies man’s superiority is re-defined, for man loses its rationa-lity—the head is no longer thehead of a human being—. Thusman recovers his animal natureand the animals recover their hu-manity. But this is an allegory.What the icons project is the ideaof a new attitude towards theworld. It is a poetic drawing whe-re metaphors combine to createfantasy, where the real and unrealfuse to project the sense of unionbetween animals and man. It is achallenge to logic and rationality.

An iconic representation combi-

tant of all the people ofMescamerica”.24 AlbertoBlanco, poet, in a clear ana-logy of the structure of thehuman brain, says: “Fromthe beginning... the Oaxacaartists...have worked withtwo hands: the right hand,which has dealt with the vi-sible world, real, rational,has described his environ-ment, the plants and ani-mals of its geography... And

Portrait of Armando Colina (1966)where the human face also pro-jects the fusion of man with natu-re. Toledo’s intention is not to spi-ritualize nature but an act of crea-tion—poiesis—in terms of Horace,placing the artist in the historicand cultural perspective, as wecan see in so many other art pie-ces: Night and Bird (1973), TheSmging of Fish (1971). Again wehave here a plastic poem singingto the humanizing of man th-rough the free interaction with na-ture. There is a new logos. Natu-re’s speech is re~ iscovered. Mo-dern subjectivity gives way to anew subjectivity. There is a newforce that emerges with a new na-tural relations among humansand animals and objects. Paraph-rasing Walter Benjamin, the I hasbeen weakened as if it were rot-ten tocth. In this metamorphicprocess the objects of modern eraproject a new sense which is nolonger their utilitarian function.Toledo does not seem to want theelimination of reason. Rather, heproposes some kind of balancebetween ratio and natural forces.Man is rational but he also be-longs to the forces of nature. Fromthis perspective, nature is not onlya place pleasure and beauty, it isalso a place for building life in awider sense. It is not an idealiza-tion of nature but the possibilityof new micro-cosmogony. It is aproposition for a more equal so-

ciety where the human being isnot superior to the rest of the li-ving beings, even those that dan-gerous to man. Mythical thoughtdoes fuse with realism. Pre-Hispa-nic thought feeding modernthought. In this line of thought,man is no longer afraid of natureand of his natural thrives.

Allow me to finish these com-ments on Francisco Toledo un-derlying the idea that for thepre-Hispanic civilizations art wasnever apart form ordinary life. Interms of Octavio Paz: “The fusionbetween the literal and the sym-bolic, matter and idea, naturalreality and supernatural, is a cons-

the leflc hand has taken fortask the decipherment ofthe lePt side of Creation,the side of the myths, le-gends and dreams withtheir fantastic creatures,

Adr ia n S. Gima t e -We lshBerlin, Febrnary 17, l999

1) National Prize Winner in Art, 19982) President of the Mexican As-

sociation for Semiotic Studies andMember of the Scientific Commit-tee of the International Associa-tion for Semiotic Studies (IASS-AIS).

3) See Rufino Tamayo, Mythand Magic, National Endowmentfor the Art, Instituto Nacioral deBellas Artes,

Waschington D.C., México,1988, p.12.

4) Interview that Adrián S. Gi-mate-Welsh held with FranciscoToledo at the Graphic Arts Institu-te of Oaxaca in February 4, 1999.

5) Textos de Rufino Tamayo,Alianza Madrid, 1994, p.35

6) Francisco Toledo. Exposiciónretrospectiva 1963/ 79, InstitutoNacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico,198, p.7

7) Interview with Francisco To-ledo at the IAGO

8) See, Adrián S. Gimate-Welsh,“Correspondecias y símbolos enel arte de Tamayo”, en Varia Lin-güistica y Literatura pages 287-303, editores Rebeca Barriga y Pe-dro Martin Butragueño, E1 Cole-gio de México, 1997.

See Blanca Gutiérrez Galindo,Francisco Toledo. Hisforia y natu-raleza, tesis de Maestría Artes Grá-

their imaginary beings, metaphorsin a constant transformation.”25

Which hand is dominant? That re-mains to be seen, for much of hiswork still needs to be studied inmany different aspects. In any ca-se, Toledo is what his critics havesaid, but much more if we stop toexarnine no only his spontaneouscreatiYity but also his plastic lan-guage.

La verdadera t ent ación, 19 8 1, del albúm Nuevo Cat ecismopara indios remisos, grabado, aguafuert e, punt a seca,mezzot int a y buril sobre papel, 4 0 x 5 6 cms.

ficas, Especial en pintura, UNAM,1996 en pintura, UNAM, 1996.

10) Francisco Toledo. A Retros-pective of his Graphic Works, July22-October 9, 1988.

11) See Paul Klee, “Caminos di-versos en el estudio de la natura-leza”, en Teoria del Arte Moderno,Buenos Aires, 1979, p. 67.

12) Nobel Prize in Literatue. 13) Distinguished Mexican writer.14) See Ruth Lechuga and

Chloë Sayer, Mask Arts of México,Chronicle Books, San Francisco,1994, p. 48.

15) Mexican poet. He is also aNational Prize Winner in Linguis-tics and Literature.

16) See Francisco Toledo Expo-sición retrospectiva 1963/ 1979,Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes,México, 1980.

17) See Quinti Horatii Flacci, Dearte poetica, White, Gallaher, Nue-va York, 1828, p. 38.

18) See Arnullo Herrera “Ole:“Ut pictura poesis” in Escritos. Se-miótica de la cultura, Adrian S. Gi-mate-Welsh (Universidad Autóno-ma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca, Mé-xico, 1994, pages 447-460.

19) Francrsco Toledo, GaleriaArvil, XXV Aniversario, México,l999, p. 8

20) See Veronica Volkow, Lamordedura de la risa. Un estudiosobre la gráfica de Francisco Tole-do, Editorial Aldus, México, 1995,p. 22.

21) Interview with Francisco Toledo.22) Also from Oaxaca Born in 1951.23) Drawing of my own collection.24) See Fernando Solana Oiva-

res, “Cien años en Oaxaca”, in His-toria del arte de Oxaca, . Arte con-temporáneo, Volumen ll:, Gobier-no del Estado de Oaxaca, Oaxaca,México, 1997, p. 97.

25) Fernando Solana, art. Cit., p. 97,

Tres Avispas 9 19 6 9 -19 70 ). Aguafuert e, aguat int a y rulet a 32 x4 5 cm.

CERRAR/CLOSE/FERMER

La esfinge, 19 8 3, Serie: Zoología fant ást ica, acuarela y t int asobre papel, 2 4 .5 x 32 .5 cms.