Tears that make Forever Green
No more tears in paradise, is a presentation that tries to involve an underlying protest, a complaint formalized by the refined intellectuality of a negotiator of ideas, so is the case of Alida Martínez.
Alida in her daily life acts as a multipurpose directional antenna of sensorial experiences which is pronounced today and almost after nine years in the form of an individual exposition. Each art work of this collection is a tear, a mirror as a frame around a window that invites the spectator to assume the position of open your eyes, I want to show you the diversity of charge points of social, human, political, religious interests and rituals, each one without establishing hierarchies in the creative imaginary of the artist.
The diversity of her presentation is like the environment that influences it, Aruba.... it is a connection, a maze of lines and the inheritances originating from different ancestral destinies, the veins of the artist come together integrating as a map of rivers trespassing the borders, I feel from there her interest for the total and global.
The accumulation of rubbish pent-up in her being is recycled through the memory if in a game, building an infinite piece of Lego, the appropriation of elements that life gives to her as a gift are the seven blessings, almost like the harvest of a sowing that never stopped receiving water nor stopped being exposed to the sun.
Nelson Gonzalez, Aruba 2007
A woman, an island, a history. All histories?
When a spectator stops in front of an art work many things can happen, but the possibilities generally vary between the contemplation and the question. We want to see, to feel, to enjoy, but also to connect, to understand. To be curator of contemporary art allows in many occasions to be a privileged spectator, who not only can stop opposite to the work but also can observe close by the process of its development, establish conversation with the artist, investigate in the intimate sense of the creation and try to interpret, adding everything observed during this contact with the art piece to the moment of its making.
To stand opposite to the work of Alida Martinez is a complex experience. Her work is full of a strong emotive and existential load before which it is impossible to remain indifferent. The power of the images that she constructs can even remove painful emotions; aim to undress social situations and feminine aspects on which we often avoided to fix our attention to maintain the sensation of living within “normality”. The complexity gets even bigger when in addition to facing us to realities that we wanted to forget she does it from a completely solid conceptual scaffolding and a formal expression that makes use of simple elements, taken from daily objects. The simplicity of the objects is only a way to support a complicated symbolic framework that crosses with a very critical look the experience of being Caribbean. “For sale in Aruba only” is a gathering of memories, thoughts and images. It is a collection of significant experiences and as all collection it receives its senses from the relations between its elements and not only from the observation of an isolated object. If you look at it in parts, the installation displays a set of mattresses to which an equal amount of elements taken from daily life or constructed from collage are associated. The first symbolic element is the same mattress that acts as it has supported and connects with the image of the body as a settlement of the mind and the emotions, but also like a metaphor of individual isolation and insular geography. In front of us an archipelago of mattresses, an archipelago of individuals, an archipelago of memories unfolds. Then every object recovers its own individual sense and is spread again into related senses. By using these daily objects, equipped with particular simbologies, the piece puts in evidence the vital framework.
Headphones allowing the public to hear comments in which the artist freely reflects on the memory as center of the vital experience. A receptacle with serum, called in Papiamento “awa di bida” (life water), can be interpreted as image of the flow of sustenance and communication, it is what is to come, it is a nutrition and healing, it is a symbol of interconnected vessels, of interaction with others.
More ahead the silhouette of stairs, drawn using red beans, referring in a direct way as the advance towards goals, but in addition it uses the seed as a symbol of the generating principle of life and thought. The silhouette of a white head against a black background is an element of protection and repeats the use of textiles and patterns in the work of the artist. A red medicine bottle also filled with red beans carries the label “Fragile”, the cure of the diseases happens through the action to find sustenance. The seeds are food at the same time that they symbolize customs, thoughts and habits of a culture.
The backstitched silhouette of a child’s little dress is the shadow of an existence. A young child that is absent turned into memory, his disappearance does not explain itself, but the image of the dollar on his chest is denunciating that life can be turned into merchandise, in an ex-change object, because in the present system the economic values are put over the human rights. An ignited microphone, placed in front of an empty mattress allows the spectator to act in front of the piece. The possibility of communicating with the symbolic body breaks with the static of the plastic image. When the action “speak in public” is allowed the emptiness can be filled with words; in addition also the intention to put accent on the activity of the massive mass media in the present world is a key factor. The mass media have become entertainment in the political scenes, while art gives the individuals the possibility of opening more direct and more significant spaces of expression.
On another mattress is the image of the brain. Its form reminds us of a labyrinth, but symbolically the artist wants to insist on that the brain is a metaphor of the activities of the human mind, is the organic center where the thoughts, feelings and sensations settle. Also can it be related metaphorically to the womb, both represent spaces that can contain, both are worlds within a world.
A cellular phone, on which its ignited screen the text appears: “P.S: I still remember you ", continue entering into dialogue with the spectator, reinforcing the sensation that the memory is relation, is bond and is communication. The drawing of a network, catching pieces of the labyrinth, superposed to the silhouetted profile of a head represents the action to catch the thoughts, to capture the objects, opens itself to the world to render fruits.
The soaps in their rudimentary packing, marked with the phrase “For sale in Aruba only” insist on the notion of souvenir. Its function has to do with the symbolic action to clean the mind, to be able to travel through the labyrinth with facility, when through cleaning of the memory we can find the key to understand “the nonsystematic” order of the world. Finally, or to begin because the principle and the end meet in this installation, a photo in natural size of Alida’s son aims towards the objects, invites to watch them and reinforce their value. Many phrases arise when the artist speaks of this image, she says: “my son shows my questions and my answers”; “my son is my life and is my memory”. Simply we can understand that remembering is to treasure life, to put it in dimension of value so much if the memories are beautiful, as if they are sad or confused. The daily world is the unavoidable scenario of life. Every day we are wrapped in a network of situations that build up our existence, modeling us to the time that is modeled by effect of our actions. Everything really important happens in the permanent flow of the small events of every day. The body is the tool and the metaphor, the first place of doing and of remembering. Because to live is to unravel sensations that will end up becoming memories and the body is then the temple of the memory, the last shelf to exhibit our most personal souvenirs.
This work is a collection of memoirs which has been linked. In an effort to understand the world “For sale in Aruba only” is presented to us like the map of a personal search that touches, in its definitive privacy, the life of all men. The labyrinth notion works like a generator of images. The brain is a labyrinth, the permanent construction and reconstruction of the memory is another labyrinth, the culture with its infinite conditioning factors can be assumed like a labyrinth. The final intention of this piece is not to exhibit a collection but a world constructed out of relations. The words that are repeated in the whole description are: body, memory, communication, life. Alida Martinez establishes as ordaining element the phrase: “Where does that war begins if it is not in one’s own being, one’s mind, contaminated and without answers to a proposal given to us by life… the existence in its totality, without barriers, but, with one goal: TO ARRIVE… towards where…? If infinity is within our self……” She affirms that this judgment is her own labyrinth. To find the solution is to unravel the memory, to clean up the mind and the spirit, to look for the protection of the transcendental, relating herself to her multiple origins and to reveal the system of infinite relations on which her life is constructed.
When trying to respond this question she approaches the attempt to explain the dynamics of the world starting from the understanding of individual dynamics. Paraphrasing Octavio Paz, the man is not in history: it is history. In the same way this work and its creator are not in the Caribbean, they are the Caribbean. Multiple, complex, full of contradictions and superposed situations. Labyrinth, full of labyrinths, Islands, full of Islands.
Susana Quintero, Aruba 2008