NEW LANGTON ARTS
tomorrow is for those who can hear it coming
Julio Cesar Morales
September 24-October 25, 2008
Eighteen forty-six, the Bear Flag Revolt takes place. A militia of exhausted, dirty, rag-wearing men pound at the door of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo’s Casa Grande in Sonoma. The militia is there to demand that Vallejo—Mexican Commandant of Alta California’s northern frontier—surrender California, and to take him prisoner. Vallejo graciously receives the men, offers them his wine and aguardiente (a homemade alcohol derived from sugar cane), and orders a steer to be slaughtered and prepared. He decides to handle things at the table. As a result of this encounter, the Treaty of Guadalupe comes into existence, and the territory of Alta California is transferred from Mexico to the United States.
Filmed at Vallejo´s former home Casa Grande in Sonoma, Julio Cesar Morales’ video, Interrupted Passage, is a re-enactment of that December afternoon over 150 years ago. Once again, all the attention is centered at the table—the food served, the gazes of astonishment, the hunger and the greed.
“I thought about the project as a look into the past through the future,” said Morales, “in essence not simply looking back, but rather as a way of exploring issues of dystopia, alienation, and immigration by utilizing food, reenactment, and music.” Morales was conscious of how easily projects that revisit history run the risk of being trapped by nostalgia. He decided to approach the project through multiple readings of this historical event as a way of steering clear of the pitfall. Highlighting both official history and peripheral narratives became the navigation tool for the project. Mexican and American perspectives were taken into consideration; Vallejo’s autobiography was at the core of Morales’ research; and the artist and his collaborator, chef Max La Riviere-Hedrick, conducted an extensive exploration of the gastronomic history of the region. After speaking to a food anthropologist to identify what produce was available in the region over 150 years ago, they imagined a series of tasting menus, which were served in different settings as the project was taking shape. Cooking, bringing back possibly-existing flavors of the time, and gathering people at the table to share a meal: all were ways of re-thinking that specific moment in time. Morales’ team of collaborators also included Mexican stylist Norma Listman, and Bay Area cinematographer Daniel Gorrell.
A conversation between Julio César Morales and María del Carmen Carrión, Associate Curator, New Langton Arts, took place in August 2008 in the artist’s studio, San Francisco.
María del Carmen Carrión: There is a constant and reoccurring desire in your practice to go back to specific moments in history, a certain way of mining the past. We can see this happening in earlier projects where you retraced aspects of your family history, such as in the Cesar Salad project or in the Informal Economy series, or by retracing the steps of a semi-obscure musical persona, as in the Perez Prado series. Your new video, Interrupted Passage, extends this theme of going back to history, and it is probably the clearest articulation of it. Where do you think this impulse is coming from? What do you think you are looking for when you pay attention to specific moments from the past?
Julio César Morales: I am looking to the future. For example, Perez Prado really invented electronic music, creating the blueprint for it in 1949. He was essentially a visionary. I was very interested in his compositions, and I created a project called, Dilo! for which I collaborated with Los Angles-based artist Eamon Ore-Giron on re-sampling, re-constructing, and making new versions of mambo, such as miami bass and speed metal versions of mambo, based on his historic recordings. This project began in 2002, and debuted at Peres Projects in Los Angeles in 2003, and this past summer it was finalized during my residency in Tokyo where I found Perez Prado’s last recording that he made in Tokyo in 1987. I had been searching for this last album for ten years and found it at a used record shop the second day I was in Tokyo. I ended up remixing the earlier videos and creating new videos for a project entitled Hecho en Japon that subsequently became a limited edition DVD and CD available only in Japan. Both the Perez Prado project, and the project I did about the informal economy street vendors and their innovative ways of creating an economy for themselves, were looking to the future. Based on these two projects—Perez Prado and Informal Economy Vendors—I wanted, in a way, to go to the future by going back to the past. In Interrupted Passage I wanted to focus on the beginning moment when the two cultures—American and Mexican—started to collide.
MdCC: Can we talk about Interrupted Passage, the video that premieres in this exhibition?
JCM: The video is a reenactment shot without dialogue. It is just moving image and music, and was shot in one of Vallejo’s houses in Sonoma. I found actors—actually they are all artists—and they each played specific roles from that period of time to create my vision. It is not an accurate vision, it is not a reenactment in that sense; it is something that I envisioned related to my reading of Vallejo’s autobiography—what he was thinking, how he was feeling, and what those last eight hours could have looked like. I really wanted to convey the feeling through music and through a moving image, as opposed to a straight-up reenactment. In the video there is no dialogue: there are gestures, there is performance, and, most importantly, there is the food. I was trying to portray the emotions that I thought Vallejo would have felt, during those eight hours before he was arrested.
MdCC: The title of your exhibition exemplifies a double way of looking at time, and also acts as an exploration against the grain of a more conventional linear perspective on history. tomorrow is for those who can hear it coming has a certain messianic or visionary implication. Where did that phrase come from, and what is the connection you see with the history of Vallejo?
JCM: Well, it is an odd connection. With Vallejo we are talking about the mid-1800s. Tomorrow is for those who can hear it coming is a reference to a 1977 advertisement for David Bowie’s album Heroes. RCA (his record label) didn’t know how to market the new sound that Bowie was creating, which anticipated the future of rock. Heroes was a collaboration between David Bowie and Brian Eno. They recorded three albums in Berlin, which had a lot of electronic influences, but RCA didn’t know how best to market it; they were trying to market it as: ‘this is the future, this is new, this is what’s happening.’
I was looking through a rock poster book and when I saw the advertisement for Heroes, I immediately made the connection with Vallejo because he first saw the future of California. He had a vision of what California should be. Part of the reason why it was so easy for the Bear Flag revolters to take over California without firing a single bullet, was because Vallejo saw the future and Mexico was not interested in his vision, so Vallejo went along with the Bear Flag revolters. With the title of the show, I wanted to point out how forward-thinking Vallejo was. He had an open immigration policy from all countries, not just the United States. It sounds incredibly weird in 2008 to say that, but he had—as opposed to others who were governing other territories of Mexico like Texas and New Mexico—an open policy to immigrants, and he wanted people to come to Alta California. We forget that 150 years ago, there were only 5,000 people in the Bay Area. I thought that it was an interesting connection to make in our current political climate when, as we speak, the wall between Mexico and the United States is being built.
MdCC: I think that what this project does is to think about the future by looking at the past, more than the other way around. It proposes history as cyclical, and that by understanding history and by understanding the past, you understand the present differently. There seems to be a possible pitfall for projects that deal with historical moments, and this pitfall relates to nostalgia taking over, and leaving no space for criticality.
JCM: I wanted to show multiple perspectives on the transfer of Alta California from Mexico to the United States because I think that one way to avoid nostalgia is by not focusing on any one narrative, but by presenting multiple narratives. It is more of a journalistic approach. I really wanted to avoid the idea that I am just dreaming or being nostalgic for that moment in history, or saying that California really was Mexico. One of the ways I attempted to not fall into that trap was to study multiple perspectives; you have the State Park’s perspective on Vallejo and Alta California; you have the Mexican perspective; you have the official narrative of American History; and you have Vallejo’s perspective. I remember when I first went with Sandra Percival (Langton’s Director) to the State Park’s Petaluma Adobe (Vallejo’s former ranchero) to ask them if we could stage our project there, filming and so on, the first thing they told me was: “Where did you find your information, because it’s wrong.” And I said, this is from Vallejo’s autobiography, and the Park Ranger in charge of interpretation for the State Park said, “Well, I never liked that autobiography.”
MdCC: Can we talk about the font that you are using for the neon and the billboards?
JCM: It is an Old English font. I am interested in the history of this font, which is a gothic font, and which is very accessible in Latin America, utilized in street culture and in street signage. For me, just seeing this font wherever I am in the world, has a resonance: it implies that there is an unnamed tradition attached to it. That this font is around and has been used over time means that its use could refer to something that happened last year, but also implies historical connotations. For me, using this font works as a way of co-opting history when you take it and use it in a way that it is not meant to be used. That is really interesting to me.
MdCC: Your artistic practice is intertwined with music. Music plays a central role in your projects, both artistic and curatorial, plus you are a musician and a DJ. It feels like beats, sounds, and rock music are always present in your work.
JCM: Before I ventured into visual art I played music, which was always an influence on what I did. I think unconsciously a very big influence has to do with how musicians in Mexico approach and improvise with their music. The clearest examples are in a form of hybridity and intervention that Mexican musicians have constantly used. For example, they play Spanish classical guitars with a pick. I remember I got kicked out of a guitar store once because I tried to play a classical guitar with a pick. They yelled at me because basically the picks destroy the strings that are made of nylon. These Mexican bands—Mariachis and Trios Guitarreros—altered their instruments from their origins to create a new sound. Because when you use a pick on a classical guitar it sounds completely different than using your fingernails and your hand. This obscure reference is a form of intervention that has always been influential in what I do.
MdCC: So from your interest in music you pulled out this element of intervention that then infiltrated your artistic practice.
JCM: Exactly, that idea of altering is always present even when you go back to informal economy vendors who alter discarded materials to create their bricolage carts to sell their goods. It’s sort of tied into that.
MdCC: How do the Sonideros fit into the project?
JCM: I was really interested in the Sonideros as a cultural phenomenon that started out in Mexico City. Sonideros means, quite literally, ‘soundmen’ or ‘soundman’. They are traveling block parties, and they play Cumbias with effects—electronic Cumbias—which are just consumer electronic effects mixed in with Cumbia music. The Sonidero is a DJ that also acts as the MC. They shout over the music, and they shift their voice so that all of a sudden their voices sound like they are three or four octaves lower or higher. What started happening a couple of years ago, was that the Sonideros began to visit agricultural workers, the laborers in California. They would follow the migratory path of these agricultural workers to various states, like Oregon and California, and the Sonideros would go with the seasons, playing for the workers. When playing for these audiences, what happened was that three-quarters of their set consisted of shout-outs. So if the Sonideros are in Sonoma for the harvest of the grapes, the DJ will pull out a folder or a box of shout-outs from Tijuana, dedicated to Sonoma and vice-versa. They will also collect messages from Sonoma so that the next time they are in Tijuana, they read them there. They carry this archive of shout-outs that are personal or for a family member—a wife, a cousin— and they dedicate songs to them. Also there are live shout-outs that happen. So really, the DJ hardly ever stops doing the shout-outs. They are international messengers. To me this way of communication through music is really interesting.
MdCC: There is this resonance between the way you conceived the show and the strategies of the Sonideros, in the sense of traveling and going back and forth from place to place. In your case, you are doing the same thing, but with time. This going back and forth, and the hybridization that is happening with the Sonideros, between the Cumbia and their voices and the shout outs, is also what you are doing with the history of Vallejo and the northern California region.
JCM: It is like a blueprint.
MdCC: Or a feedback loop. Could you talk about the soundtrack of Interrupted Passage?
JCM: The music is by Fernando Corona who was one of the founders of the group Nortec. See this all makes sense. Nortec started in Tijuana and it is a mix between traditional Norteño—music that is very popular in the north of Mexico and almost a version of mariachi, but with tubas, guitars, and trumpets. Fernando got together with a couple of people. They were playing German electronic music and trying to distinguish themselves from everything that was happening in house music. If you go to Revolución Street in Tijuana, the street where all the tourist bars are, it looks like a very typical border town; if you walk half a block down, you see the actual neighborhood bars, and those bars are playing Norteño music. So literally, if you stand in the right place at the right time, you hear the contemporary electronic music pumping out of the bars for tourists; but at the same time, your left ear can pick up the traditional Norteño sounds. Nortec were at a birthday party, and a mariachi band, a Norteño band, was playing. One of their common instruments is a snare drum. So it is just a snare drum at the party, someone just playing one drum. There is no drum set. So Pepe Muc, another musician, made a joke and said, “look, that’s drum and bass music!” And then from that experience, they started to experiment with sampling Norteño music, and replacing bass tracks in electronic music with trumpets and even tubas. They would resample a tuba to sound like a bass, so all their bass tracks were tubas. So Nortec started off as a joke. All of this made sense in Tijuana, this crazy hybrid city, which is where I’m from. So now back to the soundtrack. When I was thinking of music for Interrupted Passage, the only person that came to mind was Fernando. After he left Nortec, he started to create music under the name Murcof. His music is minimal classical music mixed with electronic music, and it is very haunting, very beautiful, and very cinematic: the mood really fits the visuals. It is very traditional and at the same time it is very contemporary.
MdCC: Murcof shares with you this interest in intervention and hybridity. He is taking the same approach toward music that you are taking conceptually and visually in relation to history.
JCM: Yeah, because Fernando was trained as a classical musician. But he wasn’t really interested in the classical until he experimented with electronic music, and with Norteño music. All of a sudden his individual style of music came together, fusing all these things.
MdCC: Let’s talk about the role food has played in the project. You worked with the chef Max La Riviere-Hedrick, with whom you collaborated in developing a series of tasting events and dinners, and who also prepared the food that appears in Interrupted Passage.
MdCC: Max and I did a lot of research, and we also talked to a food anthropologist in California to learn more about what kind of food was available at the time. What we show in the video and cooked in the tasting… it is really not known exactly what Vallejo and the Bear Flag militia ate. During our research we found hints. We played off these hints of what was available 150 years ago, and what we found from various sources. From there, we created a series of tastings, using our recipes. I think, for us, the food and the cooking was essentially a performance, where certain visual elements are in play. For example in the tasting, Max and I finished cooking all of the food in the middle of the table for everyone. We displayed all the fresh ingredients that we had used on the table. The dishes varied from a cucumber with strawberry salsa as an appetizer, to our version of tortilla Española; Carnitas is always served because it’s one of the things that we know they had, and it’s in the video as well. So we have several menus. Again, for me, this served as a way of intervening in history, but not through showing a verifiable history. In the midst of the current political climate, the idea of negotiating through food just sounds incredibly appealing and intellectual to me.
EXHIBITION CHECKLIST
Julio Cesar Morales, Interrupted Passage, 2008. Double channel color video with sound, dimensions variable.
Julio Cesar Morales, tomorrow is for those who can hear it coming, 2008. Neon sign, 33’ by 11”.
Julio Cesar Morales, Untitled, 2008. Digital print, 27” x 35”. Edition 1/5
Julio Cesar Morales, Untitled, 2008. Digital print, 27” x 35”. Edition 1/5
Julio Cesar Morales, Untitled, 2008. Digital print. 27” x 35”. Edition 1/5
Julio Cesar Morales, Untitled, 2008. Digital print. 27” x 35”. Edition 1/5
Julio Cesar Morales, Untitled, 2008. Digital print. 27” x 35”. Edition 1/5
Julio Cesar Morales, Untitled, 2008. Eight billboards with painted letters, 10’ by 5’ each.
INTERRUPTED PASSAGE CREDITS:
Concept, Julio Cesar Morales
Gastronomy, Max La Riviere-Hedrick
Cinematography and editing, Daniel Gorrell
Costume Designer and Stylist, Norma Listman
Dress Maker, Jamie Louise Moore
Hair, Santa Barrios
Make -up, Kathleen Valenzuela
Interrupted Passage was curated by Sandra Percival, and commissioned and produced by New Langton Arts in association with LA><ART, Los Angeles, and the Orange County Museum, Long Beach.
tomorrow is for those who can hear it coming
Production, installation, and support:
Sandra Percival, Director
María del Carmen Carrión, Associate Curator
Sam Spiewak, Communication and Development
Zoe Taleporos, Gallery Manager and Office Assistant
Claudia Stillwell, Finances
Conrad Myers and Pete Nelson, Preparators
We wish to specially thank artist Julio Cesar Morales, Max La Riviere-Hedrick, Norma Listman, and Daniel Gorrell for their visionary work, Interrupted Passage, a project whose development and realization has been ongoing with Sandra Percival and New Langton Arts since 2004. We also thank him for his exhibition, tomorrow is for those who can hear it coming, the first in Langton’s newly renovated space.
Major support for tomorrow is for those who can hear it coming has been received from Nancy and Tim Howes, and the Adobe Foundation Fund and Silicon Valley Community Foundation; and major support for the production of Interrupted Passage comes from The Fleishhacker Foundation, LA><ART, Nimoy Foundation and Orange County Museum, and The San Francisco Foundation Fund for Artists Matching Commission with donors Nancy and Tim Howes, Laurence Mathews, Ted Ridgway and Ellena Ochoa, Deborah Page Gallery, and Christopher Vroom. Additional production support came from the California Film Commission, and Scott Pace, Quentin Kay, and the California State Parks.
Langton wishes to thank all those who participated in, or supported Morales’ project, including Paul Allen, Mike Bianco, Mike Lai, Juan Luna-Avin, Facundo Argañaraz, Nicole Crescenzi, Daniel Correll, Brian Storts, and Bradford Toulmin; Julio Duffoo, Gytha Mander, Jennifer McCabe, August Store, and Pimlico Place; and preparators Conrad Myers and Pete Nelson. Langton also wishes to thank Jenée Misraje for her early research for the project, and also La Luz Cultural Center, and Miguel Ruelas, Community Foundation Sonoma County. As always, Langton owes a special thanks to our interns Mai Nguyen, Elizabeth Bidart, Anne Motlow, Emily Carr, Maria Ellena Ortiz, Melissa Martin, Sharron Lerner, Xiaoyu Weng; and to our many volunteers.
Langton receives significant support from Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation. Langton would like to extend a special thanks to our donors and supporters including Jerry and Jane Baldwin, Arthur S. Berliner and Marian Lever, Tecoah and Tom Bruce, Cecily Cameron and Derek Schrier, Timothy Collins and Susan Crossley, Kyu Che and Kumi Akiyoshi, Arianne Dar, Evie and Matt Davis, Christopher and Lara Deam, Christopher and Lisi Dean, Benjamin Dillon, Paul Dresher, Robert and Randi Fisher, Gruber Family Foundation, Cheryl Haines, Catherine and Daniel Homsey, Nancy and Tim Howes, Charles and Naomie Kremer, Laurence Mathews and Brian Saliman, Meridee Moore and Kevin King, Blair Moll, Sandra Percival, Lenore Perieira and Richard Niles, Steve and Nancy Oliver, Ted Ridgway and Ellena Ochoa, Ned and Holly Scheetz, Helen Schwab, Lisette Sell and Greg Lehman, Robert Shimshak and Marion Brenner, Jessica Silverman, The Swig Foundation, Laura Sydell, Susanne Vielmetter, Christopher E. Vroom, Robin Wright and Ian Reeves, Alex and Fiona Zecca; and to our Presenter and ArtNow members, along with all of our individual members, interns and volunteers without whom our artistic program would not be possible.
