X-ray self portrait and slave , 2013
33.5 x 42.3 cm (h x w)
2450 USD
Drypoint, etching and transfer
for sale
[A11]

It is difficult not to think of Ernst Jünger when looking at these images of Francisco Toledo. Undoubtedly, there are points where both authors touch each other. I think, for example, of their fascination for the insects world, in the capacity they have for capturing and producing subtleties, in the powerful sense that the gaze possesses in their creations.

It was Ernst Jünger, in the previous century, who thought most deeply about the word radiation and its aesthetic consequences. In his diaries of the Second World War, he notes: "We receive radiation from the human being, from our neighbors and from those who are far away, also from our friends and enemies. [...] At every moment we are covered in beams of light that touch us, surround us, go through us.

As Jünger rightly put it, Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of X-rays was a turning point in science technique, but it was also a turning point in the history of sight - if such a history is possible. The invention of the microscope allowed us to observe the infinitely small; the arrival of the telescope made us perceive the depth of the universe. What Roentgen did was to find one of the great veins of cosmic energy. And in doing so, he also freed certain demiurges.

If there is something that remains astonishing about any X-ray image, it is precisely this ability to see through matter, to capture ourselves in a unique, perhaps supernatural way. The images in Francisco Toledo's De la esclavitud do not dispense with this description. Energy dwells in these images in a special way; an electric pulse seems to conduct itself everywhere, though the bones, outside them, swirling everywhere. These are like manifests of the enormous power that surrounds us, a power captured in a specific instant, turned into an image: perhaps this is why we think of the photographic character that this portfolio possesses.
What instant is X-ray image capturing? Time does not inhabit an X-ray image, as if it were really a document on the margins of the experience itself. We cannot find the features of the most individual of our components, the face, however we exist there in a punctual way; we are that skull, those hands, those bones. It is as if an X-ray image captures the precise instant of our death. Or at least appeals to that instant.

It is not only Leon Bloy who would condemn such thing, that of being able to see our own skull is one of the modern sacrileges par excellence. Among those sacrileges would be, for example, putting electricity in churches. I do not know if it is Francisco Toledo's intention to make sacrilegious, pagan art, although on many occasions he has placed signs where it would be unusual to be seen, opening perspectives, creating dialogues, making playful what seems statically solemn. Let us think, for example, of the Nuevo catecismo para indios remisos (New Catechism for Reluctant Indians, 1982). In such series a change can be slight, a color, a hint, traces of a reality that invades another, little by little. All it takes is a scorpion, a snake, a fish, to completely change the meaning of an art piece. That is what the subtle changes that Toledo constantly lavishes consist of.

Robert Burton used to say that "there are more torture devices than there are limbs in the human body". These images show certain utensils used by slavers to force people to open their mouths when they wanted to starve to death. There are shackles that the artist had made based on drawings and detailed descriptions of those times. It is no coincidence that certain coins appear; metal pieces used to exchange for people; the fact that these pieces are precisely cross-shaped is surprising. Perhaps this confirms that the cross has never ceased to be a symbol of suffering.
Could these images be added to Francisco Toledo's biographical work and placed alon with his abundant self-portraits? In his work, even his memories become fantastic allegories, as if they occurred in a perpetual fable. When we come to them, they even appear as daydreams. Despite this, there is something in this portfolio that makes us think of a brutal reality, that the facts that constitute us belong to a greater drama than that of our times.

Francisco Toledo decided to contribute with his own perspective to a subject that he has minded for several years, one in which he has found material that he now places discreetly in front of our eyes. In various pieces, the author has celebrated countless subjects; he has paid homage to men and animals, plants and objects, but here the situation seems more like a kind of painful trance. Toledo recognizes the pain of slavery in his own bones, the circumstance of being attached to the metal of human commerce; it is himself who poses for these images, and in his bones we understand not only the individual, but generations of men.

With these series, the author acknowledges the drama which all villages must go through, particularly those which the author feels close to: People brought from remote places to Mexico’s south-east regions, ethnics which still exist in the coasts of Guerrero and Oaxaca, probably the authors’ ancestors.

Francisco Toledo, more than paying an homage, provides them with a place in art, rest to the bones that inhabit the human suffering.

Exhibited by:

Artfocus Latinoamérica

Other works by Francisco Toledo

Tahitian Maid , 1940
4 x 6 in (h x w)
Wood Cut
Redbud Arts Center
USD
800.00
Slaves folder , 2011
68 x 62 cm (h x w)
papel arches de 300 gramos, etching / paper
Artfocus Latinoamérica
Slaves folder , 2011
68 x 31 cm (h x w)
papel arches de 300 gramos, etching / paper
Artfocus Latinoamérica
Slave ship , 2016
29 x 39.6 cm (h x w)
Drypoint
Artfocus Latinoamérica
USD
2030.00
Octopus with slave ship. , 2016
49 x 49 cm (h x w)
Drypoint, etching and aquatint with sugar
Artfocus Latinoamérica
USD
4100.00

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