Throughout the 1980s,

Jean-Marie Simon was one of those very few journalists who chose to live here, and in 1987 she published, Guatemala: Eternal Spring / Eternal Tyranny (W.W. Norton & Co.) The book is a moving and enigmatic presentation, often in the form of short vignettes of text and image that give the reader the sensation that the war, itself, is growing around them from a thousand different points in time and space. Reading this book is as important to understanding the Guatemala Civil War as reading The Art of Political Murder by Francisco Goldman is to understanding how its howling still echoes down canyons of impunity to this very day.

In June of this year, for the first time, the book was published in Spanish and is finally available to a wider Guatemalan audience. La Cuadra was fortunate enough to secure an interview with Ms. Simon about her experiences living in Guatemala during the war, and the creation of a book which captures those years in ways that no other work has done.

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MT: Jean-Marie Simon, welcome and congratulations on the re-publication, in Spanish for the first time, of your book, Guatemala: Eternal Spring, Eternal Tyranny.

JMS: Thank you, I am glad to be here.

MT: To start, I have a direct question: were you a reporter during the time that you were writing the book?

JMS: Yes. There were lots of us here. There were many good reporters here, but the problem is that most of them just came and went. For example, Marjorie Miller of the L.A. Times, who I consider a great reporter, she couldn’t spend a month in Guatemala.

MT: Right, helicopter in, helicopter out.

JMS: Well, yes, but her helicoptering in was good. There would be these pilgrimages to Guatemala for elections and coups, and every once in a while, if something bad happened, they’d arrive en masse from the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. They’d do their interview with the Commander of some region. Maybe they’d go up to Nebaj for two days. But as a photographer and journalist that just didn’t attract me.

As I said last night [at an event celebrating the book's release], I started out just wanting to be a photographer, a great photographer. I wanted to be a big name and go from place to place and shake the world with my images; then I got sucked into Guatemala. And I decided, while I wanted to be great, it’s more about being useful. I thought, well, I speak Spanish. I can talk to people and I’m a pretty good photographer and I learned to be a good listener to people here. They’re such good storytellers. But I decided that my utility was combining the photographs with testimony because I was hearing much more than I could express in a photograph.

And the reason I was hearing it was because Aryeh Neier, who was with Americas Watch, which became Human Rights Watch, learned that I was in Guatemala and that I was talking to people and there were no reporters here long term. So he put me to work writing reports on Guatemala, and I started to enjoy interviewing people. And then it became an identity crisis. Do I take the picture? Do I photograph people? And the photographs probably suffered for it because, maybe, I could have taken the photography to another level if I’d just stuck with that and jettisoned the interviews, but it just wasn’t that useful to do that here. Beautiful pictures of a war are not going to do much for a country. But reporting, I think, did.

So I wrote Human Rights Watch reports on Guatemala from 1982 to 1987. And after some time there were so many people showing up in my hotel room, my little hotel room on 6th Avenue and 12th Street in Guatemala City, which is now a narco-hotel. I lived there for six years. And people would come to my hotel. Peasants aren’t going to go look for you in Zone 10.  But they will look for you in Zone 1. Because they get off the bus where the terminal used to be in Zone 4 and then they’d walk to my hotel. And Zone 1 was such a melting pot of people that they’d fit in, and they’d come up to my room, bring a coffee and we’d talk.

MT: And they’d seek you out because they knew you were there and they knew you were telling their stories?

JMS: They really trusted me because they knew who I was working for. And it was like a chain effect where someone trusted me, and then they told their friends and they told their friends and so on.

MT: Okay, so here’s the reason I asked if you were reporting during the war: you were a known entity in Guatemala. The positive side being people came to seek you out, looking for somewhere to tell their story. The other side is that the military knew who you were, too. Did you ever feel threatened? Was your life ever in danger?

As noted by an earlier reviewer of his work, Silvia Herrera, the faces Barrios paints “chase the image” of the subject that inspired the work. That may be the key.

While representational, these images are also deeply suggestive of the emotional ties that unite us all. The paintings, be they watercolors or oils, “chase” the deeper truths of what it is to be human. In them we see deep melancholy, a reverence for a past long gone, and yet still living in our most silent and cloistered inner chambers. We witness an adoration of the beauty that resides within – and gives form to – all life, be it our own or the fading representational color of the plucked flower or the bird on the wing. These are the stones his work touches, and these are the stones he makes sing in a harmony beyond the mundane.

Surely, there are as many uniting themes of our collective existence less beautiful – avarice, hoarding, anger and hatred. And as such, Barrios’ work points us to the inherency of the choice: In what light shall we see one another?

To see more of Cesar Barrios’ work, please visit www.artintheamericas.com.

While speaking recently with Daniel Chauche

Yesterday, upon the stair / I met a man who wasn’t there / He wasn’t there again today / I wish, I wish he’d go away…

Only with Daniel, of course, I wish, I wish he’ll choose to stay.

Chauche, to some extent in person and evocatively in his work, seems to fade in and out of the frame. At once, he is patiently explaining what his art is, but doing so by taking away layers of what it is not. During a recent conversation he said his work was “documentary photography” but then quickly refined the comment by saying it was “personal photography in a documentary style – not National Geographic, not crime scene investigator, not reportage” though it uses some of the same techniques. Then there was an instructive foray into the history of photography, and where his form fits into the development of the field in time and place. Then the conversation turned to what he hopes will be the historical importance of his whole collection of images, created over three decades of life in Guatemala that provide a unique visual memory of the country and its people during his time here.

I understood him perfectly, and then I didn’t. And then I did. Yesterday upon a stair, I met a man who wasn’t there…

To explain his art, Daniel can point to the significant subtext in any photograph which ties the image to its place in time and space – the indicators that reveal, to use his term, the “it-ness” of the image. By way of one complex example, consider the last image in the gallery at the bottom of this page. It is a photograph of a cemetery, beautifully balanced with a symbolic tree of life rising above a mid-field horizon line. But the “it-ness” of the photograph only comes clear if you know the significance of the dates (early 1982) and what that era meant in the history of Guatemala (a time of unrelenting violence and war) and that the double XX’s on the grave markers mean that the bodies could not be identified. Then might your eyes be drawn to the other crosses with the double XX’s disappearing into the background of the graveyard and sense the image’s it-ness.

But at the same time, Chauche has no desire to own your “Aha!” moment. He has plenty of his own at work and in the world, with his camera. And as he collects and creates images, he brings to his audience his own personal experience – experiences that the viewer can feel, standing alone in the gallery. And when he’s created his art, framed and represented his subject,  one feels as if you are seeing the world through the photographer’s lens, and yet also, very much through your own eyes. The realization of that shared experience between the artist, the subject, the history and the viewer is the root of the there / not there paradox. Oddly and inspiringly, you also get the sense that this means you, too. The woman with the child on her hip is not there. Nor are you. The man with the lottery tickets is not there. Nor are you. Death as a costumed  dancer is not there. Nor are you. And yet you all are – in a place out of time and space. Chauche is the conduit. It’s a rather Antigonish experience.

To explain further his philosophy of personal photography in a documentary style Daniel compared his work to a novel written so well that the reader forgets that it’s just words on a page. When that happens you are fully in the writer’s world. As we looked over images in his home, that was, for me, the “Aha!” moment.

Then, of course, Daniel changed the metaphor and said that maybe his photographs are better understood as poems. Words that, properly few in number and well chosen, somehow speak to a truth of extraordinary depth and substance. Again, that is a way of understanding the “it-ness” of the image or of the words. I thought I had him at the first metaphorical turn, but my understanding deepened with the second  reference. He wasn’t there again today.

To turn rather crassly from the inter-connectedness of images to history, and narrative to visual philosophy, you should be there to view his work personally. The artist is presenting a show that focuses on the Panchoy Valley and its inhabitants for the Sol del Río Gallery at Mesón Panza Verde located on 5a Avenida in Antigua, #19. The show opens on January 13th at 5 PM and runs through early February.

You will see Daniel there. Maybe…

Julio Zadik’s story is equally as intriguing

But just as it seemed that the sensitivity of his eye would elevate him to international fame, he – quite intentionally – disappeared.

To be fair, Zadik didn’t disappear from his family nor his life; rather he focused his avocational energies on lithography and assembling an impressive gallery of modern art in Bogota, Colombia.

Yet he never stopped shooting.

Upon his death earlier in this decade, he bequeathed to his family tens of thousands of images he had captured or created over a lifetime, some of which will be on display at the Sol del Rio Gallery in Panza Verde this month.

The photos for this show were taken between 1937 and 1965, and their existence is causing a rewriting of Latin  American modern art. At a time when most photographers were bound to their studios, and most interaction between Ladino and indigenous cultures was economically and socially exploitative – and strictly ethnographic academically – Julio Zadik went into the field and touched the physical and spiritual humanity of his nation.

Panza Verde is located on 5th Avenue, just south of 9th Calle. The opening will be held at 4PM on Saturday December 12, and will run until early January.

Zadik Athletic Males

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There a difference between a town

It’s an amazing thing when it happens, but it doesn’t happen often because of the hard work that must go into creating the living networks between the bands, bars, venues, artists and audiences. To achieve the self-sustaining part of the scene requires a sensitive series of successive actions – made more complex by the realities that any local amalgam of musicians will, as a rule, contain more than its fair share of divas and straight-up crazyheads.

In that regard, Antigua sure as hell ain’t an exception.

And yet, in the past few months a collective of artists, following the lead of the enigmatically named Jueves, a card-carrying kazooist of the first order, managed to unite, in his words, “the fires of the different tribes in our musical community into a great flame.”

And through the work he helped to orchestrate, La Tortilla, The Antigua All Stars, was born.

Normally such hippie talk leaves the editorial board of La Cuadra less than impressed, but Jueves and his band of merry minstrels has actually pulled off something amazing. They’ve given Antigua the right to proclaim itself as a town with an honest to Godsmack music scene.

Jueves didn’t do this alone, and he’d be the first one to tell you that. La Tortilla is the result of a remarkable level of cooperation between musicians, recording engineers, visual artists and patrons. Jueves acknowledges that he may be the head of this thing, but it’s takes a whole body to sing.

The idea to try and “unite the flames” actually grew after Jueves had shared a few beers with an Aussie engineer – mechanical not a musical, strangely enough – named Corrina Grace.

Ricardo Castillo’s “Allegories of a Bad Conscience,” currently on display at La Antigua Galería del Arte, is a minimalist exploration of the power of line in classic works of Western Art. Through its grace and power, Castillo’s work resurrects the intensity of images that have become iconic – and as such, denuded of their initial force. By doing so, the artist adds to the power of the visual and ruminative experience.

Castillo’s technique, known as alambre, requires the manipulation of metal wire to achieve a representational likeness of the original form. Presented here are several alambres that use Picasso, de Goya and Magritte as their source and inspiration.

Castillo explains that his choice of de Goya’s Third of May and Picasso’s Guernica is because they deliberately approach the theme of human violence and brutality. By emphasizing the linear form of the characters in each tableau, Castillo asks his viewer, inversely, to consider the completeness of the barbarism represented. If we just see the image we remember, we miss the point.

While his use of Magritte may seem more whimsical, Castillo’s alambres refocus the viewer on Magritte’s original intent. No, it is not a pipe. It is an alambre of a painting of a pipe – yet, it is a fully formed artistic notion, leaning into the past while looking forward to a new interpretation and understanding of human perceptions.

To see more of Castillo’s work, please visit La Antigua Galería del Arte, located at #15, 4a Calle Oriente. Or visit his website at www.myspace.com/luisricardocastillo.

Mr. Castillo lives and works in Bogota, Colombia where he is a Professor of Fine Arts.

By juxtaposing the techniques and images of “retablo,” or altar painting  (a form brought to Latin America from the Old World during Colonial times) with the ubiquitous branding of a corporate, global economy, the artist asks us to question assumptions about the demise of colonialism, itself.

In McGrath’s words, he explores the interplay, “between traditional icons and our modern-day consumer society. The paintings project a world filled with unexpected anachronisms where spirituality is transgressed by triviality.”

He notes that in his world, “religious symbols lose their original meaning and are amorally converted into disposable marketplace products from the Media culture.”

McGrath believes that his modern retablos act as “purveyors of the belief system intrinsic to a capitalist society, which assuming control over the media, diffuses the pervasive corporate propaganda and manufactures mass consent with its offers of salvation.”

The “salvation” offered by Visa, Mastercard and WalMart means something different than it did five hundred years ago. It is salvation in the form of credit and consumption rather than faith and redemption. But these modern myths share communion with the older traditions in that they are imposed on an amnesiac public from miles above and far away.

A show dedicated to the work of Patrick McGrath will be opening at La Antigua Galería del Arte on 4th Calle between 1st and 2nd Avenues on July 4, 2009. It is not to be missed.

Patrick McGrath was born in New York in 1975. He was raised, and currently lives and works, in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.

More of Mr. McGrath’s work can be found at his website: www.artarcanum.com or at the website of La Antigua Galeria del Arte: www.artintheamericas.com

San Juan Comalapa, Chimaltenango, Guatemala 2004

James Rodriguez, a Mexican – U.S. independent photo-documentarian has lived and worked in Mexico, the United States, Japan, Brazil and Guatemala. Based in Guatemala since 2004 he has been documenting several post-war processes in addition to current human rights and social justice struggles in the region.

The photos selected here provide only a small window into the complexity of his work and impact of the experiences on the lives which his photographs document.

In addition to the cover of this magazine, five photos are featured here. The first, above, was taken on the Day of the Dead in 2004 in Comalapa during an exhumation of dozens of mass graves found within an army garrison. Here, 179 bodies were recovered, most showing signs of torture.

The second photo shows members of HIJOS (Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice Against Forgetfulness and Silence) clashing with the police during a March of Remembrance in 2007. The March brought together activists and families of victims of the civil war with the goal of halting a parade which commemorated the 136th annual Military Day.

The third photo attesting to Mr. Rodriguez’s artistry, sense of balance and the personal experience of daily life in Guatemala was taken at a market in Zona 3, Guatemala City in 2007.

The fourth photo, taken in El Salvador, reveals the challenges of city residents forced to live and work behind bars for fear of the rising crime and violence in their barrios.

The fifth is a stark representation of the grief and mourning still being experienced by Nicolas Chen, as he caresses a photograph of his daughter, Martha, one of the 400 victims of the Rio Negro massacres during the early 1980s. The massacres were sparked by the construction of a hydro-electrical plant. The caption beneath her photograph describes how soldiers performed a forced cesarean on her with a machete and asks how anyone could take a defenseless life so unjustly.

With these images, we are asked intimately, to wonder, too. These experiences must be documented, they must be witnessed, and Mr. Rodriguez provides us a portal. To view more of his work, please visit his website at www.mimundo.org.

Guatemala City, Guatemala, 2007

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Guatemala City, Guatemala, 2007

The objects in Espinoza’s paintings are, in a sense, overly familiar. We live with them daily, we interact with them casually, but those things – the city, the sofa, the cabinet, the piano, the table, the fruit – are intimately a part of our lives. They are our home, they provide us rest, they give us music, the are our family temples, they sate our hunger. Collectively, they provide space for our memory. They are the icons of our most intimate history.

As a series, Escaleras al Sueño, which means both Stairs to Sleep and Stairs to the Dream reminds the viewer to recollect moments of joy, of loss and of our place – achieved or unwanted – in this world. And it begs us to strive for something more beautiful, yet.

Espinoza’s use of profoundly dark shadows, in paintings that also employ colors central to the Guatemalan cultural palette, draws forth a double-edged question. What is the dream towards which we are aspiring? What is the reality to which we are bound?

For the viewer, such questions only add to the richness of the visual and spiritual experience.

Doniel Espinoza, born in 1970, has participated in more than 30 group shows in Guatemala, El Salvador, Ecuador, the United States and Germany. His works are currently showing at La Antigua Galería del Arte on 4 Calle Oriente No. 15, between 1st and 2nd Avenidas.

In a recent interview, Lucía Morán Giracca

Her work embraces the unavoidable conflicts that occur in this world – between city and sea, between progress and poverty, between woman and man, between the fall and the flight, between sharing and solitude. Each image asks the viewer to consider the world, if only momentarily, from a new perspective – and to wonder if our responsibilities lie in maintaining the communion or breaking the bond.

ucía, 30, was born, raised and educated in Guatemala. She is currently living and working in Barcelona. Most recently she, along with associates, brought the first Guatemalan Film Festival to Spain. She is currently preparing for a major showing of her work in the Summer of 2009.

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More can be seen at:  www.luciaenazul.com