Contemporary and Indigenous: Hilos That Bind
By: Karen Mary Davalos
Ever wonder why some word-pairs, like “working vacation,” seem to negate each other? Other examples come to mind: “act naturally” or “clearly confused.” When words are assumed to be contradictory, oxymoronic is the term to describe these phrases, it depends on agreed upon meanings. Yet, I don’t think Self Help Graphics agrees with those critics who have historically assumed that “contemporary” and “indigenous” arts are oxymoronic.
Hilos Ancestrales (2013) by Eva Sandoval is an important print because it expresses what some people think is impossible or improbable: it blends contemporary and indigenous art. In the SHG statement, the serigraph is described as composed of “brightly abstracted” geometric patterns, spirals and concentric circles in primary colors of red, blue, yellow and green. By blending graphic strategies closely associated with contemporary art and elements of clothing worn by Aztec danzantes, the print challenges the presumption that “contemporary indigenous art” is an oxymoronic statement, a claim that locates Indigenous people forever in the past and unchanging. Viewing “contemporary indigenous art” as oxymoronic requires the understanding that their integration into the contemporary moment disqualifies them as Indigenous.
Sandoval’s print boldly challenges these assumptions because the print is simultaneously contemporary and indigenous in its expression. The geometric shapes in their dense composition suggest psychedelia. While not every aspect of this print matches the techniques of psychedelic art—for example, psychedelic posters of the 1960s rely on neon colors and curvilinear flourishes—the print echoes several visual tools of psychedelia, namely repetition and embellishment. The print mixes distinct clothing designs and realistic elements of danzantes with psychedelic ornamentation and the repetition of motifs. The print also conveys the celebratory and exuberant qualities of psychedelic imagery, although located in the materials of the Aztec danzante.
For instance, the right register of the print is filled with a large hand holding the neck of a mandolin, an instrument used by conchero dancers during ceremonia. The body of the string instrument is typically an armadillo carapace or hard gourd, the remaining media available to indigenous musicians after colonial mandates forbade indigenous artisans from producing European musical instruments. It is also the instrument of choice among danzantes who reject European influences. The arm is adorned with the danzante’s regalia, and the black and grey feathers, according to Sandoval, “represent the rays of the sun reaching for the creator.”
Following psychedelia’s tendency to confuse the eye with multiple perspectives or horizons, the image is chaotic. Serpentine shapes, circles, and scallops terminate abruptly near the center of the print. A band with two symbols, a butterfly and a step-fret pyramid, is behind the mandolin but without anchor. It is distinguished by its tan color; it may be a percussion mallet or another item used during ceremonial dance. Hilos Ancestrales does not resolve these visual complexities, further cementing its psychedelic aesthetic form. The hand and mandolin reference the material objects of conchero dancers, but the print largely rejects narrative by blending of popular graphics and contemporary danzante clothing choices.
The clothing references are not surprising, since the artist is a “vestuario or costume maker” of San Diego who apprenticed under maestra, Mary Lou Valencia, one of the first female leaders of a danza troupe in San Diego. Valencia founded Danza Mixcoatl and was trained by Florenico Yescas, the maestro who traveled from Mexico City in the 1970s and took up residency at Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park of San Diego to teach danza to Chicana/os. Yescas belonged to a group of danzantes, or concheros, who aimed to eliminate European influences, a political tactic that suited el movimiento and current decolonial methods. His danza lineage from Mexico City identifies as one of the oldest dance circles hailing from Querétaro, a region which had been at the edges of the Aztec Empire and thus a counter-point to Mexican nationalism. Furthermore, Valencia’s recognition as La Capitana de la Danza indicates that female leadership maneuvered over patriarchy, the more common hierarchy within danza, Chicano culture, and Chicano politics.
Studying within the acknowledged danza lineage from Mexico City that eschews European influences, Sandoval’s artistic expression bears witness to the complex, transnational indigenous flows across Mexico and the United States. Sandoval participated in cultural programming at Centro Cultural de la Raza in 1990 and joined Danza Mixcoatl in 1995 and five years later, she received a grant from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts to apprentice under Valencia to make danza regalia, particularly to learn the wisdom Valencia gathered from Rosita Amaya, a Mexican seamstress for over thirty-five years. Within this cultural context of Chicano politics, female leadership, contemporary indigeneity expressed through danza, and non-profit funding, Sandoval became an accomplished seamstress who applied traditional motifs and symbols to ceremonial outfits worn by her peers.
In her artist statement, Sandoval declares that the print is an homage to “the contemporary vesturario makers, keeping our culture alive.” Critics who claim that Chicana/o indigeneity ignores living indigenous people cannot anticipate Danza Mixcoatl’s investment in recognized, named, and living maestros and representations of lineage that challenge Mexican mestizaje by privileging indigeneity. Articulating reverence for her contemporaries, the call to traditions that pre-date colonization emphasize the fabrication of self and community and the filament of female leadership in danza. Hilos Ancestrales celebrates present and prevailing cultural expressions as strategies of survival rooted in female wisdom through contemporary graphics of indigenous forms.
Dr. Karen Mary Davalos is a Board Member and Professor and Chair of the Chicano and Latino Studies department at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.