Xipe Projects September 2012 Newsletter

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SEPTEMBER 5

X THE DIRECTOR’S WELCOME......1 X FEATURED ACQUISITIONS: TEPEHUÁN AND MAYO MASKS...2 X THE LOA PROJECT..................2 X COMING SOON. .......................3

Xipe Projects These are exciting times at Xipe Projects! We’re just back from the Whitehawk Ethnographic Show in Santa Fe where we were fortunate to acquire a number of pieces that will appear in our two concurrent exhibitions opening in late October. The first of these exhibits, in the front gallery, “Persistence of the Flower World,” will display masks and ritual objects of the indigenous peoples of Northern Mexico (the Yaqui and Mayo, the Tarahumara and Tepehuán, and the Cora). This exhibit will feature a rare Tepehuán mask, a number of pascola masks we have just acquired, three of them made by the same Mayo carver in the mid twentieth century, three Tarahumara masks and nine drums from Northern Mexico. In the Main Gallery we will display “Visions of the Fantastic: Calaveras, Naguales y Diablos” featuring a number of new acquisitions—striking naguales by Candelario Medrano, devil masks from Guatemala, one of them displayed in full costume, twelve new Calaveras from Michoacan as well as two six foot tall Calaveras made by the Linares family. All of these new acquisitions will be accompanied by a large number of pieces from our permanent collection. Equally exciting is our recent acquisition of the complete stock of a small moreria in Guatemala that was going out of business. We have twenty-­four masks and costumes, twelve swords, and two accordions, and we will soon receive over a hundred hand-­written dance manuals. If you attended our “Danzas y Mascaras” exhibit you will remember seeing a few of these manuals in the display case. The manuals will be conserved and placed in an archive here at Xipe Projects for the use of those doing scholarly research in this area. Dr. Heney and I have already begun work on a book dealing with these texts. We look forward to sharing all of these objects with you and to helping you place them in the context of their traditions. Be sure to join us in October! Sincerely, Peter Markman, Director

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Featured Acquisitions... Featured in this, our second issue of the Xipe Projects newsletter, are two stunning masks from Northern Mexico. Be sure to look for both masks this fall in our exhibit, “Persistence of the Flower World,â€? beginning October 27th. On the left, is a rare TepehuĂĄn mask that might have been worn by the Capio, or the leader, of the Matachines dance in the early 20th century. Mostly found living in the states of Durango and Chihuahua, the TepehuĂĄn are the southern neighbors of the Tarahuma. Feature on the right, is a Mayo Pascola mask from Wiarumui, Sonora (near Huatabampo), made by Alcario Ca’ame’a Ontivero, ca. 1945. Carved of cottonwood, this mask was owned and danced by Placido Valenzuela of Yavaros and later sold by his widow, Petra Yocupicio at Yavaros. AcFRUGLQJ WR -LP *ULIĂ€WK QRWHG DQWKURSRORgist and authority on the Yaqui and Mayo pascola, “Ca’ame’a was a respected elderly pascola,â€? and the masks he carved displayed a distinct individual style. Because his “major craft activity was building dugout canoes of cottonwood trunks, his masks were carved of cottonwood.â€? 6RXUFH -DPHV 6 *ULIĂ€WK DQG )HOLSH 6 Molina, Old Men of the Fiesta: An Introduction to the Pascola Arts (Phoenix, AZ: The Heard Museum, 1980), p. 24.

TepehuĂĄn mask, ca. early 20th c.

Mayo Pascola mask, ca. early 20th c.

The Loa Project In 2006, my colleague Mariana Grajales and I were invited to Guatemala to help catalogue a series of dance manuals that had been collected by a local family of mask makers in Santa Lucia. What we were met with when we arrived were literally stacks of notebooks and slips of papers numbering in the hundreds, mostly handwritten, that had been collected by village maestros Exequiel and Florencio Valey in the early part of the twentieth century. As we waded through them, we found that each small book contained what looked like a series of short plays and prologues (most between 100 and 300 verses) which someone like Florencio would carry around as a kind of play script, in order to teach the actors their lines for the religious festival. While both Mariana and I had some familiarity with the Guatemalan dance tradition (or “Bailesâ€?) such as the “Dance of the Conquestâ€? or the “Moors and Christians,â€? what we happened upon that summer was evidence of a quite different, although integral part, of the masked dance tradition - the Loa. Characterized as a short dramatic work of religious character, the Loa of Guatemala appeared to have evolved from its long history in the literary and culWXUDO WUDGLWLRQ RI 6SDLQ DQG FRORQLDO 6SDQLVK $PHULFD DV D ODXGDWRU\ SURORJXH WR D PXFK PRUH Ă XLG LQGHSHQGHQW IRUP ZKHUHLQ HYHQ WKH VSDFHV XWLOL]HG IRU daily life in the village (the church steps, the central square, the marketplace) could be transformed into a “theaterâ€? and the “Loa,â€? or what the indigenous population playfully referred to as “the word,â€? was performed by members of the religious procession (often with participation from the audience itself) as short plays along the parade route. While some work had been done on the Loa by Gustavo Correa in 1961, his research was based on a sample of only 60 individual pieces, most of which had been bound and kept by members of the cofradias. During our stay in Guatemala and Mexico, Ms. Grajales and I were in the very privileged position of sorting through literally hundreds of examples dating back as early as the 1920’s. It was a position I’m eager to say, that has only grown more exciting with the Valey family’s recent decision to entrust the collection to us at Xipe. With our sincerest thanks to both Gio Rossilli of Antigua and the Tinker Foundation, we are excited to announce that we are laying the foundation for ZKDW ZH KRSH ZLOO EH D VLJQLĂ€FDQW FRQWULEXWLRQ WR WKH VWXG\ DQG SUHVHUYDWLRQ RI WKLV SDUW RI WKH *XDWHPDODQ GDQFH WUDGLWLRQ ² The Loa Project. Over the course of the next few years, it is our plan to conserve, translate, and make accessible these documents through an online archive for future generations. For more information, or to learn ways that you can help, please contact us at staff@xipeprojects.com. Alison Heney, Curator 2


Coming Soon to Xipe!

X IPE

P ROJECTS Latin American Masks and Popular Art

Staff Peter T. Markman, Director Alison L. Heney, PhD Curator and Assistant Director Día de los Muertos Celebration, Olvera Street, Downtown Los Angeles CA

Jesse Hoffman, Staff Consultant Armando Colina and Victor Acuña, Representatives in Mexico

Visions of the Fantastic Featuring work by artists such as Candelario Medrano, Teodora Blanco, Manuel Jiménez and the Linares family of Mexico City, this exhibit explores the influence and evolution of surrealist images in Latin American popular art. October 27 - December 16, 2012

Persistence of the Flower World A rare glimpse into the enchanted world beneath the mask of “natural” reality. This exhibit explores the ritual practices of the Yaqui, Mayo, Cora, and Tarahumara of Northern Mexico. October 27 - December 16, 2012

Xipe Projects is a 5VU 7YVÄ[ Educational Foundation and a member of Los Amigos Del Arte Popular For more information, or permission to reprint text and photos, please contact us via email at: staff@xipeprojects.com Visit us on the web at www.xipeprojects.com

Admission is free. By appointment only. For more information, please contact us at staff@xipeprojects.com.

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Xipe Projects

Latin American Masks and Popular Art

15121 Graham Street, Suite 103 Huntington Beach, CA 92649 EST. 2011


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