dear Jorge,

yes, great picture, but also an image impossible to fully appreciate if you are NOT Mexican. I like the iconography, the irony too and the huge amount of object-symbols used and I think I can also see all the references to popular culture, Hollywood etc. …

however, without what you call ‚cultural references’ this image/artist is difficult to fully ‘read’ by someone with another cultural background – and if I comment this image, it may or may not reveal a big misunderstanding. The artists’ intention may be far away from the onlooker’s interpretation…

Jorge, is this important to you? Is it important to you that your pieces are talked about the way you thought about them?

When I look at your work I see the work of a storyteller, I see layers of narration and I make up my own story about these relics. So I fall for the myth you create… but strongest I feel ‘a million years of Catholicism’, yes, to me quite a few pieces of your work I saw radiate these cultural references. So it is not Mexico alone but this European religion-export that has lead to the myth I felt when I recently saw the pieces you exhibited in Stockholm.

We talked about migration and where we are from, I now think that it is not just nationality but the past religious history that have strongly defined our cultural identities … and lead to all the misunderstandings you felt when talking in another language, now, that you are living in Belgium.

I worked in the French part of Switzerland and struggled to make myself understood. For 12 years I lived in England and learned to believe that language is ‘just’ a tool. But it is a tool one has to sharpen and use with creativity and wit. So misuse and abuse of the tool is ok too – if it serves a purpose. Misunderstandings may sharpen the thinking. The misleading use of words can be an attractive strategy to work with when creating a formal vocabulary as an artist. I like to think of language in such a slightly subversive way. As an artist I enjoy the imaginative and often improper use of language.

For me it is important that my work keeps people wondering and talking and I don’t think this happens when the work is too vague and arbitrary or too direct or didactic.

I am still surprised when people talk about my work the way I thought about it when making it. It feels great when someone can really unveil the various aspects of thoughts and feelings that made up my work.

Very rarely I get strange feedback, usually by people untouched by any form of art education, …

… which leads me to the predictable conclusion, that Art is a universal cultural phenomena and that any culture can be studied. The discourse about Art needs to be practiced and learned: Therefore … four thoughts …

- Art is a language – the artist can choose to talk in a regional, national or universal language.

- Art is a tool for people without language

- Art is a perfect tool for dis-paced or mis-placed people, for migrants and refugees, for homeless and cultural nomads

- Art can become a mother tongue, regardless where you are

Christoph