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Mexico City - Daniel Lezama's spirit fibers and flag vaginas

Painter Daniel Lezama is a sort of rebel in the Mexican art world.

Painter Daniel Lezama is a sort of rebel in the Mexican art world. There’s those who hate him, those who idolize him, and asshole curators who refuse to say hi, but everyone knows him and has an opinion. Daniel plays with Mexican history in an absolutely free way, paying no mind to who's supposed to be respected, which may not be a big deal here but apparently Mexicans are easily offended when someone doesn't venerate historical figures like Benito Juarez and friends.

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Vice: Hey, Daniel! How do you feel about having an underground cult dedicated to your work?

Daniel Lezama: It’s weird, because it’s not just the underground, but also everyday people I see in the street and who stop me to say, “Are you Lezama? I saw your stuff in a magazine and I liked it a lot.” And it’s very weird because these experiences barely every happen to the contemporary Mexican artist.

For people to say hi in the street?

Yeah! Because the Mexican contemporary art world is one elite group dedicated to another elite group. You don’t have any contact with another world.

Are you looking for something like a discourse for everyone?

I’m looking to be a simple person, I don’t want to be overcomplicated. When I paint, I do it for myself, I want things to be immediate and legible, the last thing I want is for my painting to be too complicated to understand, see, live. And I think that’s where the honesty is.

You don’t want fiction to come between you and your paintings?

Well, exactly, there’s no visual fiction, what is there is a pretty accurate representation of an environment. But what I do with that does have fiction. What am I talking about? I just don’t make paintings called “Scene from a Metro Number 3.” I don’t want the everyday anecdote. I want to take the everyday and make it a myth, a legend.

It’s the known process, but backwards.

Well, I think contemporary art feels a lot of guilt and a lot of debt. It’s the guilt of creating, the guilt of making things, the guilt of putting forth from the heart and human spirit.

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You feel guilty? What?

After the chaos that was World War II, art felt like it had to document things and not put forth, because the fantasy could be dangerous. Nazism and Fascism were considered to be the result of hallucinating and dreaming philosophers. Then all of a sudden it was forbidden to hallucinate and dream. Then people started to blame and point fingers at Nietzschean philosophy, which is a lie. What happened was a gross misinterpretation of it.

They beat up on the Übermensch.

In all of Western society, the sensation of guilt arose and you couldn’t give yourself the luxury of creating. You see it with great artists like Gerhard Richter, one of the most prolific German painters, who was never able to create an image from zero because he just couldn’t.

Do you think about all this every time you paint?

When I paint these scenes, I’m liberating myself of the cultural weight of a century. That is why I think people involve themselves in my work. I like to create my scenes from nothing, without any photos, models, nothing… Well, sometimes I use photos, but not to copy them, but to retransform them in my head.

I imagine that’s just how there are people who are grateful for this return to hallucination, there are people who shit all over you every time they can…

You know, not that many. I have various detractors in the art world, people who can’t even see me, like when I won the Tamayo Biennial in 2000. Patricia Martin, curator of the Jumex Museum, said hello to everyone but me.

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Juicy gossip! Have any more?

Eugenio López, founder of the Jumex collection, told me my work would NEVER be in his collection.

Ouch.

For me it’s an honor.

True, better that they talk badly about you than if they don’t talk.

I’m very interested in the arguments used when they talk badly about me. I mean, also when they speak highly of me. I understand that not everyone wants to put one of my paintings in their home. It’s obvious that some people prefer to see my work in a museum or a book.

Something you can hide?

Exactly. There are very brave people who have no shame, but I understand that there are also people who say, “I like the work, but I don’t want to hang this in my house for my grandma to see.”

Does it happen often?

Yes, even admirers or intellectuals have told me that they like my work but they would never hang it on their wall.

That's rude.

It is what it is. It’s very interesting to think about the brain mechanisms of people who write negatively about me in the newspapers and magazines.

Have you been accused of destroying Mexican culture?

Incredibly, there are people who have said that to me. That my work is condescending or that I exploit morbidity.

Maybe it’s because we tend to put it on an untouchable pedestal.

Well, it didn’t use to be like that. You’re young, so it won’t touch you. But when I was young, 20 years ago, being a Mexican was shit. And I think we’ve gained pride, which is sometimes misunderstood, but I’m happy that Mexico has started to see itself in a different way.

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I promised to avoid this question, but, did this anti-Mexican stance influence your work?

I've loved Mexico ever since I was a very young kid. Despite the fact that my father—with whom I had a very close relationship—was a sometimes fervently anti-Mexican. For me it was very strange.

I think that explains that your studio is here in the historical center of Mexico City.

Practical reasons or not, the historical center is the belly button of the world. I’m not just babbling--the energy and vitality of this place is incomparable.

Like all good metropoli, it’s always moving. Maybe there’s no direction, but it moves.

The city is one with interior movement. It doesn’t have the commercial history or the war in its veins, like other world capitals. But I think blood, sex, love, and sensations run through here.

…And a lot of blood too.

Well, yeah, but I was referring to the blood of sacrifice, not crimes. The one that’s underneath the ground. I think the work of the artist is to find those cables, and create with them. And in the city of Mexico they’re out in the open. If you’re William Faulkner you’ll have to dig for kilometers, but if you’re Carlos Fuentes (for the sake of mentioning someone Mexican) you have them underneath your feet.

And how come some people never find those cables?

It has to do with the way you look at things. I think as an artist you have to uneducate yourself. And I’m not guaranteeing that it’s a happy, productive, or sane process.

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Don’t tell me that that divine revelation thing all artists have is total bullshit.

No, it’s not. But that revelation can be something terrible and the subsequent feeling of anguish or mortality can fuck you up. And I think that this is why some artists decide not to seek it out too much. It goes very hand in hand with a lot of the art you see today.

Where do you see it?

A lot of formalism, formalism that speaks about design, the appropriation of images from the media, the transformation of art via the computer. Design that is sprinkled with art. Sometimes I think there are writers who write like designers.

What do you mean?

The stylization of things matters. It doesn’t matter what you say anymore, just how you say it. If it doesn’t come from inside, the result is poor, despite it meeting all the parameters. It doesn’t touch the fibers of the spirit.

(Translation by Gabi Sifre)