Josephine Sacabo: El Mundo Inalcansable de Susana San Juan & Óyeme Con Los Ojos
December 11, 2015 – January 8, 2016
Opening: Friday, Dec 11, 6-8pm
Josephine Sacabo’s solo exhibition at the Consulate of Mexico will show photographs from two series, El Mundo Inalcansable de Susana San Juan & Óyeme Con Los Ojos. Inspired by the words of two of Mexico’s writers, Juan Rulfo and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz respectively, the exhibition is focused on Mexico as the source of most of the Sacabo’s work.
Statements
El Mundo Inalcanzable de Susana San Juan is a series of photographs based on the Mexican novel “Pedro Páramo,“ a tragic myth of Mexico, by Juan Rulfo. The setting is a town in ruins; the characters, souls wandering in it, doing penance, telling their stories.
Among them is Susana San Juan, whose entire discourse is one of memory and delusions, delivered from her tomb. It is the story of a woman forced to take refuge in madness as a means of protecting her inner world from the ravages of the forces around her: a cruel and tyrannical patriarchy, a church that offers no redemption, the senseless violence of revolution, death itself.
These photographs are my attempt to depict this world as seen through the eyes of its tragic heroine. It is my homage in images to Mexico, to Juan Rulfo and to Susana San Juans everywhere who will not be possessed.
Óyeme Con Los Ojos (“Hear Me With Your Eyes”)
For Sor Juana
This series was inspired by the life and work of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the 17th century Mexican nun who was one of the greatest poets and intellectuals of the American continent. She created the most renowned salon of her time from behind the bars of her cloistered cell.
And in that cell she studied science and philosophy,wrote poems, plays, and music, and championed women’s right to intellectual and spiritual freedom.
In the end, after resisting valiantly for over 20 years, she was silenced by the Inquisition.
It is my hope that these images will break that silence and we will once again “hear her with our eyes”.
Bio
Josephine Sacabo is an internationally renowned artist, who divides her time between New Orleans and Mexico. Both places inform her work, resulting in imagery that is as dreamlike, surreal, and romantic as the places that she calls home.
Born in Laredo, Texas, in 1944, Sacabo was educated at Bard College in New York. Prior to coming to New Orleans, she lived and worked extensively in France and England. Her earlier work was in the photo-journalistic tradition and influenced by Robert Frank, Josef Koudelka, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. She now works in a very subjective, introspective style, using poetry as the genesis for her work. Her many portfolios are visual manifestations of the written word, and she lists poets as her most important influences, including Rilke, Baudelaire and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. Her images transfer the viewer into a world of constructed beauty.
During her 36-year career her work has been featured in over 40 gallery and museum exhibitions in the U.S., Europe and Mexico. She has been the recipient of multiple awards and is included in the permanent collections of the George Eastman House, the International Center of Photography, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and la Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, France. She is represented by: A Gallery for Fine Photography, Catherine Edelman Gallery, Stephen Clark Gallery and Verve Gallery of Photography.
