In recent years, Giovanni Fabián Guerrero’s (Cherán, Michoacán – 1993) artistic research has succeeded in consolidating a dictionary of symbols that translate and intertwine three worlds: a social movement, the presence of the forest, and the spiritual plane. This body of work, which spans mural painting, sculpture, and drawing, is the result of a collective political and aesthetic process that emerged in Cherán, Micho- acán, over a decade ago, and which Fabián Guerrero has simultaneously explored on a personal level. Senderos Ocultos embraces nature’s extension as the axis of production. Each format functions as an experimental space that, aside from presenting scenes where dance or celebration play a prominent role as part of a dedicated search to translate a space-time both ritual and political, also implies a branching out that expands the surface outward, creating layers and new meanings for each medium.
Since 2011, a process to defend the Cherán forest began in response to the threats posed by illegal logging in this Purépecha region. These actions led to a model of self-government and autonomy. In this context, a series of artists began to occupy the streets of Cherán K’eri, in dialogue with the local cultural center. Thus, a mural movement accompanied a new form of political organization. This mural painting format has entailed a reorganization of the visual experience and discourse in this place, through images filled with power that now form part of the public space and a new kind of living museum. As some of its authors highlight, these works “refer to our community and what has happened in it over the past 10 years.” Among the motifs, we observe the forest, figures im- portant to the community, relevant festivities, or scenes of struggle and ongoing resistance.
In the case of Giovanni Fabián Guerrero, he is part of a generation of artists who grew up during the consolidation of autonomy, sparked by a revolution led by women who confronted the loggers, a defense that brought about the consequent separation from the Mexican state and the formation of a Consejo Mayor (Great Council) as the political foundation, which coordinates other groups such as the Consejo de Barrios (Council of Neighborhoods), Local Administration, Communal Goods, Social and Economic Develop- ment, Civil Affairs, and the Committee for Justice Procurement, Surveillance, and Mediation, in direct contact with the Assemblies and the Community Guard. The young people who have integrated the mural movement began to intervene in various spaces, while also promoting other ways of understanding art, whether through collective or individual work.
From this angle, we better understand the assimilation and persistence of the mural format in Fabián Guerrero’s work, as seen in Cargos y Sacrificios. It is also important to emphasize the artist’s unique approach and the intimate resolutions he has crafted, which are constant in the piece presented here. The mural has given way to a synchronous narrative possibility, where temporalities and actions overlap. The compositional foundation that the creator proposes interlaces stories through specific elements—masks, radiant eyes on the figures, a long rope, and a red thread. In this way, aspects of daily time (a group of children, honey gatherers, an elderly woman, a resin collector, a friend lassoing a bull) are brought into dialogue with the ritual act (a dance, a celebration, an office), all sharing the same space thanks to this particular pictorial organization. Throughout this composition, the forest takes on an undeniable centrality, dividing the work into two parts. It even presents itself in two strands or unfoldings: either as the support for several figures, or as a panoramic or aerial landscape that encompasses the entire piece.
Giovanni Fabián Guerrero’s aesthetic proposal challenges and extends the pictorial space into other formats through elements that are referenced within the painting itself, which are then transferred to the exhibition space. This displacement coincides with the spatial-temporal overlaps that Fabián Guerrero portrays in his murals, connecting the sacred space with the profane. The mask be- comes a unifying motif in the painting, and by being objectified, it gives way to the containment of a symbolic condition that has his- torically characterized this element. Fabián Guerrero presents five masks that bring together a group of demons and companions. These little devils embody the same essence of the territory: branches, maguey leaves, honeycombs, and foliage. They are, in fact, ritual artifacts that safeguard the remnants of specific actions and uses, as evidenced by the traces that attest to the presence of fire.
Finally, the drawing represents a search for the definition of elements and a kind of study for the mural. In it, the characters are presented within the forest, defined through lines that converge between the delineation of figures and the movement toward the outer surface of the paper, as part of the connection with other components of the exhibition. That is, made with ink and ocote and encapsulated within a pine wood panel, it confirms that each artistic aspect will always be conditioned by an objectual and symbolic stage related to a land in constant defense.
Text: Natalia de la Rosa (Oaxaca de Juárez)
