CDMX & César Martínez -ex Teresa Arte Actual-: a critical cry of humanity

Mexico City, formerly known as DF, never ends. Thirty million inhabitants, like almost all of Spain, interacting. It is always a pleasure to revisit this city full of energy, creativity, social contrasts and nature - Chapultepec Park, where the city's great museums are concentrated. The first obligatory stop is at the "ex Teresa Arte Actual" art center, right in the middle of the yolk of the egg of the political, social and tourist life of the old case; therefore, it is not surprising that sometimes the issue becomes complicated to reach the site. Perhaps the name of the center is surprising, but it appeals to the history of this former convent converted into a pagan temple of art. Director Valèria Macías recalls the tradition of exhibitions and artistic actions of risk and innovation, while the programming of the space also wants to remember unique artists with extensive careers who deserve to be recognized for their work. And it is here that we must talk about César Martínez, a great creative in addition to being a wonderful person. I met him two years ago thanks to the mediation of the Catalan-Mexican artist Roc Parés. César lived for years in Madrid and connected with such powerful and unique authors as Marcel·lí Antúnez, in addition to having work in collections such as the Sorigué Foundation.

César Martínez durant la residència a Banyoles.

Two years ago I had the privilege of visiting his workshop in Mexico City and the possibility arose of doing a residency in the city of Banyoles with the Lluís Coromina Isern Foundation. The work was to interact with the residents of the Mas Casadevall Foundation, which specializes in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). César took on the challenge without hesitation. The truth is that during the month he was in Banyoles - and that he had to rush to Mexico, in a lightning-fast five-day trip, to collect a prominent award from the Ministry of Culture of the Mexican Government - he did not stop working with a lot of left hand, with infinite patience and with overflowing creativity. The result of this whole process - molds of obvious surrealism that will be recreated with wax, ceramics and paper pulp -, can be seen in the Mexico exhibition in video format; between 2025 and 2026 all the work developed in the capital of Pla de l'Estany and the capital of Catalonia will be visible, in unison, in the exhibition halls of the Coromina Isern Foundation.

La Idea y la Odisea, César Martínez. © Ex Teresa Arte Actual/Javier Jair Cruz Galván

But let's go back to the former Teresa: the proposal invites us to take a retrospective tour of the different stages of the author's experimentation. First, and while we try not to get dizzy due to the slopes of the building's floor, we find the life-size wax sculptures. These, like a group of zombies, stand before us with a lit candle on their heads while symbolizing, among other things, the light of human knowledge. Above them, skeletons row on a journey to the other world. On the sides, the tombstones that play with visual poetry in the purest style of Joan Brossa. And as if it were a Platonic cavern, from darkness to the light of knowledge, we find the author's first inflatable made with dark materials that, when well lit, project mysterious shadows while representing a contemporary descent. Later, we enter the light: a baroque chapel of frescoes and gilding interrelate with sculptures born during the covid era. Soft three-dimensional works that inflate with air and light - and deflate with air and light - in a repetitive manner, as if it were a human heartbeat. Babies, full-length figures of men and women levitating in the sky, faces that confront each other... are some of the human representatives that interact with a citizen committed to feeling and enjoying an exhibition of intellectual corpus and aesthetic tension.

'Cuerpo suspiro (Sucesos escultóricos: esculturas inflables)', César Martínez (2002-2024)

We leave the space of the temple, of the dark and the light, and pass under a giant European flag, with a lot of intrahistory, in which the stars are masks of the revolutionary Comandante Ramona of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. A poignant reflection. Silences and thoughts among the small group that receives this exclusive guided tour. Later, works from the first period made with dynamite that instead of destroying, build. As always, César deconstructing the heteronormative meaning of the everyday. And we arrive at the last room, a hive of meanings and brilliant projects: banknotes that become a denunciation of colonialism; small-format edible figures as if it were a game of chess; Mexican “gondoles” -traineras- of a popular character that travel along all the rivers of the great European capitals or photomontages of Charles V advertising the chocolate that became popular in the Mexican capital and that has the background of the domain of materials as precious as Chocolate, one of the sweet words of Nahuatl origin that are part of our language. In short, a pleasure of retrospection, a pleasure of social commitment and critical vision to make the world a better place. Thanks César.

'La bandera zapArtista', César Martínez (2021)