El legado transcultural
The Transcultural Legacy
Intervention in a regular Lucha Libre (Wrestling) programme in Mexiko
Installation: mask, text, comic, poster, theme song: SUPERDEVOLUCIÓN
COPILLI QUETZALLI LUCHA, LUCHA / SUPERRESTITUTION COPILLI QUETZALLI (nahuatl
for Penacho de Moctezuma) fight, fight (5:22), Video: PENACHO VS PENACHO (16:58)
2011
In the last few decades many countries have demanded the restitution of important cultural pieces to their countries of origin. A large number of art and cultural artifacts, among them the Penacho de Moctezuma, have had a long and troubled history. As most of these objects have now come under close analysis by postcolonial consciousness, that their location in places outside their countries of origin are inherently problematic, the Penacho de Moctezuma, too, has faced several readings, discussions and calls for restitution.
The “right” of ownership and claims of restitution are unsettled. Moreover, restitution encompasses not only objects or pieces of land, but the feelings, thoughts and beliefs that are also part of human heritage. The discrepancy in the meaning of these objects between those who currently possess them and their claimants cast an enduring shadow on contemporary (neo)colonial discourse. Hence, the artifact -once displaced- becomes caught in in-between, hybrid places, never fully belonging to the country, that hosts it nor to the place it originated.
The intervention “PENACHO VS PENACHO” between SUPERDEVOLUCIÓN COPILLI QUETZALLI, whose role I created, and CRAZY BOY, who in his role has wrestled for mexican power since years, attempts to to question and set into motion, or better, into wrestling, the Penacho de Moctezuma and the complex, differentiated, changing relations of power
that go along with it.
COMICFOTO- TEXTWORK (in Spanish) in Tierra Adentro , October-November 2011, Number 172
De Penachos y Lucha Libre (in Spanish) by Mariana Botey
Installation view at Kunstpavillon Innsbruck (A)
Concept, idea, edit, design (maske, outfit), comic: Nina Höchtl
Luchadores: Crazy Boy, Superdevolución Copilli Quetzalli
Cameras: Elena Pardo, Carla Pataky, Cristina Velasco
Theme song: music: Haydeé Jimenez, Collage of statements about the Penacho de Moctezuma compiled by Nina HöchtlThe intervention „PENACHO VS PENACHO“ took place on March 19 2011 at the Arena López Mateos, Tlalnepantla in Mexiko. The installation was part of the exhibition „a work, that can’t shake off what it reflects“ at the Kunstpavillon Innsbruck and at the Kunstraum Exnergasse, Vienna (2011).
