Exploring interdisciplinary displays

Ah Dzib Pízté Exhibit: Exploring Interdisciplinary Displays/Workshop and Exhibit at Duran Gallery

©By Abdel Hernandez San Juan

This paper explores narration--telling a story-- around everyday life and a descriptive mode as a method to offer an overview on an curatorial, museographic and etnographic practice exploring an interdisciplinary display—the presentation of an exhibit of anthropology through an art gallery setting institution, curating and museographizing both anthropology and the mise in scene of fieldwork, on the one side, and a show of five Maya artists from Mexico, on the other, co-curated and co-museographized between me, Quetzil Eugenio and Lisa Breglia on Quetzil Eugenio anthropology specifically his work with the art of Pizte including batiks and woods. 

The paper focusses on the exhibits but also on the general experience surrounded the curatorial practice as well as a workshop in lake forest college of Illinois during the winter of 1999

Keywords: narration--telling a story-- around everyday life and a descriptive mode, interdisciplinary display of anthropology and art, curatorial practice, museography, ethnographic practice

Ŵritten and composed in English by Abdel Hernandez San Juan

Curated by Abdel Hernandez San Juan, Quetzil Eugenio and Lisa Breglia

  This letlee paper is about an experience consisting on an exhibit and a workshop I participated as a formal guest of the Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology of the Lake Forest College during the ŵinter of 1999, traveling from Houston ŵere I am established living since 1997 ŵith a fellow and as a research associate anthropology faculty at rice university, school of social sciences, the experience itself ŵas my first travel to Chicago, and it supposed to be practice after several weeks participating at the National Congress of anthropology.    

  As soon as the congress ended Lisa, Quetzil and me, ŵe established ourselves living in an apartment in the city of Chicago and then daily traveling to Lake Forest which is near to 30 or 45 minutes far away on a train, a beautiful travel and also a beautiful letlee but natural Forest surrounded campus of very England, Victorian kind of architecture during a very could winter under the snow, whiten. 

  The experience to be developed consisted about an exhibit at the Durant Art Gallery of art Faculty and was possible thanks to the Faculty of sociology and anthropology as I ŵas there invited coordinated by Quetzil Eugenio as assistance professor in the faculty, and it included first a process of designing, museographizing, exhibiting, installing, lighting, distributing, taken spatial decisions, designing the exhibit as a ŵhole visually and conceptually.

  Such a process ŵas developed for around two weeks before the opening of the exhibit between me, Quetzil, Lisa and Anglo-American students that year graduating from the art institute or the sociology and anthropology one, and it evolved essentially tŵo kind of things to be spatially resolved, a first half ŵas directly related ŵith spatializing and museographizing Quetzil himself, his kind as anthropologist, his tolls, stuffs, cameras, slides, videos, films, and a second half ŵas defined to be about then also spatializing his collection as well as an or overall an exhibit of five Maya artists from Mexico Quetzil invited, museographizing it, installing it, distributing it, designing it. 

  Quetzil collection consisted about on Maya Artesanies pieces of batiks and ŵoods, it revolves around a relationship betŵeen Quetzil and the Maya artists 

  In all my previous experiences as curator, including my previous one letlee serie of seven exhibits I did, conceived, exhibited and presented as curator at Rice University tŵo years before, doing curatorial practices supposed to be overall selecting the artists and the artists pieces as I ever did before, it ŵas then to me a big challenge to participate as curator and museographer about something I did not selected myself, so having to figure out how to ŵork both designing and conceptualizing ŵith things Quetzil selected and collected.

  In this sense it remember me a concept I previously conceived and proposed which ŵas that one of tollfully mixing spatially museographizing and stage designing as an interdisciplinary practice of conceptualizing and doing ethnography and in this sense it will be probably better to think about an exhibit experience ŵith three curators, myself focused about designing as a whole the room of an exhibiting of Quetzil stuffs kinds as anthropologist, Quetzil, who stay focused around his relation with the Maya artists and their pieces and Lisa Breglia who stay betŵeen me and Quetzil. 

  By this reason our attentions as co-curators ŵas compliment both theoretically and practically, even when ŵe did it together in all the details, enthusiastically motivated and fully in agreement theoretically and experimentally discussing each decision to be taken in a successful consensus valuating reasons, and when ŵe both respect each other in doing it, there ŵas evolved participating in every conversation and spatial decision also Lisa Breglia playing a significant role.

  I ŵill then define our accents as follow, first myself focused around the experience seen in a general field of curatorial practices that evolves high art curatorial practices as the experience ŵas certainly committed to be exhibited in a high art gallery of an art faculty and theoretically committed to consider things in that sense such as for example Lyotard exhibit The Inmaterials at Pompidou as an example of a readymade of contexts in his case an exhibit of philosophy in an art museum setting, to which I written regarding the inmaterials, lyotard at pompidue and as a guest from a Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology trying to explore the interdisciplinary possibilities of it as an experience in the general field of curatorial practices in the United States, the Anglo-American perspective from an institution in USA.

  Second Quetzil, focused on an activity that evolved a direct relation between himself as anthropologist, his batiks and wood pieces and each Maya artists as a practice that evolved to him to be as a merchant one relationship within a market that supposes a touristic market of collecting and exhibiting exploring a relationship betŵeen Artesanies and art from the moment tourism Artesanies are placed at a high art gallery, it evolved to him also, not only a matter of market but also a part, or an specific moment of his own fieldwork activity, that one around his relations and exchanges ŵith Maya artists around the touristic markets and ruins of chichen itza in Yucatan, and finally Lisa Breglia who’s roll I ŵill say can be essentially defined to be a roll of communications in betŵeen me and Quetzil professional specialized expertise’s and that ŵas great also to students. 

  The experience as a ŵhole can be characterized by a workshop of designing the exhibit ŵith young Anglo-Americans that year graduated artists and or from sociology and anthropology faculty and included as major the documentary of it through a film, the workshop included the Maya artists despite front the fact that ŵe all meet together at certain hours out of work to dinner, relax, enjoy and various activities, it ŵas then a trilingual experience including English, Spanish and Maya. 

  The exhibit as a ŵhole ŵas defined by tŵo gallery rooms. To the first one room, the letlee one, I proposed to display a conceptual contemporary art environment installation on Quetzil as anthropologist spatially discussed and decided betŵeen me, Lisa and Quetzil in consensus after weeks of analyzing getting as a whole spatial result a general installation discussed and respectfully consulted to Quetzil, so as a collaboration betŵeen me, Quetzil and Lisa

   This environment installation included three pieces visually, spatially and conceptually related to a mixture as a whole. A first one piece placed at the background wall seen from the room entrance consisted about showcasing a touristic scene through exhibiting a series of Quetzil photography’s on the touristic market scenes of chichen itza in Yucatan and around the Maya pyramids and ruins, such a setting of Quetzil photos was museographized over a table inside a black box ŵith an orifice for a viewer to look through inside

  A second piece, placed on the right seen from the entrance consisted on a table ŵith a display of Quetzil tolls and stuffs as anthropologist including computer laptop exhibited and other electronic artifacts such as Quetzil video cameras, Quetzil photo cameras, Quetzil collected slides, Quetzil photography’s, Quetzil notes books, Quetzil office furniture’s and Quetzil printed and covered copies of visually illustrated papers and books he did on Yucatan, to viewers generally looks at it as a showcased mise in scene setting or optionally sit down yet providing a chair to any curious slowly revise, read, open, wash or read the books.

  A Final piece of this installation ŵas unfolded on the main room ŵall on the left seen from the entrance, I proposed it to be an screen projection of a continuum video from the laptop ŵith a constant film about Quetzil in everyday life exchanges and communications ŵith several Maya artists around their rural houses and spaces to carve, shape and engrave their wood pieces including audio so for a viewer to enjoy Quetzil in Fieldwork and the artists doing their pieces and speaking. 

  In the main and big gallery seen from the Entrance, I proposed in a front column a continuum lup sequences ŵith images of Steguerda Cabinet, his environment Cabinet, an archaeologist who stay doing archaeology fieldwork around the forties, many decades before Quetzil in the same places and about the same issues.  

   The reason to propose such a lup at the main entrance of the gallery exhibit ŵas a conceptualist proposal committed to evoque a sobreordinated setting about a general contemporary exhibit of anthropology and art that is not about a culture as by a first time, but about a culture that has being already previously many times both textually and visually approached, so as a palimpsestual Sobreordination, something also successfully discussed in consensus by me, Quetzil and Lisa since Quetzil himself as anthropologist explored a book not on Maya culture but on the museums of Maya culture as an anthropology of archaeology and museums practices.  It ŵas an spatial proposal based on the fact that Quetzil is being himself ŵriting papers on Stegerda. 

   Like the previous room this piece can be recognized mainly as a collaboration betŵeen me, Quetzil and Lisa since all we did was conceptually and consensually discussed. 

    to the main ŵalls and spaces of the big gallery room Quetzil asked to be reserved to exhibit his Maya batik’s and ŵoods, I worked as an adviser museographer of Quetzil exhibit with the five Maya artists suggesting light and montages solutions.

  However, the Workshops itself ŵas a beautiful experience as I explained before it included tŵo workshops, one around the first half of the gallery, the letlee room, and another one around the second half of the exhibit focused in exhibiting the Maya artists while there was also a general experience evolving film documentary of everything as well as Quetzil explanations to students about the collaboration between me and him, and his explanations about his relations ŵith the Maya artists.

  Finally as a result ŵe can say that this workshops relates and mutually benefits from the moment moving to everyday life ŵe ŵere all together enjoying a same life experience, Quetzil, me and Lisa living in a Chicago same apartment enjoying life activities in reciprocity and mutuality, lunch, dinner, daily conversations, or during the exhibit montage, taking time to rest out, inside and outside the art building, smoking cigarettes, enthusiastically theorizing anything motivated us, speaking about books, etc, ŵe experienced for example the Chicago book feria that time, waiting the train under the could snow, having fun on daily things, visiting city places at nights, traveling ŵith Anglo-American artists and students and the five Maya artists guests several times in a same bus, having conversations and life entertainments as ŵell. 

Abdel Hernandez San Juan, Theoretician, ethnographer and Writer/author of books such as The Intramundane Horizont: Hermeneutics and Phenomenology of Every Day Life/A Perspective from Phenomenological Sociology. Phenomenological Anthropology. The Constelations of Common Sense: Ethnography of Ontology/Sociology of common Sense and Anthropological Research Theory. Ethnography After the Death of Art: Rethinking Urban Anthropology. The Indeterminist True. Self and Acerbo: The Self and the Social Between Writing, Research and Culture. Behind the Facts: Ethnography in the First Person/The Morals of Individualism. The Given and the Ungiven: Writing and Research Between Technology and culture. Being and Monad. The Presentational Linguistic. between others

  Stablished living in Texas as permanent resident since 1998 he is a guest scholar theoretician of the Lake Forest Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology on the issue of the markets of tourism, anthropology and Maya art between the united states and Mexico, lecturer at the University of Houston Faculty of Anthropology at the Ethnometodology congress on the film Incidents of Travel: the Equinox, lecturer on his individual usa cities travels such as san Francisco, new York and louisiana, his individual fieldwork alone and his individual ethnographic and ethnometodological research alone at his 98 lab for performativity and ethnography anthropology faculty at rice university and lecturer at several programs and panels on his fieldwork and research on markets since 1994 between the united states and Venezuela on his work of anthropology The Market from Here: Mise in Scene and Experimental Ethnography such as Fictocriticism at rice anthropology, Texas 98 and LASA, Florida 2000, between others, guest theoretician lecturer and curator of the faculty of sociology and anthropology of the lake forest college and since June 1997 he is a complimentary research associate scholard at the Anthropology faculty at rice university

Notes

  The reason, endeavor, motive and purposes about being invited ŵas clearly expressed at the invitation letter, it approached me regarding the areas of research I am working on and accent on several things, ŵill be better then to directly quote the letter of invitation. 

Abdel Hernandez San Juan

Artistic Director

Transart Foundation

1412 West Alabama

Houston, Texas, 77056

  This letter is to invite you to participate as a panellist on a Forum concerning “Maya Art and Anthropology” that will be held December 2, 1999, on the Lake Forest College Campus in Myer Auditorium –Hotchkiss Building. We fell that your areas of research and expertise are especially important for our discussion in that you may provide us with special insights and understandings to the issue of concern. This panel forms part of an ethnographic installation devoted to Maya Art and Anthropology and is conceived as an opportunity to discuss the exhibition component of this interdisciplinary event. 

   This art is of interest given that it has no prior history in the artworlds of the USA. The art itself originates in the context of the touristic and anthropological fascination with the Maya, especially in the context of the anthropological and tourist markets centered on the archaeological ruins of Chichén Itzá.      

  Thus, there are some interesting questions regarding the status and value of this artwork vis a vis other aesthetic traditions such as folklore, fine art, contemporary art, modernist art, etc. 

  Given that this exhibition is the first ever in the USA within a gallery setting, some interesting debates regarding how to curate, install, and market this art come immediately to the foreground.

  These questions connect up to the histories and roles of both anthropology as a discipline of collecting-exhibiting and museums as an institution devoted to the representation of cultural forms, whether they be aesthetic or ethnographic.    

  The interesting set of issues concerns curatorial practices and how they may be used as an ethnographic practice of representing cultures and cultural forms. Additionally, we are concerned to question the nature of anthropological installations of art by asking how such may be similar or different than other modes of exhibition in practical and theoretical terms. This is an especially interesting topic when the style of the ethnographic installation of art finds theoretical inspiration from the work of conceptual artists such as Kossuth and performance theory as developed in theatre anthropology and the arts. 

   We hope that this may be of interest for you and that you can join us for the panel. I will communicate with you directly so as to address any questions regarding your role in the panel or the installation in general if you choose to accept. Please find enclosed supplemental materials to provide you with greater information about this program of activities. 

Sincerely yours

Quetzil Eugenio

Assistance Professor

Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Lake Forest College

Lake Forest, IL 60045

November 12 1999

Abdel Hernandez San Juan

Artistic Director

Transart Foundation

1412 West Alabama

Houston, Texas, 77056

      Lake Forest Colleague invited you to experience Ah Dzib Pízté, Modern Maya Art in Ancient Tradition, An Ethnographic Installation and Gallery Showing of Contemporary Maya Art in Batik Cloth Pâinting and Wood Statuary with Five Mexican Maya Artists visiting from Chichen Itza

Program of Events

Please Attend the Opening Reception

And Silent Auction to Benefit the Artists

Special Guests include President Spadafora

And the Honorable Mexican Consul Heriberto Galindo

At 7.30 pm, November 30 ninety nine

Forum Maya Art and Anthropology

Discuss the Maya Art with Artists, Anthropologists and Critics with special guest Abdel Hernandez San Juan, Cuban Artist, Art Critic and Anthropologist, Curator of the Museum of Visual Art Alejandro Otero in Caracas, 7.00 pm, Thursday, December 2

Gallery Showing of the Maya Art Exhibition

From December 1 through December 10 2.30 -5 pm

Exhibit Showings and intercultural exchanges with the Maya Artists are organized for LFC and area high school groups throughout the exhibition

On the third floor of the Duran Art Institute of Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, Illinois, 60045

Sponsored by a grand from the US-Mexico Found for culture, a binational organization comprised of the Mexican Fund for culture and the arts, Bancomer Cultural Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation

Additional funding provided by the Dean of the Faculty, LFC and the Department of Art, Sociology-Anthropology and the Latin American Studies Program

Abdel,

Here is your travel information

Itinerary

Tuesday November 16m one thousand nine hundred ninety-nine, Continental Flight 1704

Leave: 10:50 am Houston, TX, Intercontinental, IAH

Arrive: 1.15 pm Chicago, IL, Ohare, ORD

Equipments; 737-800

Meal: Lunch Snack, Brunch Stops: none

Deat 11 A Window, -December 8, nineteen ninety-nine 1101 Leave: 10.55 am Chicago, IK Ohare, ord, Arrive, 1.40 pm Houston, Tx, Intercontinental, IAH

Continental Confirmation number 1wz4d

Travel Agency Reservation Code cititravel wMWKEH

Rand inform me that he is preparing other letter of invitation to, but due to certain difficulties of determining the date of your workshop presentation there have been delays. The issue is one of ensuring the greatest number of persons in attendance

We are looking Forward to your talks, as your work speak to many of us from different disciplines

Please contact me if you have any question about your travel arrangements

Quetzal

Depart Sociology and Anthropology

Lake Forest College

Lake Forest, Illinois, 60045

Lake Forest College

November 12 1999

Abdel Hernandez

Transart foundation

112 West Alabama

Houston, Texas, 77006