{
Memory feeds imagination.
–Amy Tan
Memory is life, always embodied in living
societies and as such in permanent evolution.
–Pierre Nora
the sacrifice of innocents in pre-Columbian times. A solitary silver rose,
an offering left by an unnamed visitor,
acknowledges the loss. The pyramidal
base is a mausoleum, its walls, studded
with grizzly excavations. Rather than
saintly icons expected in such sacred
enclosures, the structures niche's hold
excavation equipment and disembodied articles of clothing. The flat
surfaces of the walls are studded with
the pentimenti of unexcavated bodies.
Inside the mausoleum, two blooming
magueys offer the possibility of life.
}
Commemoration is trying to answer the question
“who are we that this could have happened?”
–Eelco Runia
hese three quotations—by Tan, Nora, and Runia—
delineate attributes associated with memory while suggesting a motive for its invocation. First, we imagine. Then,
memory morphs as it is endlessly re-created to accommodate
the ever-changing circumstances of our lives. Finally, we attempt to codify memory—the event, the instant, its emotional
aggregate—by encapsulating it in a form that is tangible. We
commemorate. We bring to remembrance that which has come
before. The works presented in this exhibition offer a variety of
artistic insights into the commemoration of memory and death
without any expectation that our recollections will remain fixed
in the past.
souls. Crosses and petals commemorate loss of life and unrealized dreams. A toponym, a pictorial place name, is indicated
in the circular forms stitched through the silken layers and
references the “tortilla curtain,” a popular pejorative appellation for the border.
For fiber artist, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, the invocation of memory is intimately aligned with medium and ancestry. It was through her father, a Huichol migrant worker, that
she was first introduced to weaving. Heir to an ancient process,
she updates her creations by means of contemporary materials
and subject matter. Here, Pre-Columbian and colonial icons
traverse the topography created by her loom and her imagination. In Night Lights (1991), talismanic stamped images of
the Guadalupe negotiate the dark terrain of the borderlands.
Amidst them, the Aztec mother goddess, Coatlicue, joins the
pilgrimage north. The work is autobiographical and captures
the mystery and childhood apprehension of night border crossings. As her family walked north to work the fields in California, their protection was provided only by the veil of night
and by the “goddesses” who watched over them. The theme of
border crossing is taken up again in Border X-ings (2006), an
homage to the dead who perished and continue to perish in the
attempt. Two layers of silk organza provide a narrative context,
a transparent cocoon protecting the fragile memory of lost
Like Underwood, in her recent photographs, New Mexican
artist Delilah Montoya address ongoing border-crossings
between the U.S. and Mexico. All three photographs chosen
for this exhibition are from a larger series entitled Sed: The
Trail of Thirst (2004). To create these works, Montoya journeyed to the Arizona-Sonora desert, to lands inhabited by the
Tohono O'odham Nation. The route across the border here is
a popular one owing to the land’s sovereign status as an Indian
territory. Outside of U.S. jurisdiction, the terrain is, nonetheless, unforgiving, even during the winter when most migrants
undertake the crossing. In Humane Borders Water Station
(2004/2008), three water barrels have been placed along a
“desire line,” an apt term employed to describe a trail created by frequent use. The flag fronting the central container
towers over the short scrub brush endemic to the region and
provides a marker which can be seen for miles in many directions by thirsty travelers. Human presence is more palpable in
Migrant Campsite, Ironwood AZ (2004/2008). Too heavy
to carry, discarded backpacks, water bottles, and clothing shed
by travelers, are testaments to human determination and to
the cost of such endeavors. Three disembodied shadows bear
witness to the sacrifices made by earlier travelers.
Memory and recent history are the subjects of metalsmith,
Anna Jaquez’s work. The miniature worlds she offers are
multimedia testaments to her early interests in story telling and jewelry design. Their size and implied narrative
demand our closest scrutiny. In the installation, Mexican
Elders (2002 – 2004), four varicolored tree trunks associated
with different times of the day, provide the bases for domestic environments–here a bedroom, there a music parlor, a
patio, a kitchen. But all is not as it should be in the brightly
colored settings. Childhood apprehension comes to the fore
as supernatural powers toss about furniture and drapery in
these strangely uninhabited spaces. Earthquakes, whirlpools,
and other acts of nature seemingly consume the man-made
spaces. Grito Sin Voz (2007) is a commemoration to victims
of recent events in Ciudad Juárez, located across from Jaquez’s
hometown of El Paso. Since 1993, over 300 women have
been murdered, most of them, workers in local maquiladoras, sweatshops devoted to the production of export goods.
Jaquez creates a grave marker and shrine to these women,
acknowledging their indigenous past by placing a pyramid at
its apex, an appropriate choice given its function as a stage for
Californian painter and filmmaker
Eugene Rodriguez employs history
and pictorial musings about the future
to create artwork that is uncomfortably at ease with the present. In his
four-sectioned canvas, Exhausted
(2003), the artist takes his inspiration
from 18th century portraiture. Here,
two gentlemen take their repose after
a night out on the town. Although
dressed similarly, they could not be
more distinct in their physical appearances and attitudes. Beyond differences in age, their expressions are, on
the one hand, self-absorbed, and, on
the other, bored. The globe, significantly displays the Americas, while the
fruit below it, bespeaks the abundance
of wealth accompanying the 16th
century seizure of territories by Spain.
Isolation and discontent in the midst
of abundance, the work reads like a
morality play on the dissatisfactions
of excess. 2007’s Mayhem, is inspired
by a film trilogy produced by the
artist. The canvas’s sequenced images
recount an imagined post nuclear
future and, like Exhausted, have much
to do with dissatisfaction. In the film,
a semi-starving couple discovers an
abandoned shelter, finding a table
filled with food and drink. In the
painted work, the male protagonist
tenderly regards the food and then,
devours it in a matter of minutes.
Finished, he gazes through the ruin
of china and crystal, menacingly
scrutinizing a boot left by a former
inhabitant. We come to realize that,
whatever his hunger, the fare has not
met his needs.
In former times, sites of commemoration—war monuments, funerary
markers, heroic effigies—functioned
as points of convergence for disparate
memories and emotions. They promised safe havens, providing public sites
for the entrustment of private angst
and sorrow. But the capacity of human memory to recreate itself or shift
perspective continually implicates and
disconcerts the present, fragmenting
all granite promises. While memory
(like creativity) is a singular thing, it
is hoped that the artworks included
in Death and Memory in Contemporary Art offer recognizable paths
toward resonance in our
own experience.
Constance Cortez, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Art History
School of Art
Exhibitions and visiting speakers programs at the School of Art are supported by generous grants from the
Helen Jones Foundation and The CH Foundation, both of Lubbock. Additional support comes from Cultural Activities Fees administered through the College of Visual & Performing Arts.
Exhibition Checklist
Death
in
Words
&
Images
The Case of the Early Modern Hispanic World
The Early Modern Image & Text Society Conference
October 23 – 25, 2008
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, TX
Welcome
Conference Schedule
Thursday, October 23, 2008
O
n behalf of the Early Modern Images and Texts Association
(EMIT), Texas Tech University welcomes you to Death
in Images and Words: The Case of the Early Modern Hispanic World. EMIT, organizes biannual international conferences that seek to elucidate the relationship between the visual
image and the written text in the early modern period (1500
– 1800 CE). Firmly interdisciplinary since its inception in 2003
at the University of Chicago, EMIT is the result of collaborations
between specialists of the early modern period.
This 2008 conference focuses on the representation of death in
the Hispanic world and kicks off local celebrations in Lubbock for
el Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which begin the following week. EMIT’s partnering with these Day of the Dead festivities acknowledges the growing Hispanic presence in our community as well as the importance of Hispanic notions of death.
However, the topic of death in this conference goes beyond
providing a forum for cross-cultural reflection. The motivation
for studying death from the past also stems from a contemporary
question related to technology. Is society more and more defining
itself as able to dispense with death? Definitions of what it is to be
human are not contained within the parameters of a mortal body.
The notion of the body has become extended into cyberspace and
cyber technology; memory belongs to computer space and our
physical bodies live in symbiosis with the technological. Human
life may soon only belong to a cyber universe that disregards
bodily death like the endlessly played out life-death-life fantasy of
a character in the Matrix series. In this sense, the conference con-
stitutes a meditation on death from an early modern perspective
in order to generate reflection on its role in contemporary society.
At EMIT’s 2008 conference over twenty-five junior and senior
scholars from academic institutions across the United States will
turn to history, art, and literature to present their perspectives on
the representation of death from the early Hispanic world. Aside
from these scholars’ presentations, the conference also features
four keynote speakers, John Beverley (University of Pittsburgh),
Carolyn Dean (University of California, Santa Cruz), Dana Leibsohn (Smith College) and Eugene Rodriguez (de Anza College).
Texas Tech University is the ideal location for this year’s conference as it coincides with many events here at the university. The
conference will be held in conjunction with the opening of an art
exhibition, Death and Memory in Contemporary Art, in the
Landmark Gallery of the School of Art (and featured on the other
side of this brochure). The last day of the conference will take
place in Texas Tech University’s Southwest Collection/Special
Collections Library where conference participants and the public
will have the opportunity to enjoy a unique historical exhibition
on display, The Medieval Southwest. Additionally, after the
day’s talks, this site will offer a concert presented by the Collegium Musicum, Texas Tech's early music ensemble, featuring music
from Medieval and Renaissance Spain.
We hope you enjoy the academic presentations, the art, the history, and the music.
John Beusterien, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Spanish
Department of Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures
We thank Texas Tech University for its support. Specifically, we acknowledge the following benefactors: the Ryla T. and John F. Lott
Endowment for Excellence in the Visual Arts administered by the School of Art, the Department of Classical and Modern Languages
and Literatures, The College of Visual and Performing Arts, The Fine Arts Doctoral Program in the College of Visual and Performing
Arts, the Graduate College, Janet Perez (Horn Professor), Hafid Gafaiti (Horn Professor), the History Department, the Art History
area in the School of Art, and the English Department.
2:00 – 3:30 P.M. THE DEATH OF CONCEPTS
Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures Building – Qualia Room
Noelia Cirnigliaro (The University of Michigan) “Trompe-l’oeil en Tirso: su comedia madrileña y la muerte de un
paradigma doméstico”
Juan Pablo Gil-Oslé (Arkansas State University) “The Death of Friendship, and Cannibalization in Death”
Costica Bradatan (Texas Tech University) “Dying as Self-Expression”
3:45 – 4:45 P.M. DEATH AND THE JESUITS
Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures Building – Qualia Room
Frédéric Conrod (Creighton University) “The Meditation on Hell in Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises: A Dantesque and
Minimalist Spiritual Prescription for the New World”
Christopher Lund (Brigham Young University) “Predestined Pilgrim and His Brother Reprobate: Dying Well and the
Death of Mr. Badman”
5:00 - 7:30 P.M.
WELCOME & KEYNOTE ADDRESSES
School of Art Building – Room B-01
Welcome: Rob Stewart (Senior Vice Provost, Texas Tech University)
Keynote Address: Dana Leibsohn (Smith College)
“Black Blood, Red Bile: Digesting the de Bry Legacy”
Keynote Address: Eugene Rodriguez (De Anza College)
“Painting Empire: Lights, Darks, Cameras, Action!”
Reception Following in Studio Gallery of School of Art
Friday, October 24, 2008
8:30 – 10:00 A.M. IMAGINING DEATH: ILLUSION, VANITAS, AND MYTH IN EARLY MODERN SPAIN
Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures Building – Qualia Room
María M. Carrión (Emory University) "Burying the Center. Image and Illusion of Death in El Greco and San Juan
de la Cruz"
Harry Vélez-Quiñones (The University of Puget Sound) “Sueño del caballero de Olmedo: Muerte de un galán en
Lope, Pereda y Camprobín”
Sidney Donnell (Lafayette College) “Death Becomes Her/Him: Gender Ambiguity and the Early Modern Stage”
Saturday, October 25, 2008
10:15 – 11:45 A.M.
UNIQUE APPROACHES TO DEATH
Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures Building – Qualia Room
Jason McCloskey (Bucknell University) “Uncovering the Face of Jealousy: Iphigenia’s Death in Juan Boscán’s ’Capítulo’”
Lauren Kilroy (University of Oregon) “A Burning Heart Can Save Your Soul: José de Páez’ Sacred Heart of Jesus with Jesuit Saints Aloysius Gonzaga and Ignatius of Loyola”
Elisa C. Mandell (California State University Fullerton) “Pathways of Continuity and Change: Posthumous Portraits of
Children in Early Modern Spain and Mexico”
12:00 – 1:00P.M. Lunch (on-campus venues suggested)
1:15 – 3:15 P.M. DEATH AND PLACES
Art – Room B-01
Michael Schreffler (Virginia Commonwealth University) “’To Live in This City is to Die’: Death and the Ethnicity of
Architecture in Colonial Cuzco, Peru”
Elizabeth Olton (University of New Mexico) “To Shepherd the Empire: The Catafalque of Charles V, Mexico City, 1559”
Ana Roríguez (University of Iowa) “El espectáculo de la tortura y la muerte en la Topographia e historia general
de Argel”
Lori Boornazian Diel (Texas Christian University) “Manuscrito del Aperreamiento: A Justified Killing of an
Indigenous Priest?”
3:15 – 3:30 P.M. Coffee Break
3:30 – 4:30 P.M. Keynote Address: John Beverley (University of Pittsburgh)
“Baroque Historicism and the Decline of Empire: Then and Now”
School of Art Building - Room B-01
4:45 – 6:15 P.M. DEATH IN LITERARY MOTIFS
Art – Room B-01
John Slater (University of Colorado at Boulder) “Flora and Zephyr: Literary and Material Dissemination in Early
Modern Spain”
Patricia W. Manning (The University of Kansas) “A Boat Ride to Death: Variations on Death Motifs in the Initial
Images of La pícara Justina”
Julio Baena (University of Colorado at Boulder) “Death-carrying Images in Cervantes’ Prologues”
6:30 P.M. Dinner at Jaliscos
8:30 P.M. Reception
Home of John Beusterien & Carmen Pereira Muro
2711 21st Street (side yard entrance)
9:30 – 10:30 A.M. THE DEATH OF HISTORICAL FIGURES
Art – Room B-01
Patrick Hajovsky (University of Texas, San Antonio) “Christian Death: The First, Last, and Ongoing Rites
of Moctezuma”
Mariana C. Zinni Queens College (CUNY) “La muerte ejemplar de Lope de Aguirre y la restauración de las coordena
das modernas en América”
0:45 – 12:15 P.M.
1
FIGURES OF AFTERLIFE
Art – Room B-01
Mark J. Mascia (Sacred Heart University) “The (Im)Permanence of Death: Lope de Vega’s Rimas humanas, Artistic
Creation, and Worldly Existence”
Nicolás M. Vivalda (Vassar College) “El piélago de la inmortalidad y las potencias de la fama: insularidad y negación de la muerte en El Criticón de Baltasar Gracián” Carmen Pereira-Muro (Texas Tech University) “Muerte y postrimerías en imágenes y palabras: la obra del Bosco y los Sueños de Quevedo”
12:15 – 1:15 P.M. Lunch on your own (on-campus venues recommended)
12:15 – 1:15 P.M.
Graduate Student Luncheon (reservation required)
Art – Room 102
Ana Laguna (Rutgers University) Moderator.
Participants: John Beverley (University of Pittsburgh), Carolyn Dean (University of California, Santa Cruz),
Dana Leibsohn (Smith College) and Eugene Rodriguez (de Anza College).
1:30 – 3:00 P.M. DEATH IN IMAGES AND TEXTS
Southwest Collection – Formby Room
Benjamin J. Nelson (The University of South Carolina) “Death and the Shepherd(ess): The Suicidal Shepherd and
Shepherdess in the Spanish Pastoral Novel”
Steven Wagschal (Indiana University—Bloomington) “Dreaming the Sleep of Death: Hypnos, Thanatos and Morpheus in Early Modern Poetry and Art”
John Beusterien (Texas Tech University) “As Death Approaches: The Turn to the Dog in Velázquez”
3:30 P.M. Keynote Address: Carolyn Dean (University of California, Santa Cruz)
“The Power of Embodiment”
Southwest Collection – Formby Room
4:30 – 5:30 P.M. PERFORMANCE BY COLLEGIUM MUSICUM
Southwest Collection – Formby Room
6:00 P.M. Closing Reception
Home of Dr. Frederick Suppe (CMLL Chair)
63 E. Canyon View Drive, Ransom Canyon
I N
C O N T E M P O R A R Y
{October 13 - November 2, 2008}
A R T