Renato Garza Cervera, Of Genuine Contemporary Beast (Religious), 2006

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Renato Garza Cervera nos interpela instantáneamente con su obra “De genuina fiera contemporánea (religiosa)”, escultura que se asemeja al cuerpo de un pandillero desollado que nos observa desde el piso. Si bien desarmado físicamente, su sola mirada es suficiente para amenazarnos. El cuerpo entero desdoblado hacia afuera con excepción de sus órganos genitales, está a nuestros pies. Su ano visible. Su espalda enteramente vulnerable con la piel repleta de tatuajes de la Mara Barrio 18, una de las principales pandillas de Centroamérica y principal rival de la Mara Salvatrucha. El título de la obra nos indica la naturaleza de este cuerpo abyecto: estamos en presencia de una fiera, un animal salvaje, inhumano.

En palabras de Julia Kristeva, no es la falta de limpieza lo que causa la abyección, sino aquello que perturba la identidad, el sistema, el orden. Aquello que no respeta fronteras, posiciones, reglas... Es el cuerpo del Otro al que miramos hacia abajo, el cuerpo condenado por su transgresión, irredimible en nuestra imaginación.

Retrato simultáneo de todos y de ningún pandillero, este tapete es el falso trofeo de una caza que a pesar de la muerte de todas las presas, nunca tiene fin, nunca llega a su climax. Hoy las pandillas y su violencia iniciada por inmigrantes en las calles de Los Ángeles e importada a Centroamérica gracias a la política de deportaciones de los Estados Unidos en los años 90, infectan las venas de este amplio territorio en que el valor de la vida fluctua con levedad.

Aquí, podemos examinar este falso cuerpo disecado al que hemos etiquetado como salvaje y leer la vida que se esconde en los dibujos que ilustran su piel: amor, odio, identidad, traición, violencia, supervivencia. Por un instante, la bestia se convierte en humano, y por un instante, podemos acercarnos a él.

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Renato Garza Cervera challenges us instantly with his work “De genuina fiera contemporánea (religiosa)”, a sculpture that resembles the body of a flayed gang member who watches us from the ground. Although physically disarmed, his gaze is enough to threaten us. His entire body unfolded outwards with the exception of its genitals, is at our feet. His anus visible. His back is completely vulnerable with the skin full of tattoos from the Mara Barrio 18, one of the main gangs in Central America and the main rival of the Mara Salvatrucha. The title of the work indicates the nature of this abject body: we are in the presence of a beast, a wild animal, not a human.

In the words of Julia Kristeva, it is not the lack of cleanliness that causes the abjection, but what disturbs the identity, the system, the order. That which does not respect borders, positions, rules... It is the body of the Other that we look down on, the body condemned for its transgression, irredeemable in our imagination.

Simultaneous portrait of all and no gang members, this skin is the false trophy of a hunting that, despise much death, has no end, one that never reaches its climax. Today the gangs and their violence initiated by immigrants on the streets of Los Angeles and imported to Central America thanks to the deportation policy of the United States in the 90s, infect the veins of this vast territory of Amexica in which the value of life fluctuates with lightness.

Here, we can examine this fake dissected body that we have labeled as savage and read the life that is hidden in the drawings that illustrate its skin: love, hate, identity, betrayal, violence, survival. For an instant, the beast becomes human, and for an instant, we can get close to him.

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“Simone Weil, the early-twentieth-century French philosopher who embraced radical political Catholicism in the interwar period, concluded that “Brutality, violence, and inhumanity have an immense prestige that schoolbooks hide from children, that grown men do not admit, but that everyone bows before. For the opposite virtues to have as much prestige, they must be actively and constantly put into practice.”

Each time brutality is met with brutality, and barbarity with barbarity, the result is unequivocally the same: the cycle of violence perpetuates itself.“

Carlos Dada for El Faro