“We got there by water, the only possible way at the time. I was accompanying a troupe of actors that was going to perform there and at once I felt the desire of capturing those images, a world I had not seen, a surreal world, a living museum with people who were anchored to the past without losing sight of the times ahead.” 1
In this way, Mariana Yampolsky describes her first visit to Tlacotalpan, the town she describes photographically in the book of the same name, a place that is characterized by the exuberance and beauty of its natural landscapes, kept in balance by the constructions built by the inhabitants. They have established Tlacotalpan’s originality in the wisdom with which they mold time and space to their own expectations and requirements, and in a philosophy where pleasure becomes life’s main reason of being. There, dance, music, the love for color and food, produce a melting pot of traditions that surprises the traveler urging him to stay on.
No
wonder Mariana Yampolsky’s gaze has turned this place into the ideal
location to develop her main interest as a photographer with accuracy
and profusion: capturing the lives of people from a point of view where
the encounter with the other becomes a reason for rejoicing, for learning,
and feeling passionate, not only about their image, but also about their
accomplishments, their work and their leisure, for those details where
intimacy and social life join together in harmony.
The acceleration that characterizes urban life is a condition that opposes the rhythm and mood peculiar to Tlacotalpan. There is no place for the sophistication with which the modern era has conceived the artistic experience. By the same token, the text by Elena Poniatowska that accompanies the photographs functions as an ideal reference point for the location where the photographs were taken. The text uses the implicit fiction of oral tradition to describe the anecdotes and stories told by imaginary and real characters from Tlacotalpan’s life, thus restating the book’s leitmotiv and support: a population that has created a mythical place where the fantastic is present in everyday life.
The ease with which the people from Veracruz go about their lives, modified the typical sobriety of Yampolsky’s work, leading to a fortunate coincidence between the author’s ideology and the subject matter she approaches. This is evident in the portraits in the book that reflect the humor present in the gaze and gestures of those appearing in them. Hence, one of the goals of the artist is achieved: being faithful to the identity of the other, transforming photography into a form of communion, rather than communication.
Nevertheless,
we should bear in mind that the conventions of magical realism and surrealism,
when transferred to a context of exoticism, frequently lead to sterile
images that further interests other than those of the portrayed subjects.
The stereotypes used to identify Mexican culture frequently conceal serious
problems of injustice and inequality. Mariana Yampolsky is aware of this,
and more than once she has been self-critical about her work and her proclivity
to document the kind side of the communities she visits. However, her
faith in photography as a way of representing the pleasure of “being
there”, and the “loving disorder” present in the cultural
values found by her at every step as she travels through the country,
have had the upper hand.
The origin of this passion can be traced to one of the finest traditions of Mexican art in the 20th century. Namely, the one promoted by movements and groups which advocated the collectivity over individual action, such as the muralist movement and the Taller de la Gráfica Popular. Yampolsky’s adherence during many years to the latter group, which used prints as a way of reconstructing the social imaginary, has led to the constant preoccupation of using her work as a public service.
The difference between the barren and propagandistic character of many images that share the same motivations, and the eloquence of Mariana Yampolsky’s photographs, lies in their capacity to creatively displace the realist nature of the people and elements she photographs, moving towards aspects of the imagination, such as abstraction and metaphor. These categories are present throughout her work, making us consider the world as an image of a mental picture.
The ambivalence implicit in the constant interaction between the “objective” space registered by the camera and the subjective space of memory, configures what Francisco Reyes Palma has called an emotional anthropology, that is, a gaze “concerned with acknowledging the contemporary creative subject placed within a cultural sedimentation that goes back centuries, bringing to the forefront the festivities that consolidate that bond; an act that registers the creative potential of the rural and small native communities that inhabit the country, bearing witness to their vital cohesion.” 2
The
realist paradigm in photography functions therefore as the basis that
relates the many processes that take place when she creates her images,
emphasizing cultural difference over the hegemonic agenda of progress,
the archetype of modernity which projects a global future at the cost
of destroying the ties that allow the recognition and renewal of local
identities.
Compared to these conditions, Tlacotalpan is an exemplary place, where the inhabitants establish vital cycles through the use of color, without doubt the first motif that comes to mind as one walks its streets. “To ignore color in Tlacotalpan is a contradiction,” says the photographer. That is why the ambience of the city on the shores of the Papaloapan river, made Mariana Yampolsky retake one of the threads that has guided her work: the use of color as the main element in the photographs, a rare occurrence in the tradition of Mexican photography.
The rich range of tones reflected by the homes of Tlacotalpan led Mariana Yampolsky to retake one of the qualities present in her first work as a professional photographer, when she traveled through the country to make the book Lo efímero y lo eterno del arte popular mexicano, edited in conjunction with Leopoldo Méndez and published by the Fondo Editorial de la Plástica Mexicana in 1971. Between Tlacotalpan and that first work, also shot in color, a bridge is outlined in a way that enriches the appreciation of her work by underlying one feature: the narrative discourse, revealed by David Maawad’s editorial work. He has transformed the color series at the beginning of the book into one of the most important achievements in recent years from the standpoint of unifying iconography around a subject matter where the concept of author is diffused among the various creators of color in the images. This achieves perhaps one the photographer’s greatest aspirations: becoming a “negative”, a reflection of the other, not in order to get lost in his gaze, but to assert oneself with it and with his or her culture.
1. Mariana Yampolsky, Tlacotalpan, Mexico, Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura, TAMSA, 2000, edited by David Maawad and produced by Alberto Tovalín. back
2. Francisco Reyes Palma, “Antropología emocional”, in the catalogue Mariana Yampolsky. Imagen Memoria, Conaculta, Centro de la Imagen, FONCA, Mexico, 1999, p. 13. back
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