Interview with local author and photographer in Condesa, Mexico City.
Tell us where you grew up and why
you moved to Mexico City.
I grew up
in downtown Manhattan in the 1970s, when it was still a 'dangerous' city and a
great producer of culture (hip hop, salsa, punk). By the 1990s I was sick of
the city and how it had become gentrified, Americanized and sanitized. A summer
trip to Mexico City opened up a whole new world for me.
What was so appealing about the
city that has made you stay here for so long?
When I
first got to Mexico City in 1989 it was, like New York City before, a producer
of culture, especially street culture, it still had neighborhood's with their
own culture, and I felt very much at home. I met lots of artists from all over
the world who arrived around the same time and who appreciated the particular
culture Mexico had to offer. I quickly learned a new language and a whole new
culture, history, and geography.
How does the city help you stay
relevant as an artist? Does it inspire you to make certain things or
take certain photographs?
I am
interested in popular culture, which is to say working class culture, which
here in Mexico City is the link to earlier, indigenous culture (the Aztec empire),
and that is an unending source for photographs and writing.
What are some things that scare
you about the city?
Well,
nowadays, just like in NYC, I am scared of the masses of young urban
professionals from the USA and Europe who have taken over my old neighborhood
and turned it into a global playground.
How does architecture play a role
in your photography?
Architecture
is a great connection to the past, to many pasts, to times when Mexico City
created its own culture or at least perverted imported cultures to create
wonderfully weird buildings and living spaces. Urban architecture, especially
in working class areas, not only helps preserve earlier cultures it also helps
working class communities defend against the spread of globalism.
Are there certain aspects of
urbanism or everyday life that you try to focus on in you photo-sessions?
I’ve done a
series on graffiti, not so much an artistic graffiti but rather on the way in
which graffiti artists choose the urban spaces in which to do their work. That
is, I use the text (the tags) as a pretext to focus on the urban context. I did
another series of all the public bathrooms I used all over the city as a way to
focus on this strange and wonderful world of officially invisible architecture
and plumbing.
As a writer you have published
your own magazines as well, what were some of these projects like?
In New York
City I created and edited the Portable
Lower East Side, a literary and art magazine focusing on the work by
immigrant and outsider groups in the city as a way to defend against
gentrification. In Mexico City I created and edited Poliester, a contemporary art magazine of the Americas, which
focused on up-and-coming urban artists who were using non-conventional media
and were breaking with folkloric, nationalistic and reactionary art genres and
styles.
In your latest book Several Ways to Die in Mexico City you
focus on the cultural part of death in the city, in what ways do you
present this theme that is different from what we know and see on TV about
Mexico?
Well, first
of all there is nothing in my book about narcos, as there are no real narcos in
Mexico City (the drug business, like all other areas of crime, is organized by
the government). Secondly, not only does the book focus on how people actually
die in the city (which is, from unhealthy substances in the air, water, food
and alcohol), but also how global capitalism is killing off working class
culture within the city.
Have you traveled to other
countries and tried to capture the spirit of those locations as well?
For the
last two decades I’ve traveled all over the Americas, writing about and taking
photographs of urban culture in dozens of different cities. There is an endless
variety of street and urban culture in all the main cities throughout the
continent, each with its own history and flavor.
What are some new projects that
you are working on now?
For the
past couple of years I’ve been working on a project called the architecture of
sex in Colombia, which is an ambitious study of all the places where people
have sex outside of their homes.
Based on you experience what
kind of person does one need to be in order to survive in Mexico City?
Nowadays,
like all the other global cities around the world that have been domesticated
and transformed into giant shopping malls, a person only needs to have money to
survive in Mexico City. Before, a person needed to know how to walk and talk
and be a human being.
Do you ever regret coming
here?
I hate
what's happened to Mexico City, especially in my neighborhood and others
surrounding it, over the last ten years. But it was for me a great city for
many years and helped me grow and expand my horizons and produce much more than
I would have in NYC.
If given the chance what
location would you like to capture the most in a photographic session?
I’d be a
happy photographer if someone paid me to shoot toilets, massage parlors, love
hotels, or cheap bars all around the world.
Do you think a photograph can
really capture the spirit of a place?
I don't
know about spirits, but for me photography is the best medium to capture
particular places at particular times from a particular (conceptual) angle. It
helps if you have a real reason to be shooting that place at that time. Most
photographers' only reason to shoot something is that they're being paid to do
so, which is no real reason at all. I only pull my camera out when I’ve worked
out an idea or concept that justifies the effort.
What advice would you give to
young artists and photographers who want to use this type of medium to
express themselves?
Go to
amazingly cheap places, drink local alcohol, make friends with people who
aren't your own age, have some respect for the great ghettos of the world.
