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Abstract
This reflective work consists of performance writing about the production of the Spanish-Mexican artist Remedios Varo. Performance writing is an approach based on aesthetic cognition. It is a way of understanding knowledge that privileges the possibilities of a sensitive encounter with the world around us, and that understands life as a constant movement of the energy that is the breath of all beings and cosmic density. The encounter with Varo’s works has been constructed through conversation and analysis of two experiences, one in Nobsa, Colombia and the other in Mexico City. These experiences became the keys to accessing Varo’s and her artistic works’ highly creative, subjective universe made up of dynamic networks that interconnect some worlds with others. Varo’s works reflect the way in which contemporary subjectivities are configured, in how spaces and bodies comprise complex, dramatic and emotional universes.
Notes
1 Pierre Hadot, Elogio de Sócrates (Mexico: Solar, Servicios Editoriales, 2006), 71.
2 David Bohm, La totalidad y el orden implicado (Barcelona: Editorial Kairós, 2008), 22.
3 Ibid.
4 Michel Serres, Los Cinco Sentidos: Ciencia, poesía y filosofía del cuerpo (Bogotá: Taurus, 2002), 45.
5 Jacques Rancière, Sobre Políticas Estéticas (Barcelona: Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2005), 78.
6 Humberto Maturana, El Sentido de lo Humano, 4th ed. (Santiago de Chile: Ediciones Pedagógicas Chilenas S.A., 1992), 46.
7 Denise Najmanovich, El Juego de los Vínculos (Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblios, 2011), 97.
8 The meeting between Tufic Makhluot and Enrique R. Mirabal took place on 9th February 2015, in a café named Café Insurgente, located close to Hundido Park in Mexico City.
9 César Moro (1903–1956) was a Peruvian poet, living as a refugee in Mexico. He was a close friend of Remedios Varo. Original verses are “El agua lenta las variaciones mínimas lentas/ El rostro leve lento/ El suspiro cortado leve” from El Fuego y la Poesía in César Moro, Obra Poética (Lima, Perú: Instituto Nacional de Cultura. Dirección General de Difusión y Comunicación. Mérida, 1980), 50.
10 A friend from Mexico City of the article’s author, Hernández González, explained to him how the Mexican fruit punch was prepared: Take seven pieces of sugar cane, three apples, three guavas, a tejocote (Mexican hawthorn), hibiscus, tamarind, and plums to taste, and leave them on the fire until the fruits release their juice, and the mixture acquires the color and texture of Luis Barragán's walls. Then, add five drops of tlanapaquelite oil (ask about this at the market in Sonora) and a pinch of spice. This recipe is infallible for “warding off untimely dreams, insomnia and quicksand deserts under the bed,” according to Varo in Remedios Varo, Consejos, Recetas. Pinturas, manuscritos y dibujos (Monclova, Coahuila, Mexico: Museo Biblioteca Pape, 1985), 15.
11 The original quote by Varo from a project for a play reads: “…y la dejé clavada en el sitio mientras un fuego devorador se propaga del tobillo al resto del cuerpo, convirtiéndola en un montón de cenizas.” Quote from Remedios Varo, Cartas, Sueños y otros textos. Introducción y notas de Isabel Castell (Mexico: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, 1994), 92.
12 Juliana González, “Mundo y trasmundo de Remedios Varo,” in Remedios Varo, Catálogo Razonado, 3rd ed. (Mexico: Ediciones Era, 2002), 89.
13 An allusion to the work of Remedios Varo, Robo de sustancia, 1955, oil on masonite, 58 × 82 cm in Varo, Catálogo Razonado, 176. This should be regarded in connection with the following quotation by Benjamin Perét, the French poet to whom Varo was once married.
14 The original quote by Perét is “Así como el caracolillo asoma sus antenas después de la lluvia y toma su baño, así el pececito, que no es otra cosa que nuestro corazón, ha volado” in Benjamin Perét, Rodolfo Hinestroza (trans.) Mueran los cabrones y los campos de honor (Barcelona: Tusquets Editor, 1967), 64.
15 Octavio Paz, “Apariciones y desapariciones de Remedios Varo,” Siglo XXI de España Editores (eds.), Corriente Alterna (Mexico: Siglo XXI Editores, 1967), 51.
16 An allusion to the work of Remedios Varo, Encuentro, 1959, oil on canvas, 40 × 30 cm, in Varo, Catálogo Razonado, 233.
17 The original quote by Varo is “piedras redondas como huevos petrificados” in Varo, Cartas, Sueños y otros textos, 92.
18 Fernando Pessoa, Libro del Desasosiego (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1985), 233.
19 The original quote by Varo is “Una vida inocente, nada que temer, ni de dolor ni de culpabilidad, el metro cuadrado alrededor es completamente seguro, pero… tantas abejas han entrado y se han puesto a fabricar miel que ya casi un metro y me llega a más de medio cuerpo no sé qué hacer, si siguen quedaré enterrada en miel, adorable manera de morir,” in Varo, Cartas, Sueños y otros textos, 86.
20 Suely Rolnik, “Políticas de lo fluido, híbrido y flexible para evitar falsos problemas,” Mariana Botey and Cuauhtémoc (coords.) Estética y Emancipación: fantasma, fetiche, fantasmagoría (Mexico: Sigo XXI Editores, 2014), 73.
21 An allusion to the work of Remedios Varo, Bordando el manto terrestre, 1961, oil on masonite, 100 × 123 cm in Varo, Catálogo Razonado, 254.
22 It references a fragment from a poem by Rosario Castellanos written in honour of Remedios Varo, published for the first time in the magazine Revista de la Universidad de México on 26th December 1963.
23 An allusion to the work of Remedios Varo, Dolor Reumático I, 1948, gouache on cardboard, 25 × 19.2 cm in Varo, Catálogo Razonado, 157.
24 Fernando Marrufo, El Libro de los Libros del Chilam Balam (Yucatán, Mexico: Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, 1987), 16.
25 An allusion to the work of Remedios Varo, La tejedora roja, 1956, oil on canvas. 43.5 × 28.5 cm in Varo, Catálogo Razonado, 186.
26 The original quote by Varo is “El material con el que lo tejí era como cintas que se materializaban en mis manos y que, sin ver de dónde venían, yo sabían que eran su sustancia y la mía. Cuando acabé de tejer esa especie de huevo, me sentí tranquila, pero seguía llorando. Entonces le dije al verdugo que ya podía matarme, porque el hombre que yo quería estaba tejido conmigo para toda la eternidad,” in Varo, Cartas, Sueños y otros textos, 67.
27 Vía Corta is the name of a café in Mexico City.
28 Peter Engel and Iñaki Herranz, Arquitecturas del Delirio, 2009. Available at: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53211690e4b03b7284463ca8/t/5369586fe4b06d32ba4c3e8f/1399412847292/
Remedios + Varo%2C + arquitecturas + del + delirio + 2008.pdf (accessed February 26, 2015).
29 The Satellite Towers refer to Las Torres de Satélite. Mathias Goeritz was involved in designing and building this important sculptural work. It is located between two high-speed roads.
30 González, “Mundo y trasmundo de Remedios Varo,” 94.
31 The ellipsis was added by the author of the article, Hernández González. The quote is from Gonzalo Celorio, Remedios Varo y Remedios la bella. Un ejemplo indiscreto de arte comparado, B.A. thesis (Mexico: UNAM, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, 1974), 29.
32 Translator’s note: Remedios Varo and Walter Gruen married in 1950. Gruen was an Austrian refugee who became a successful businessman in Mexico.
33 Georg Philipp Telemann was among Walter Gruen’s favorite composers. Gruen was also fond of other German composers, like Bach and Beethoven, as Ana Alexandra Varsoviano told the author of the article, Hernández González, in a meeting that took place on February 15, 2015 in Colonia Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Edilberto Hernández González
Originally published as “Configuración de Subjetividades en la Contemporaneidad. Performance Escritural en Conversación con la Producción de la Artista Hispano-Mexicana Remedios Varo,” in Barcelona Research Art Creation (BRAC) 5(1) (2017): 76–91.