- High Art is dead and Love has killed it.
Nowadays, Love (despite being a central theme in human culture) is often disregarded in the Art world, not considered respectable, revolutionary or ground-breaking enough. I find this dangerous, because there is an underlying association of love with “the feminine”, exposing how the art world is shaped by patriarchal thought. There is space for “feminine” art, but is usually seen and categorized as art “by women for women” or “gay/ feminist art”, whatever that means. It often struggles to reach High Art spheres—class and race playing a big role in it—and are relegated to categories of pop and low culture. On the other hand, when heterosexual cisgender (white) men choose to talk about Love or themes perceived as “feminine” in their artwork they are seen as romantic, deconstructed, bold…etc. Museums, galleries and institutions all over the world are field with such works. But what is High Art but a long assimilated consensus of cis white men disseminating what is acceptable and what is not? What is ‘good taste’ in a time and age where binaries are almost obsolete?
Yes, it is true that Art Academia and ‘high art’ institutions have become supposedly more inclusive and open minded in these previous years, however, Is it too late ? I would argue it is. Younger generations are demanding something more than superficial changes and hypocritical inclusions, as Rosalía remarks in one of her latest songs SAOKO : “F*** el estilo” (“f*** style”). We no longer aim to be accepted, but we are acceptance. People may have a lot to say about my generation (Gen Z), but if something is true, that is that we no longer tolerate abuse in any form.
2. Ñoña, Cursi y ante todo, Loca ( Ñoña, Cursi and, above all, Mad)
As a poet, I have always been sceptical about writing about love because I didn’t want to be seen as “one of those girls that writes about love”, and tended to repress it, to make my poems more rough, more “masculine”. I wanted to be taken seriously in my poetic environment, which was mainly ruled by men. These men often criticised young girls for being too cursis (Spanish word for overly sweet/ emotional) and stereotypical. I used to agree with them because they were important names in the literary sphere, and I kind of felt as if they were somehow entitled to the absolute truth. It made me feel very good whenever they praised me, yet in the long term I started to feel like I was just writing for their validation. It took me some time to find my voice again, and if I learnt anything from it is that such high expectations and rigid understanding only contribute to the murdering of creativity.
In Latin Culture, art forms such as telenovelas or love ballads (and we could count some forms of reguetón in there as well) as well as other cultural experiences such as Santería, casting love spells, chisme (gossip) and even clothing are considered as belonging to low culture. However, these (an example being telenovelas and love ballads) are actually some of the most popular mediums in our societies, being extremely profitable, even for men (although they do not often recognise it). As well, love music is often criticised by such men who considered themselves “macho” however, a lot of these love songwriters are actually men, for instance Luis Miguel, Silvio Rodriguez or Polo Montañez. In the case of female songwriters like La India or Ana Gabriel, they tend to simply get dismissed as “music women sing to while they clean/cook”. I find this to be extremely too faced.
There are two main problems here that intersect: first, the idea of the folk and criollo (mixed folk & Spanish) as less cultured ( salsa and reguetón, telenovelas) ; second, the idea of “the feminine” (by association, love) as too cursi and overdramatic/over-sentimental for high culture. And of course, it all also intersects with a larger issue regarding class, sex and colonialism.
Personally, I grew up simultaneously watching telenovelas and opera and realised that their plot is actually not that different. However, one is low culture and the other high culture. Both their plots are incredibly toxic for many reasons, however everyone seems to be making fun of telenovelas and calling them out whereas no one dares to question the values of Opera. No one wants to start that conversation. I might even argue that in telenovela‘s case most women seem to have a nicer, more empowering ending, which is always better than just dying for/of love I guess.
3. Living Syncretism
In our current systematic organisation there is little space for contrasting ideas to come together. We often find ourselves compelled to choose one or the other, even to the point of sacrificing part of ourselves in order to fit into a category, a binary. For this reason, I am fascinated by Syncretism, as in ‘the amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought’. Syncretism is central in the encompassing of Cuban culture. Some of my most vivid experiences of syncretism have been those regarding religion and Cuban Santería, Santería being a syncretism itself (between Yoruba religion and Catholicism). Growing up in Spain and attending a catholic school I would constantly go from playing some batá drums for Changó to going to church on Sundays. Maybe this was one of the reasons why I was so drawn to Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. This book is a mixture of autobiography, poetry, history, theory and even music where Gloria reflects on her experience as a Mexican queer mestiza (mixed-race) raised in the U.S. For instance, as queer woman she struggled a lot with machismo and gender expectations (a lot of it rooted in Catholicism) yet she still finds admiration and faith in La Virgen de Gudalupe (Virgin Mary of Guadalupe), which is as well a syncretized icon.
I find her writings extremely inspiring, not only because I resonate with her in a personal level, but also because I see in her ideas fertile soil:
‘La rigidez significa la muerte. Solo manteniéndose flexible puede la mestiza expandir la psique horizontal y verticalmente. Ella debe moverse continuamente, alejándose de las formaciones habituales; del pensamiento convergente, del razonamiento analítico que tiende a usar la racionalidad para avanzar hacia un objetivo único (un modo occidental) y acercándose al pensamiento divergente, caracterizado por movimientos de alejamiento de los patrones y objetivos establecidos hacia una perspectiva más total, una perspectiva incluyente más que excluyente. (…) Posee una personalidad plural, opera en un modo pluralista—nada se desecha, lo bueno, lo malo y lo feo, nada se rechaza, nada se abandona—. No solo sostiene las contradicciones, convierte la ambigüedad en otra cosa.’[1]
She encourages us to question our value systems and reinvent our cultures in a way that will not exclude anyone or anything. I would love to apply the principles Gloria gives to la mestiza to the art world. I would like to strike towards an art that is fluid, that allows deconstruction. I am interested in hybridity, in mixed practices that will force us to break out of our comfort zone and put into question long assimilated convictions . I believe the new Art should be like a kaleidoscope, in which new colour combinations keep turning in. Rejecting abuse from its root, collectively constructing a new narrative… These are principles of Love.
– How can we use conventional mediums of Love (such as letters, poetry & songs) and not so conventional (fashion, memes) to deconstruct systematic abuse?
[1] Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987) , p.136 -‘Rigidity means death. Only by remaining flexible can the mestiza expand the psyche horizontally and vertically. She must continually move, moving away from the usual formations; from convergent thinking, from analytical reasoning that tends to use rationality to move towards a single goal (a Western way) and approaching divergent thinking, characterized by movements away from established patterns and goals towards a more total perspective, an inclusive perspective rather than exclusive. (…) She has a plural personality, she operates in a pluralistic way—nothing is discarded, the good, the bad and the ugly, nothing is rejected, nothing is abandoned—. She not only sustains the contradictions, she turns the ambiguity into something else.’-
Amo y te amo por escribir algo tan maravilloso