Earlier this year the visual arts exhibition ‘Owners of the Crossroad, aesthetics of Exú and Pomba Gira in the Rio de la Plata' opened in Montevideo, Uruguay before moving to Buenos Aires and in 2010 to Sao Paolo. It deals with the aesthetics of Exú and Pomba Gira, African cults which arrived to America with the African slaves and gained popularity in Latin-America and showed the response of contemporary artists to these popular cults.

The role images played since the beginning of times is related not only to the concept we use to refer to as art, but also to the ritual, the devotional and the religious. In fact, what we call the contemporary art, also questions the parameters which determine what could or couldn't be included in the category of art. But to question a category, paradigm, concept or validation criteria, first it should be recognized as a cultural structure developed in a certain moment in a certain social group. Of course, usually the criteria and the categories of the dominant groups prevail - not necessarily in a pacific way - over the rest of the sensitive expressions, including the production of images.
The will to express thoughts and feelings is inherent to the essence of men. Images can operate as a wonderful tool to create a solid ideology. In the Middle Ages images were the bible for the illiterate. The educated would take advantage of it to reach the masses and introduce them to the holy church's doctrine. But any ‘artistic' expression which dared to question the fundamentals of the catholic religion would be eclipsed by the power of the church. A church that didn't just concentrate on legitimizing the Christian message but also on silencing, repressing, hiding and disqualifying any alternative to that ‘official' version of reality. Nevertheless, clandestine resistance to subjugation and to the imposition of ways of thinking always existed. But the burden of centuries of discredit and the usage of labels such as dark, evil and sinister (just remember the porticos of the Romanic or Gothic churches where all the ‘good' was at the right of Jesus and the ‘sinister' was at the left), would make the assimilation of those other narratives difficult. It is then necessary to keep an open mind and be prepared to question how our validation criteria where created and by whom. My personal experience with the Exú and Pomba Gira cults is a perfect example of this internal battle.

RITUAL

Last spring the visual arts exhibition ‘Owners of the Crossroad, aesthetics of Exú and Pomba Gira in the Rio de la Plata' ran at the Blanes Museum in Montevideo, Uruguay. It showed the aesthetics of these African cults which arrived to America with the African slaves. Juan Batalla is the promoter of the investigation of this phenomenon. He works in an interdisciplinary way as a perfect combination of anthropological, sociological, religious and artistic studies, among others. He is inspired by the Warburg's Institute method based on the idea of the multidisciplinary as the foundation for the understanding of social groups. In this project we find the interaction of literature - ‘Owners of the Crossroad' was first presented as a book of images and texts by authors from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay representing diverse disciplines. An art exhibition which started in Uruguay, followed by the Rojas Cultural Centre in August in Buenos Aires and finally ending in Sao Paolo, Brazil. The visual arts exhibition is identical to the collection of images showed in the book but with the inclusion of installations and site specific works specially created to be exhibited for the first time.
It isn't easy to approach these kinds of issues. Imagery of these characteristics is systematically related to the ideas of marginality and the occult. At this point, my personal impression reflected an internal fight as I was trying to assimilate and recognize in these works an expressive medium which is aesthetically as valuable and rich as those used by the occidental culture. These are images related to rituals and religion and they assume a pagan perspective. They recover things which monotheist religions condemn like polytheism and paganism. They free the faithful of all fears of living in this world, of becoming the protagonists of their lives. The African cults of Exú and Pomba Gira are liberating cults; nevertheless the followers assume a compromise. They consider each invocation or request to the gods has consequences. The presence of good and evil always manifest themselves in equal proportions.
As already mentioned Exú (male) and Pomba Gira (female) are spiritual entities of African cults. It is curious to find out, that despite all attempts to disqualify and silence them, nothing could stop these cults from getting stronger and growing in the suburbs of the most important cities of Argentina and Uruguay. These are spirits related to irony, sex and transgression. Exú is usually identified and represented with keys, dogs and demons. Pomba Gira relates to beauty, sensuality, perfumes and jewels, among others. Exú's cult arrived to America with the African slaves and was transformed in such a way that it generated a parallel cult: the Kimbanda. And where every other religion - except the Jewish and especially the catholic faith - found an image for each saint and god, by a syncretic phenomenon Exú and Pomba Gira assume the place of the devils. African divinities adopted Christian saints as alter-egos and subverted the relation: the African followers of the Umbanda managed to hide their gods under the appearance of Christian saints, like pre-Columbus civilizations did when they were forced to accept the imposition of imagery brought from Europe to the American continent. Pomba Gira and Exú are irreverent spirits; Pomba Gira is the spirit of a prostitute, a woman who knows the world and the power of the night, capable of seducing and dominating men, interested in lust, money and all kinds of pleasure. Exú is a marginal and bandit spirit that could seem trustable but he's tricky and astute as a fox. But they are far from the satanic demons that we were taught in catholic schools, on the contrary, they seek men's fulfillment here and now, in this life.
The main importance of this exhibition at the Blanes Museum, expressed and represented by Uruguayan and Argentine artists, lies in the role played by Exú: a divinity that highlights the pantheon of African-Latin gods, spreading out his many faces and contradictory personality. Simultaneously he is identified as a spirit and also as ‘orixá' or divinity. The subtle purpose would be to express in a clear and conclusive way, the enormous complexity and richness found in arts that derivate from a contemporary theology which gets stronger and even harder to ignore as we speak.
The cult made a long journey and was nurtured along the way by different cultural influences which, once in Uruguay and Argentina, gained a new meaning: from Africa to Cuba, Haiti, Bahia (Brazil) and from there to the rest of America and all over Brazil; finally from Porto Alegre to Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The 20th century is the context where this fantastic cultural and ideological contamination took place, carrying within the African cults an enormous amount of artistic expressions: the rituals embrace dance, music, exotic foods, performances and theatrical customs. These are popular gods, close to the people and accessible. To study these cults brings us closer to what the big masses think: their ideas, necessities, nostalgia's, sufferings and desires.

ART

Juan Batalla, Argentine, visual artist, co-director of the Arte Brujo Editorial, curator of the exhibition and student of the African cults, is in charge of outlining the perspective of the exhibition. The photographs by the Argentine photographer Guillermo Srodek Hart are the witnesses, a window that allows us to participate in the majestic presence of the Kimbanda altars in Montevideo and Buenos Aires. These aren't 35mm or digital photographs; the idea was to use large format cameras which allow penetrating and capturing, in all its magnitude, the installations built by the cult followers. Presented as diptychs and even triptychs, they reconstruct the space where the altars are placed and at the same time disassociate them from their religious environment while becoming new works of art. Other contemporary artists from Uruguay and Argentina committed to this proposal, each one with their own formal and aesthetic point of view. Some of them related to the ritual and religious side and others lived the experience as a cultural event. The Argentine visual artist Dany Barreto, also co-director of the Arte Brujo Editorial, put together an installation of small flags, recreating an Umbanda temple, and centered the attention to a characteristic symbol representative of Exú: a dog. ‘The Murciélaga' (translation would be ‘The bat' but female) - name of the black dog, loyal companion of the artist and protagonist of many of his works - appears as an Exú in one of the multiple roles of this divinity. The paradigmatic Argentine artist Leon Ferrari, nowadays creating, once more, a big debate around his art works which the MOMA of New York recently acquired, showed a controversial piece where Exú's icons were compared to demons, acting as the counterpart of Christian saints. Guillermo Zabaleta, Uruguayan, performed an installation with flags burnt with powder, creating ritual signs all over the room; a video completed his work. Melina Scumburdis, also from Argentina, made also an installation using another symbolic element which represents Exú: keys.
Diverse contemporary artistic visions came together in discovering and showing the richness and beauty of this culture, a beauty - literally - hiding from the public eye. We can no longer ignore the presence of a culture whose kingdom is in the peripheries. As curator Batalla said, "the penetration of the African cults is part of a collective construction; there's no Pope, no authority who determines where things should lead to. Religion fluctuates, moves and recreates permanently through a very rich mythology, mostly unexplored".

I would like to finish my text quoting Pai Milton Acosta - an important priest of the Umbanda cult in the region of the Rio de la Plata - when he had to talk about ‘Owners of the Crossroad'. It's a description I find similar to the assimilation process I had to go through while approaching these themes. After an initial rejection caused by the unknown, I'm glad to discover a strong feeling of desire for knowledge, understanding and assuming ‘the other' and its thoughts as another perspective as valid as any other, has prevailed in me. This means recognizing the diversity and empowering it with the entity it deserves, not only in the field of rituals but also where those expressions combine with art and religion. So, quoting Milton Acosta, "... Exú and Pombo Gira were shown at the Blanes Museum in such a way that suggests that the artists were gifted with a non prejudiced point of view. It resulted in an outrageous work of art, rich and subversive. Perhaps an open bridge for a society that is full of fears when it comes to face the unknown, and doesn't dare to make choices".

Maria Carolina BAULO
is an Argentine art writer and worked as art critic on the exhibition. She has a Master's Degree in History of Art, with studies in Cinematography, Photography and Theatre.

‘Owners of the Crossroad' was shown in the Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes Juan Manuel Blanes - Montevideo - Uruguay, April 28th - June 5th 2009, www.montevideo.gub.uy/museoblanes.
And In the Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas- Buenos Aires - Argentina, August 6th - 30th, www.rojas.uba.ar. It will be shown again in 2010 in Sao Paolo, Brazil.