Presentation of the exhibition Masks and Sculptures and the book Masks – Sculptures. Poetic Text by Rubén Vela. A cultural event considered by the EMTUR to hold touristic interest, which took place at the Victoria Ocampo Cultural Center

By Bertha Bilbao Ritcher

Through the use of papier mâché, cartapesta, oil, textiles, glass, aluminum, knittings, stuck-on earth, shells, feathers, beads, acrylic, rock crystal, semi-precious stones and iron, Marta Díez Ojeda displays her world of Masks, as photographed by Gustavo Díez Spólita, Agustín Muguerza, José Luis Barros, G. Piñeiro and H. Molina Suárez. It is a luxury edition by Alejandro E. Caride, who also participated in the conversations between the artist and writer Rubén Vela, the latter being the author of the poetic text translated into English by Sara Samet de Gullco. They all contributed in making it a cultural object carefully designed by Marius Riveiro Villar Studio.

Masks viewed as feigned faces to be placed over the real one were created in remote times and places, coincidentally with the evolution of totemism, yet the reasons for their use and functions extended to later times.

The word mask is a derivative of the Latin mascus, plural masca, meaning ghost, and from the Greek prosopon, meaning” before the face”. It was worn so as to impersonate a character whose voice had to be loud enough for the spectators. As recorded in the history of ancient Greece, it enabled the bearer to take on the qualities of the character enacted.

Later anthropological studies inform that masks, at various times and in different cultures, were surrounded by an aura of mystery, whatever their ritual or religious function of a ceremonial order, or social purpose - whether to avoid being recognized, or as a protection during fights or tournaments - but they were also a punishment (sometimes a shameful one for those wearing them), or frightening, in order to ensure domination or control.

During Carnival, from the Middle Ages up to the present, they have been used to subvert social order or break down hyerarchies. Furthermore, there is a lengthy tradition recording the existence of death masks , as well as those that were just decorative.

In modern times they were worn by members of secret societies at orgies, as shown in Stanley Kubrick´s film Eyes Wide Shut. Post-modernism records masking for esthetic purposes, and also for criminal purposes. In each case, a mask conceals, covers or reveals.

In the Epilogue, José Emilio Burucúa underlines the various meanings and functions of masks while bringing out a common feature: the desire to be somebody else, which carries with it mutilation or homicide of self. He also finds that such a “chimerical representation of variously shaped beasts” with different parts belonging to different or anthropomorphized animals, stirs a mingling of emotions in the viewer, which explains the opening words of the book, where the artist refers to her being obsessed with masks as much as she is with what they conceal behind them.

Marta Díez´s book also shows her capacity for taking in different cultures, as well as her efforts as a researcher and the extent to which her art has grasped that which is numinous.

It furthermore shows that technology has not overcome the sensitivity flowing in her alert gaze while searching for originality and innovation, as suits vanguard artists who acknowledge that what was done before may yet return, since no trends have ever been swallowed up by other trends. Among the succession of schools or trends, only freedom is valid, since the idea of a paradigm has been dismissed and we have become perceptive as to differences.

Working with other-ness and holding interchange with other cultures through art makes us less self-conscious, more open-minded towards the world. This, I believe, must have been one of the purposes the artist had in mind.

Rubén Vela contributes a plus that enriches the volume. His participation heightens the mystery. He seems to have noticed that explaining, commenting on

or analysing, rather than cast light upon Marta Díez’s art production, may affect it, hence his having chosen to offer us poetical writings to convey his emotions. A veritable correspondence between the arts.

There are masks in which their gaze, inhabited by the spirit animating it, is closed to those who might try to make it their own, as in the case of the ones with painted eyes, mentioned by the sculptress as “Los rostros que se alejan” (Faces getting further away), which present traits from various ethnical origins and cultures, while showing the imprint of our own time: “...they crossed infinity so as to reach a different world” writes Vela (8). We also enjoyed ”Máscara del Faraón” (Pharaoh´s Mask), in which the gilding lightens up the lion´s kingly mane. Its eyes diminish our possibility of watching from the viewpoint of the Sun´s envoy – we can only feel that we are being watched by the feline king´s large painted eyes.

We are also being watched by painted eyes in the case of the mask entitled “Recordando Tilcara” (Remembering Tilcara), which Rubén Vela perceives as a display of power by the shaman. (32-33).

Buddha´s thoughtfulness as he watches the wisdom of the world is represented at its best: close-eyed. In much the same way may be viewed “Señor del Maíz” (Lord of Maize), beautifully decorated with wool, textiles, fibers, shells and beads.

Those masks – in fact, sculptures – entitled “Liberada” (Liberated) and “Mujer kayan” (Kayan woman) (40-41) refer to woman´s ornamentation, a requirement in every culture and one which in the case of the East may even entail physical pain to women. Half-closed eyes may be meant to reflect ancestral female submission.

In Rubén Vela´s interpretation, the mask entitled “Mujer” (Woman) (20-21) depicts the goddess of circumcision, the one who causes men to be ritually wounded in their adolescence - her awe-inspiring, half-closed eyes staring at her blood-shedding business.

Even so, among this collection of masks Marta Díez seems to prefer those with empty eyes apparently gazing at a void – or perhaps at “El rostro tangible de Dios” (God´s tangible face) (6). “El sol gira” (The sun turns round) (l2-l3) aims at the desire to look through the eyes in order to feel that we are the life-giving star and the heliocenter leading to the fascinating realm of power. Its different, heterogenous elements refer us to the sunset insofar as it is connected with death. Our psyche will attach a meaning to this mask: even if reminding us of XVIII century Venice, it also has the magnificence of sun monarchies in the history of mankind, and even the foresight of an unlimited power which might bind us in the future. Hence the attraction of beauty, which at times may be paralyzing.

It could safely be interpreted that, in the case of “Alquimia” (Alchemy), Rubén Vela himself named the mask (14-15). The text refers to turning death into life, the myth of one´s eternally returning to life, which was a part of ancient man´s cosmic vision. Lapis lazuli, malachite and jade save the energy of man even through death and until his return.

Vela´s piece entitled “Serpiente Emplumada” (Feathered Snake) connects the sculpture “Diversidad expuesta” (Exposed diversity) (16-17) with Aztec culture and the mythical era when Quetzalcoatl – the god holding unlimited power – “marked the boundaries of the meeting between the sky and the earth”.

Next come masks that hint at Indian looms (18-19); then those remindful of the double-headed Dragon (22-23), as also one concerning a solitary shaman who, in Vela´s writing (24) “plays with the unsuspecting gods and becomes lord of the universe” (24), the frivolous Venetian masks of the 1400´s (29), the protective ones worn by Japanese, African or Viking warriors, and those worn at medieval tournaments (38-39). Through them, the artist is inviting us to pay attention to the echoes of past times, thus perceiving images bursting out in multiple meanings that the viewer may feel as endless while facing the abyss-like darkness of empty sockets and repeating the philosophical question after the being and its manifestation in space-time.

Finally, a special reference to the mask that Marta Díez entitled “Riqueza” (Wealth), interpreted by Rubén Vela in his writing “La que está y no está” (The one who is and is not) (36-37). It is a death mask so richly ornamented that it might have belonged to a queen. Neither her caste nor her origin matter. She is held to represent the exaltation of a female trait – beauty - which death may destroy but art will retrieve for posterity. Yet it is also the soul, the personification of all the female trends in a man´s psyche, and especially man´s connection with the unconscious according to Jung, inasmuch as it becomes the guide and mediator between ego and self in one´s inner world. It may be Beatrice in Dante´s Paradise; goddess Isis, or Madonna Celeste in “Faithful to Love”, or even Mary, the Virgin Mother of Christ.

I would like to quote Marta Díez with regard to masks being “among the earlier representations of man´s religious adventure” (6). In fact, masks´eyes or that abyss buried in anti-matter seem to be watching what is near by, phenomenic reality, the whole of life as a purveyor of pleasure and pain. And, by the same token, transcendent distance, the origin and the end of that which is human, solitude and divine protection. They also show the inward-looking gaze turning inside to achieve self-contemplation as the final process in the search for becoming an individual being, as described by Jung.

Man´s full achievement and the fulfillment of his existence is the beatific vision, the one that causes happiness and is none other than contemplation of the world´s divine foundation. Anaxagoras wondered at the reason for being born. His answer was: “In order to contemplate”. Becoming contemplative means having a wider view that may rid us of the everyday “here and now” and show us the reality of eternity.

Teilhard de Chardin follows the same tradition by stating that evolution of the world depends on achieving ”more perfect eyes”. Such are the eyes getting nearer to those who are able to see and also to watch themselves, those who can always be ready to attest to the existence of God through their own eyes, behind the wounded sockets of some mask. This is what Rubén Vela is pointing out to by writing “Justification”, in Marta Díez´ unparalleled gallery of Masks and Sculptures.

In present-day philosophy, which is phenomenologically-oriented, vision is being newly evaluated as a road toward knowledge. In fact, Husserl´s intuition was expressed as a “viewing” in Merleau-Ponty´s interpretation. Such a viewing does not only belong to the geography of corporeality, but is a dimension of the intellect for metaphysical apprehending as well. That viewing – paradoxically a presence and an absence, sight and blindness - the gaze that Marta Díez depicts in her masks, is the person´s opening to existence and communication with the other one, but it is also the opening of those of us watching our own inner world and the unknown universes.

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Bertha Bilbao Richter. Professor of Literature, a Critic of Art and Literature. Secretary General to the ILCH.