The Order of Chaos

Agustín Arteaga

Javier Marín is a well-known Mexican sculptor whose work transcends boundaries. Initiated handling the human figure, of playfull spirit and simple forms, almost schematic, in small dimensions, grew in time, both physically and emotionally, affecting the positions, complicating them. Today, Marín shows a work, which, more than giving us answers to previous self questioning, awakens new questions, more doubts and uncertainty. ? To be able to confront his new way of working, it is convenient recalling the artists’ process of development. It is worthwhile remembering that the way he used the human form during the mid eighties, placed him as a post-modern artist, because he worked with a powerful image of men or women, whose gender attributes were provocatively emphasized, while the induced reference in the spectator was associated to a classicism already affected by mannierism. On the other hand, feminine figures acquired the character of fertile and seductive goddesses of broad hips and deep breasts, eloquent and evocative looks that transformed them into priestesses of their own cult, while the virile members of their counterparts became the center of gravity of their sol-id anatomical structure. In contrast with the austere and aseptic synthesis, typical in representatives of the post-modern movement in other latitudes,—for example: Mimo Paladino in Italy—Javier Marín’s hand is present as a millenary print. Gestuality is one of his main characteristics, and his personages, men and women, seem to rise from the deepest strata of earth, as if made of the same material, as archaeological vestiges, which in contact with contemporary man, recreate in him the unconscious need to be part of a ritual. This inescapable ritual, is the one of the confrontation with the body, beyond the banality of individual aspiration, it is the one of the collective body, of the archetype. Surprisingly, these forms do not belong to the primitive archaism, which denies the stroke and hides or deprives expression: his discoveries are based on the figure, altered by its own existence, by feelings, pleasure or pain, located in the frontier, which blends them together. The term classicist—entirely mistaken—, for long time attributed to his work, lies in the constitution of a sense of humanity, where the fickleness and temptations they propose, are the own intimate reflections of the one that admires them. 

I was saying, that the early works of Javier Marín were synthetic and schematic, associable with the spontaneity of infantile creativity, of round shapes and continuous surfaces, free of obstacles for the eyes or the hand that caresses them. At that time, the technique used by the artist was ceramics; we could find a quiet innocence in his pieces. This matured in time the corporality, exalting the anatomy capriciously. Each gesture was affected, each strand of hair, the muscles were strained, turning it all into images plagued with the utopia of excess, capable of confronting the minimalist spirit of its time. Exalting their objectuality and the physical attributes of aesthetic entities. His position in the scene of the moment adopted a dual sense, of which he still is a victim: On one hand, his sudden celebrity turned him into a figure, mixture of pop star and pervert child, whose creation was applauded by the art critics’ apparatus, and well appreciated by the market. On the other hand, he is also victim of a violent offensive, accentuated by the radicalism, which disproportionately placed the curator—during the last decade—as the almighty of the new Olympus of post-post-post-modern contemporaneity, whose word can dictate on the destiny of artists, with no one’s objection. And sadly, specially of young artists, who more than anything, aspire or require to be benefited by his protection.  

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