June 11, 2005
Patron Saint of San Miguel de Allende, Arts and Artists
San Miguel de Allende is a town known for the Arts and for Artists; and for the scent of fresh baked goods and bakeries. This is town where the sick, and the dying people come to experience a holy death and live for years; where ambulance drivers wait on the sidelines for the foolish, and during the running of the bulls everyone's foolish and runs with, around, behind, in front of the poor, frightened bulls. An appropriate Patron saint for such a small, healing town.
Name Meaning:
Who is like God? (the battle cry of the heaven forces during the uprising)
Patronage:
against temptations; ambulance drivers; ARTISTS; bakers; bankers; banking; battle; boatmen; Brecht, Belgium; Brussels, Belgium; Caltanissett, Sicily; Congregation of Saint Michael the Archangel; coopers; Cornwall, England; danger at sea; dying people; emergency medical technicians; EMTs; England; fencing; Germany; greengrocers; grocers; haberdashers; hatmakers; hatters; holy death; knights; mariners; milleners; archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama; Papua, New Guinea; paramedics; paratroopers; diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida; police officers; Puebla, Mexico; radiologists; radiotherapists; sailors; diocese of San Angelo, Texas; SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, MEXICO; archdiocese of Seattle, Washington; security forces; security guards; Sibenik Croatia; sick people; soldiers; Spanish police officers; diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts; storms at sea; swordsmiths; Umbria, Italy; watermen
Prayers:
Prayer For Help Against Spiritual Enemies
Glorious Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly hosts, who stands always ready to give assistance to the people of God; who fought with the dragon, the old serpent, and cast him out of heaven, and now valiantly defends the Church of God that the gates of hell may never prevail against her, I earnestly entreat you to assist me also, in the painful and dangerous conflict which I sustain against the same formidible foe. Be with me, O mighty Prince! that I may courageously fight and vanquish that proud spirit, whom you, by the Divine Power, gloriously overthrew, and whom our powerful King, Jesus Christ, has, in our nature, completely overcome; so having triumphed over the enemy of my salvation, I may with you and the holy angels, praise the clemency of God who, having refused mercy to the rebellious angels after their fall, has granted repentance and forgiveness to fallen man. Amen.
Representation
dragon; scales; sword
Readings:
You should be aware that the word "angel" denotes a function rather than a nature. Those holy spirits of heaven have indeed always been spirits. They can only be called angels when they deliver some message. Moreover, those who deliver messages of lesser importance are called angels; and those who proclaim messages of supreme importance are called archangels.
Whenever some act of wondrous power must be performed, Michael is sent, so that his action and his name may make it clear that no one can do what God does by his superior power.
Name Meaning:
Who is like God? (the battle cry of the heaven forces during the uprising)
Patronage:
against temptations; ambulance drivers; ARTISTS; bakers; bankers; banking; battle; boatmen; Brecht, Belgium; Brussels, Belgium; Caltanissett, Sicily; Congregation of Saint Michael the Archangel; coopers; Cornwall, England; danger at sea; dying people; emergency medical technicians; EMTs; England; fencing; Germany; greengrocers; grocers; haberdashers; hatmakers; hatters; holy death; knights; mariners; milleners; archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama; Papua, New Guinea; paramedics; paratroopers; diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida; police officers; Puebla, Mexico; radiologists; radiotherapists; sailors; diocese of San Angelo, Texas; SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, MEXICO; archdiocese of Seattle, Washington; security forces; security guards; Sibenik Croatia; sick people; soldiers; Spanish police officers; diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts; storms at sea; swordsmiths; Umbria, Italy; watermen
Prayers:
Prayer For Help Against Spiritual Enemies
Glorious Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly hosts, who stands always ready to give assistance to the people of God; who fought with the dragon, the old serpent, and cast him out of heaven, and now valiantly defends the Church of God that the gates of hell may never prevail against her, I earnestly entreat you to assist me also, in the painful and dangerous conflict which I sustain against the same formidible foe. Be with me, O mighty Prince! that I may courageously fight and vanquish that proud spirit, whom you, by the Divine Power, gloriously overthrew, and whom our powerful King, Jesus Christ, has, in our nature, completely overcome; so having triumphed over the enemy of my salvation, I may with you and the holy angels, praise the clemency of God who, having refused mercy to the rebellious angels after their fall, has granted repentance and forgiveness to fallen man. Amen.
Representation
dragon; scales; sword
Readings:
You should be aware that the word "angel" denotes a function rather than a nature. Those holy spirits of heaven have indeed always been spirits. They can only be called angels when they deliver some message. Moreover, those who deliver messages of lesser importance are called angels; and those who proclaim messages of supreme importance are called archangels.
Whenever some act of wondrous power must be performed, Michael is sent, so that his action and his name may make it clear that no one can do what God does by his superior power.
Nation Divided,By Carmen Duarte, ARIZONA DAILY STAR
An article about those trapped in between.
...A delegation of Tohono O'odham left for Washington, D.C., on June 2 to seek U.S. citizenship for 8,400 tribal members.
Tribal officials want the U.S. government to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 to make all enrolled tribal members U.S. citizens. Under the amended act, the tribal membership card would serve as proof of citizenship or a birth certificate.
"The federal government needs to right a wrong committed in 1853, when our traditional lands were divided between Mexico and the United States," Tribal Vice Chairman Henry Ramon said.
American Indians who live along the U.S.-Canadian border were given dual citizenship through treaties hundreds of years ago and have not faced separation from their people. They travel freely between both countries.
This was not done for the Tohono O'odham, Ramon said. "I am very confident that the politicians will listen to us and make it right."
The border, tribal officials say, is causing hardship for 8,400 members on both sides of it - most of them with no birth certificates to prove citizenship. The tribe has 24,000 enrolled members.
It's an ongoing problem that began intensifying in 1986 with changes in U.S. immigration laws and with beefed-up drug enforcement along 75 miles of Tohono O'odham land that abuts the border in remote desert.
For decades, with the blessing of the U.S. government, Tohono O'odham members in both countries were allowed to cross the border freely to work, participate in religious ceremonies, keep medical appointments in Sells and visit relatives.
As the border crossings became more difficult, families stopped making their routine trips. For some, health or family emergencies were worth the risk of dealing with U.S. Border Patrol agents, jail time and the confiscation of their vehicles.
In 1999, a pilot program between Mexico and U.S. immigration officials led to Mexican passports and U.S. border-crossing cards for 100 enrolled tribal members in Mexico.
That led the tribe's Legislative Council last year to allocate $102,310 to pay for the remaining 1,238 Mexican passports and U.S. border-crossing cards for Tohono O'odham in Mexico.
Immigration officials on both sides of the border worked together to make this happen -waiving certain documents, and using tribal rolls to meet requirements.
But this did not solve the problems in three situations: O'odham living in the United States who are Mexican-born; O'odham born in the United States who cannot prove it; and O'odham children who qualify for dual citizenship but don't have it.
"I am very confident that the politicians will listen to us and make it right," Ramon says.
"I think something needs to be done, but I think it will be a difficult road," said Pastor, adding that some politicians think U.S. immigration laws are already too lax.
"I will work with them to try to help them achieve their goal," Pastor said.
For centuries, said Ramon, Tohono O'odham, which means "desert people," lived on their traditional lands - lands that stretched from Phoenix south to Hermosillo, Sonora, and west to the Gulf of California.
The Tohono O'odham Nation's capital is Sells, which is about 60 miles west of Tucson. The reservation is about the size of Connecticut and includes 11 districts.
The Tohono O'odham lived there long before it was part of New Spain, and later, Mexico, after its independence was won in 1821.
The Gila River was the boundary between Mexico and the United States in 1848, when Mexico ceded the land north of it.
The river remained the international boundary until Congress ratified the Gadsden Purchase of the southern portions of New Mexico and Arizona in 1854.
Affected tribal members
The four groups of Tohono O'odham affected by the U.S.-Mexico border and laws that define nationality are:
* About 7,000 members who were born in the United States, but who do not have documents to obtain birth certificates.
Some of these people cannot get Social Security numbers, retirement benefits, veterans' benefits, widows' benefits, a driver's license or a passport.
* About 1,400 members who were born in Mexico and still live there.
* Members born in Mexico who now live illegally in the United States. Several hundred of this group are included in the tally of 7,000 affected members.
* Members born in Mexico of parents who are U.S. citizens, but whose parents cannot prove it. These members live illegally in the United States but qualify for dual citizenship. This number also is included in the 7,000 affected members.
Politicians did not take the Tohono O'odham into consideration when lines were drawn in 1853, dividing the tribe's traditional lands, said Ramon, 66, who was born in the Hickiwan District, where he grew up farming. He later became an auto mechanic, served in the Korean War, studied at the University of Utah, worked as an alcoholism counselor and entered politics in 1972.
He said the Tohono O'odham should have been guaranteed U.S. citizenship when their lands were cut in half, such as what happened with American Indians who live along the U.S.-Canadian border.
Ramon said another historical oversight in extending citizenship to members occurred in 1937, when Congress formally recognized the Tohono O'odham Nation as an indigenous sovereign government. It was then the U.S. government took a census on both sides of the border and enrolled members based on O'odham blood, not on country of residency, birth or citizenship. This census was the basis for tribal recognition.
Ramon and 66-year-old Maria Jesus Romo-Robles, an enrolled member who was born in and lives in Sonoyta, Sonora, are among the delegation's members, who will share stories with Capitol Hill politicians.
Romo-Robles and Ramon remember as children an open border with families crossing freely - no visas or birth certificates required.
Ramon remembers as a young boy stories about federal U.S. buses traveling into Mexico and picking up and bringing O'odham children to schools in Arizona.
"My father used to cross and work as a laborer at the mine in Ajo," said Romo-Robles. "He also was a vendor and would bring and sell fruit, cheese and wine to families."
Today, Romo-Robles has seven children - all tribal members - living in Eloy and the Phoenix area, working in construction, agriculture, a clothing factory and a restaurant.
One son works for the tribe in the San Lucy District, where he irrigates cotton, melon and wheat fields.
They are all living in the United States illegally. For years, Romo-Robles could not cross and see her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren because she feared prosecution.
When she was sick with gallbladder and bladder disease, she crossed through an opening in the barbed-wire fence to go to the Sells hospital.
Romo-Robles spent many holidays alone, because her children moved north for a better life.
"They say this land is ours, but they don't treat us like it is ours," she said.
"I want Congress to help my people," said Romo-Robles who left for the federal capital last week - a first in leaving her traditional O'odham lands.
"I'm ready to stand up for my nation and my children. They are my treasures. I love them dearly," she said.
* Contact Carmen Duarte at 573-4195 or at cduarte@azstarnet.com.
To contact your congressman: You can contact your congressman or senator to voice your opinion on the issue at the following numbers:
* Sen. John McCain (Republican) at (202) 224-2235 or 670-6334
* Sen. Jon Kyl (R) at (202) 224-4521 or 575-8633
* Rep. Jim Kolbe (R) at (202) 225-2542 or 881-3588
* Rep. Ed Pastor (Democrat) at (202) 225-4065 or 624-9986
...A delegation of Tohono O'odham left for Washington, D.C., on June 2 to seek U.S. citizenship for 8,400 tribal members.
Tribal officials want the U.S. government to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 to make all enrolled tribal members U.S. citizens. Under the amended act, the tribal membership card would serve as proof of citizenship or a birth certificate.
"The federal government needs to right a wrong committed in 1853, when our traditional lands were divided between Mexico and the United States," Tribal Vice Chairman Henry Ramon said.
American Indians who live along the U.S.-Canadian border were given dual citizenship through treaties hundreds of years ago and have not faced separation from their people. They travel freely between both countries.
This was not done for the Tohono O'odham, Ramon said. "I am very confident that the politicians will listen to us and make it right."
The border, tribal officials say, is causing hardship for 8,400 members on both sides of it - most of them with no birth certificates to prove citizenship. The tribe has 24,000 enrolled members.
It's an ongoing problem that began intensifying in 1986 with changes in U.S. immigration laws and with beefed-up drug enforcement along 75 miles of Tohono O'odham land that abuts the border in remote desert.
For decades, with the blessing of the U.S. government, Tohono O'odham members in both countries were allowed to cross the border freely to work, participate in religious ceremonies, keep medical appointments in Sells and visit relatives.
As the border crossings became more difficult, families stopped making their routine trips. For some, health or family emergencies were worth the risk of dealing with U.S. Border Patrol agents, jail time and the confiscation of their vehicles.
In 1999, a pilot program between Mexico and U.S. immigration officials led to Mexican passports and U.S. border-crossing cards for 100 enrolled tribal members in Mexico.
That led the tribe's Legislative Council last year to allocate $102,310 to pay for the remaining 1,238 Mexican passports and U.S. border-crossing cards for Tohono O'odham in Mexico.
Immigration officials on both sides of the border worked together to make this happen -waiving certain documents, and using tribal rolls to meet requirements.
But this did not solve the problems in three situations: O'odham living in the United States who are Mexican-born; O'odham born in the United States who cannot prove it; and O'odham children who qualify for dual citizenship but don't have it.
"I am very confident that the politicians will listen to us and make it right," Ramon says.
"I think something needs to be done, but I think it will be a difficult road," said Pastor, adding that some politicians think U.S. immigration laws are already too lax.
"I will work with them to try to help them achieve their goal," Pastor said.
For centuries, said Ramon, Tohono O'odham, which means "desert people," lived on their traditional lands - lands that stretched from Phoenix south to Hermosillo, Sonora, and west to the Gulf of California.
The Tohono O'odham Nation's capital is Sells, which is about 60 miles west of Tucson. The reservation is about the size of Connecticut and includes 11 districts.
The Tohono O'odham lived there long before it was part of New Spain, and later, Mexico, after its independence was won in 1821.
The Gila River was the boundary between Mexico and the United States in 1848, when Mexico ceded the land north of it.
The river remained the international boundary until Congress ratified the Gadsden Purchase of the southern portions of New Mexico and Arizona in 1854.
Affected tribal members
The four groups of Tohono O'odham affected by the U.S.-Mexico border and laws that define nationality are:
* About 7,000 members who were born in the United States, but who do not have documents to obtain birth certificates.
Some of these people cannot get Social Security numbers, retirement benefits, veterans' benefits, widows' benefits, a driver's license or a passport.
* About 1,400 members who were born in Mexico and still live there.
* Members born in Mexico who now live illegally in the United States. Several hundred of this group are included in the tally of 7,000 affected members.
* Members born in Mexico of parents who are U.S. citizens, but whose parents cannot prove it. These members live illegally in the United States but qualify for dual citizenship. This number also is included in the 7,000 affected members.
Politicians did not take the Tohono O'odham into consideration when lines were drawn in 1853, dividing the tribe's traditional lands, said Ramon, 66, who was born in the Hickiwan District, where he grew up farming. He later became an auto mechanic, served in the Korean War, studied at the University of Utah, worked as an alcoholism counselor and entered politics in 1972.
He said the Tohono O'odham should have been guaranteed U.S. citizenship when their lands were cut in half, such as what happened with American Indians who live along the U.S.-Canadian border.
Ramon said another historical oversight in extending citizenship to members occurred in 1937, when Congress formally recognized the Tohono O'odham Nation as an indigenous sovereign government. It was then the U.S. government took a census on both sides of the border and enrolled members based on O'odham blood, not on country of residency, birth or citizenship. This census was the basis for tribal recognition.
Ramon and 66-year-old Maria Jesus Romo-Robles, an enrolled member who was born in and lives in Sonoyta, Sonora, are among the delegation's members, who will share stories with Capitol Hill politicians.
Romo-Robles and Ramon remember as children an open border with families crossing freely - no visas or birth certificates required.
Ramon remembers as a young boy stories about federal U.S. buses traveling into Mexico and picking up and bringing O'odham children to schools in Arizona.
"My father used to cross and work as a laborer at the mine in Ajo," said Romo-Robles. "He also was a vendor and would bring and sell fruit, cheese and wine to families."
Today, Romo-Robles has seven children - all tribal members - living in Eloy and the Phoenix area, working in construction, agriculture, a clothing factory and a restaurant.
One son works for the tribe in the San Lucy District, where he irrigates cotton, melon and wheat fields.
They are all living in the United States illegally. For years, Romo-Robles could not cross and see her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren because she feared prosecution.
When she was sick with gallbladder and bladder disease, she crossed through an opening in the barbed-wire fence to go to the Sells hospital.
Romo-Robles spent many holidays alone, because her children moved north for a better life.
"They say this land is ours, but they don't treat us like it is ours," she said.
"I want Congress to help my people," said Romo-Robles who left for the federal capital last week - a first in leaving her traditional O'odham lands.
"I'm ready to stand up for my nation and my children. They are my treasures. I love them dearly," she said.
* Contact Carmen Duarte at 573-4195 or at cduarte@azstarnet.com.
To contact your congressman: You can contact your congressman or senator to voice your opinion on the issue at the following numbers:
* Sen. John McCain (Republican) at (202) 224-2235 or 670-6334
* Sen. Jon Kyl (R) at (202) 224-4521 or 575-8633
* Rep. Jim Kolbe (R) at (202) 225-2542 or 881-3588
* Rep. Ed Pastor (Democrat) at (202) 225-4065 or 624-9986
The Border
While art prices soar and Mexican Art make a prescence on the international art scsene, thousands and thousands are being shot, murdered along the US and American Borders.
For more articles, highlight the Title link.
For more articles, highlight the Title link.
Riding high on a Mexican wave,
As Tate Modern stages its major Frida Kahlo exhibition, Louise Baring reports on the resurgence of interest in art from Mexico
It was Madonna who helped transform Frida Kahlo into a collector's darling. Inspired by Frida - Hayden Herrera's bestselling 1983 biography of the Mexican painter - the singer hoped to play her in a film. Hollywood turned down the project. Mexican actress Salma Hayek took up the role in 2002, but Madonna meanwhile snapped up a couple of Kahlo paintings - including Self Portrait with Monkey, 1940 (now a key loan to the new Frida Kahlo show at Tate Modern), which she bought for more than $1 million from a Venezuelan collector who had paid just $44,000 for the picture at Sotheby's in New York in 1979. Just over a decade later, Self Portrait, 1929, sold for $5.4 million at Sotheby's in New York.
Moses or Nuclear Sun by Frida Kahlo
Kahlo's prices are "roaring upward", as one Manhattan collector puts it, in part because her work rarely comes on the market. The painter's output was small - roughly 200 works, around 50 of which cannot leave Mexico as they are regarded as national heritage. "Kahlo was also self-taught, so few of her early works are interesting," says New York-based Mexican art dealer Mary-Anne Martin. "Her late works are frequently choppy and crudely painted, as she was in tremendous pain and impaired by alcohol and painkillers."
Needless to say, forgeries are rife - though easily spotted. "At one point I was being offered one fake Frida a month," says Martin, who also has more fakes by Diego Rivera (Kahlo's husband, famous for his blend of folk art and propaganda) in her files than real ones.
The growing Latino presence in the US, combined with a slew in recent years of museum shows from ancient Mayan heads to modern video installations, has done much to revive interest in the rich artistic tradition of Mexico. As Fatima Bercht, chief curator of El Museo del Barrio in Manhattan, explains: "Mexico devotes far more resources than any other Latin American country to promoting its culture in the US."
While rich collectors such as film producer Joel Silver, former HBO boss Michael Fuchs, and Daniel Filipacchi, the chairman of Hachette, favour 20th-century Mexican masters, a younger generation of collectors - mostly Latin Americans, Americans and a sprinkling of Europeans - buy work by a new generation of Mexican artists breaking new ground: Santiago Sierra,with his sound installations;
Gabriel Orozco,(shown at the Serpentine Gallery in London last year), a popular photographer who also works in sculpture, drawing and video; Nahum B Zenil,known for his self-portraits examining his conflicting identities as a Catholic, an Indian and a homosexual; and Elena Climent,who records the lives of ordinary Mexicans in intimate still-lifes. An older photographer, 71-year-old Enrique Metinides, is recognised for his images of car crashes, bus accidents and train derailments composed like a scene from a crime or action movie.
"Unlike Frida Kahlo or Diego Rivera, these Mexican artists think of themselves as international. Many have strong links with the US or Europe," says Virgilio Garza, who runs Christie's Latin American department in New York. "Gabriel Orozco, for example, is represented by the Marian Goodman gallery in New York, rather than a gallery specialising in Latin American art."
As vintage photography enjoys a golden age, photography collectors and museums chase after vintage examples by 20th-century Mexican photographic masters such as Agustin Victor Casasola, (the subject of a current retrospective at the Museo del Barrio), who documented the upheaval of the Mexican revolution along with the jazz cafés and firing squads. Manuel Alvarez Bravo,who died three years ago aged 100, combined a profoundly Mexican subject-matter with avant-garde influences; while Italian-born Tina Modotti, who modelled for both Diego Rivera and Edward Weston, is famous for her still-lifes and photographs of Mexico's working class.
Tina Modotti's Telegraph Wires
Vintage prints of Modotti's best-known images, such as Telephone Wires or Calla Lilies, now fetch up to $350,000, says Spencer Throckmorton, a New York specialist in Mexican photography. "It's hard to believe that 25 years ago, the Latin American - let alone Mexican - art market didn't really exist," says Mary-Anne Martin, who set up Sotheby's first Latin American sale in 1979, where nervous bidders sat in clusters, country by country. Enlivened by a spattering of work by Mexican stars such as Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo or Wilfredo Lam, a Cuban painter, and Chilean Roberto Matta, most of the lots - 40 per cent of which were bought by visiting Mexicans - had never come up at auction before.
Of course, "international" artists such as Tamayo (who deliberately avoided being represented by a Mexican gallery) or David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, and Rivera - all of whom had painted murals in America during the 1930s - had a market. But most Mexican art languished for decades. Even Kahlo was dismissed as a local amateur, while English-language books on Mexican art could be found only in secondhand book stores.
Back in the 1930s and 1940s - a period of artistic interchange between the US and Mexico - Hollywood stars such as Edward G Robinson, Merle Oberon and Dolores del Rio snapped up Mexican art. In 1938, Edward G Robinson bought four Kahlos for $200 each - the 31-year-old painter's first major sale - while other enthusiasts included Edgar J Kaufmann, an industrialist, and Jacques Gelman, a European-born film producer who, with his wife Natasha, amassed a collection of 20th-century Mexican art.
Artistic taste changed, however, in the 1950s, when the Cold War led collectors to turn away from work that promoted socialist values. John D Rockefeller ordered workers to smash Diego Rivera's Man at the Crossroads - painted for the Rockefeller Centre in New York - when the artist refused to remove a portrait of Lenin. Kahlo's political hero, meanwhile, was Stalin. But, more importantly, the rise of post-war abstract expressionists such as Mark Rothko and Franz Kline (whose Crow Dancer fetched $6.4 million at Christie's post-war and contemporary art sale in New York last month) made the magic surrealism of Mexican art seem old-fashioned.
"I think that in the perverse way that market psychology operates, people began to respect the Mexican market once more when Frida Kahlo's prices started to climb," says Martin. The Tree of Hope, the first Kahlo to be sold at Sotheby's, in the late 1970s, did not even reach its lower estimate of $20,000. But the swell of public interest in Kahlo - a mythic creature of her own creation - combined with the introduction of Latin American sales in New York revived interest in Mexico's rich artistic tradition.
In 1990, Kahlo's Diego and I (1949), featuring a weeping Kahlo with Diego Rivera's image in her forehead, became the first Latin American painting to sell for more than $1 million. Charles Saatchi promptly asked a dealer to find him 10 or 12 self-portraits, but backed off when faced with a $3 million price tag for a self-portrait from 1940.
No Frida Kahlos were up for sale at last month's bi-annual Latin American auctions in New York, which also included 18th- and 19th-century colonial paintings. Sotheby's had a couple of important Riveras, once of which - La ofrenda (1928) - sold for $1.6 million. But while modern Mexican masters such as Maria Izquierdo, 64-year-old Francisco Toledo (the subject of a retrospective at the Whitechapel in 2000) and Gunther Gerzso can reach up to $500,000, only the colourful, textured paintings by Rufino Tamayo, who died in 1991, have sold for over $2 million,
Kahlo, meanwhile, remains by far the most expensive Mexican artist - indeed, the dearest in the whole of Latin America. Recognised even by those with scant interest in art, her work gives a collector instant status. And as Thomas Hoving, an ex-director of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, famously said: "Art is money-sexy-social-climbing fantastic."
It was Madonna who helped transform Frida Kahlo into a collector's darling. Inspired by Frida - Hayden Herrera's bestselling 1983 biography of the Mexican painter - the singer hoped to play her in a film. Hollywood turned down the project. Mexican actress Salma Hayek took up the role in 2002, but Madonna meanwhile snapped up a couple of Kahlo paintings - including Self Portrait with Monkey, 1940 (now a key loan to the new Frida Kahlo show at Tate Modern), which she bought for more than $1 million from a Venezuelan collector who had paid just $44,000 for the picture at Sotheby's in New York in 1979. Just over a decade later, Self Portrait, 1929, sold for $5.4 million at Sotheby's in New York.
Moses or Nuclear Sun by Frida Kahlo
Kahlo's prices are "roaring upward", as one Manhattan collector puts it, in part because her work rarely comes on the market. The painter's output was small - roughly 200 works, around 50 of which cannot leave Mexico as they are regarded as national heritage. "Kahlo was also self-taught, so few of her early works are interesting," says New York-based Mexican art dealer Mary-Anne Martin. "Her late works are frequently choppy and crudely painted, as she was in tremendous pain and impaired by alcohol and painkillers."
Needless to say, forgeries are rife - though easily spotted. "At one point I was being offered one fake Frida a month," says Martin, who also has more fakes by Diego Rivera (Kahlo's husband, famous for his blend of folk art and propaganda) in her files than real ones.
The growing Latino presence in the US, combined with a slew in recent years of museum shows from ancient Mayan heads to modern video installations, has done much to revive interest in the rich artistic tradition of Mexico. As Fatima Bercht, chief curator of El Museo del Barrio in Manhattan, explains: "Mexico devotes far more resources than any other Latin American country to promoting its culture in the US."
While rich collectors such as film producer Joel Silver, former HBO boss Michael Fuchs, and Daniel Filipacchi, the chairman of Hachette, favour 20th-century Mexican masters, a younger generation of collectors - mostly Latin Americans, Americans and a sprinkling of Europeans - buy work by a new generation of Mexican artists breaking new ground: Santiago Sierra,with his sound installations;
Gabriel Orozco,(shown at the Serpentine Gallery in London last year), a popular photographer who also works in sculpture, drawing and video; Nahum B Zenil,known for his self-portraits examining his conflicting identities as a Catholic, an Indian and a homosexual; and Elena Climent,who records the lives of ordinary Mexicans in intimate still-lifes. An older photographer, 71-year-old Enrique Metinides, is recognised for his images of car crashes, bus accidents and train derailments composed like a scene from a crime or action movie.
"Unlike Frida Kahlo or Diego Rivera, these Mexican artists think of themselves as international. Many have strong links with the US or Europe," says Virgilio Garza, who runs Christie's Latin American department in New York. "Gabriel Orozco, for example, is represented by the Marian Goodman gallery in New York, rather than a gallery specialising in Latin American art."
As vintage photography enjoys a golden age, photography collectors and museums chase after vintage examples by 20th-century Mexican photographic masters such as Agustin Victor Casasola, (the subject of a current retrospective at the Museo del Barrio), who documented the upheaval of the Mexican revolution along with the jazz cafés and firing squads. Manuel Alvarez Bravo,who died three years ago aged 100, combined a profoundly Mexican subject-matter with avant-garde influences; while Italian-born Tina Modotti, who modelled for both Diego Rivera and Edward Weston, is famous for her still-lifes and photographs of Mexico's working class.
Tina Modotti's Telegraph Wires
Vintage prints of Modotti's best-known images, such as Telephone Wires or Calla Lilies, now fetch up to $350,000, says Spencer Throckmorton, a New York specialist in Mexican photography. "It's hard to believe that 25 years ago, the Latin American - let alone Mexican - art market didn't really exist," says Mary-Anne Martin, who set up Sotheby's first Latin American sale in 1979, where nervous bidders sat in clusters, country by country. Enlivened by a spattering of work by Mexican stars such as Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo or Wilfredo Lam, a Cuban painter, and Chilean Roberto Matta, most of the lots - 40 per cent of which were bought by visiting Mexicans - had never come up at auction before.
Of course, "international" artists such as Tamayo (who deliberately avoided being represented by a Mexican gallery) or David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, and Rivera - all of whom had painted murals in America during the 1930s - had a market. But most Mexican art languished for decades. Even Kahlo was dismissed as a local amateur, while English-language books on Mexican art could be found only in secondhand book stores.
Back in the 1930s and 1940s - a period of artistic interchange between the US and Mexico - Hollywood stars such as Edward G Robinson, Merle Oberon and Dolores del Rio snapped up Mexican art. In 1938, Edward G Robinson bought four Kahlos for $200 each - the 31-year-old painter's first major sale - while other enthusiasts included Edgar J Kaufmann, an industrialist, and Jacques Gelman, a European-born film producer who, with his wife Natasha, amassed a collection of 20th-century Mexican art.
Artistic taste changed, however, in the 1950s, when the Cold War led collectors to turn away from work that promoted socialist values. John D Rockefeller ordered workers to smash Diego Rivera's Man at the Crossroads - painted for the Rockefeller Centre in New York - when the artist refused to remove a portrait of Lenin. Kahlo's political hero, meanwhile, was Stalin. But, more importantly, the rise of post-war abstract expressionists such as Mark Rothko and Franz Kline (whose Crow Dancer fetched $6.4 million at Christie's post-war and contemporary art sale in New York last month) made the magic surrealism of Mexican art seem old-fashioned.
"I think that in the perverse way that market psychology operates, people began to respect the Mexican market once more when Frida Kahlo's prices started to climb," says Martin. The Tree of Hope, the first Kahlo to be sold at Sotheby's, in the late 1970s, did not even reach its lower estimate of $20,000. But the swell of public interest in Kahlo - a mythic creature of her own creation - combined with the introduction of Latin American sales in New York revived interest in Mexico's rich artistic tradition.
In 1990, Kahlo's Diego and I (1949), featuring a weeping Kahlo with Diego Rivera's image in her forehead, became the first Latin American painting to sell for more than $1 million. Charles Saatchi promptly asked a dealer to find him 10 or 12 self-portraits, but backed off when faced with a $3 million price tag for a self-portrait from 1940.
No Frida Kahlos were up for sale at last month's bi-annual Latin American auctions in New York, which also included 18th- and 19th-century colonial paintings. Sotheby's had a couple of important Riveras, once of which - La ofrenda (1928) - sold for $1.6 million. But while modern Mexican masters such as Maria Izquierdo, 64-year-old Francisco Toledo (the subject of a retrospective at the Whitechapel in 2000) and Gunther Gerzso can reach up to $500,000, only the colourful, textured paintings by Rufino Tamayo, who died in 1991, have sold for over $2 million,
Kahlo, meanwhile, remains by far the most expensive Mexican artist - indeed, the dearest in the whole of Latin America. Recognised even by those with scant interest in art, her work gives a collector instant status. And as Thomas Hoving, an ex-director of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, famously said: "Art is money-sexy-social-climbing fantastic."
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