La Realidad Nos Alcanzo
(we were found by reality)
Curator
Installation by cesar López at Centro Cultural Casa Baltazar
All throughout Veracruz every year, as the day of the dead nears, most of the institutions in the city either support or build their own shrine to the dead. Casa Baltazar could not miss in sharing from this rich tradition and the goal was to put up an installation that expressed the same basic emotions of the original shrines with a contemporary piece.
Bringing Cesar López into the project meant doing something spectacular, establishing a very personal dialogue between artist and spectator. The work with Lopez was centered in narrowing down the symbols he works with to a common language with the community, achieving something so particular to Córdoba that it became meaningful to a broader audience through the basic human truths it represents.
The result was a striking experience that perfectly conveyed the sadness and loss of death and the beauty of the way it is represented through the day of the death celebrations, down to the use of zempasuchitl flower and it's organic contrast to the cold blue and gray metal of the upside down car and the pungent smell with which it filled the room.
The specificity to the region is implied in the piece by referencing how, being connected to central Mexico by a dangerous mountain range with a curvy highway, a lot of people at Córdoba have lost people in roadside accidents. Some people were so affected by the installation that they had to exit the gallery in tears.
