Bone Ground exhibition

The Alhóndiga is the repository of the region's most important photographic legacy, both as a national historical monument and, technically, due to its staff, its geographic location, and the climate control system that stabilizes antique photographic materials such as wet collodion plates. Preserving the cultural identity of Guanajuato's photographers in its photo archive, this repository of local and national images, means recreating events to reconstruct the memory of a country whose independence stemmed from the influence of Enlightenment ideas: the pursuit of freedom, collective progress, the right to reason, and the right to express one's rights. The crucible of these thoughts and of the mining tradition is photography, which went from being a luxury item, due to the silver used in its production, to becoming a democratic medium today because of its portability. As democratic as death, which recognizes us as part of a community founded on rituals that vary according to the circumstances and the needs of human beings in mourning. Death is part of the human condition, but it is the bereaved who stage it through symbols they carefully choose for the farewell: sometimes oil paintings of crowned nuns, games and songs, or the portrait of the deceased so that he does not escape from memory.

On this occasion, we present a summary of this exhibition, which includes another way of eternalizing these funerary practices in the spirit of preserving a human being's passage through the world: mummification. 
In Bone Ground, portraits of arid bodies from Peru, Ecuador, Spain, and Mexico coexist, the result of my work on archaeological expeditions and cataloging collections in various museums. Thanks to the generosity of the Director, Héctor Álvarez Santiago, the wonderful staff of the Alhóndiga, and the tireless work of the Lanzando Lázaros team, and our sponsors, the exhibition also includes previously unseen works by artists such as Jesús Gallardo, Héctor García Cobo on Frida Kahlo, and Romualdo García.

In photography, we can read about an era and its mentalities through codes such as clothing, jewelry, and gestures, with greater precision than in painting, since pictorial art often depends on the artist's decisions and the patron's requests. Photography, on the other hand, can lie when it is neither art nor a document of field research. To quote Efraín Huerta, "Not everyone who uses language is a writer, nor is everyone who works with clay God."

Special thanks to Fátima Alba for her curatorial and research work; to Anouk Ciprés, head of installation; to Yaiza Zárate for her logistics; to Berenice Macías for her design; to René Torres for her printing; and to Alondra, Simón, Elena, Ximena for their support, and to all those who join us today on a different journey through Bone Ground.