Various artists: Infinitas Gracias - Mexican Miracle Paintings, Wellcome Collection

until 26 Feb 12

Last month, she died. I didn’t know her well, but the pain, stress and sadness of the people that loved her was contagious. I found myself burning incense sticks one after the other as I knew she used to sell them and that seemed appropriate. Unconsciously and irreligiously I started a mantra of my own. I was praying. What a cliché. ‘Stop this! They have suffered enough!’ I would demand from who? Dexter in the popular series prayed to a vending machine.

Then someone spoke of a miracle. A second liver. Ecstasy. Then, she was gone. For one day there was a miracle. But there are no miracles. £100 was stolen from the bereaved while in hospital. Then someone broke into the house to take the rest.

My heart sank with understanding as I went through each and every one of the Mexican Miracle Paintings, in reverence. Little tablets, perfect photographic instances of human pain. Figures disproportionate to the world and life, as we feel when in crisis. The divine is not the conceptual image of a god or saint but is represented as the saint’s tangible embodiment, that is, the statue. Miracle paintings, yet all so earthy. The materials, the images, pagan, human. The division in two areas of image and text reminded me of our hybrid early childhood notebooks. The image is naïve, theatrical, surreal, more beautiful than any contemporary art. Death-disease-illness-accidents-the railway-electricity-modernity-wage slavery-floods. The text descriptive, an account, a contract: date-place-names-event-intervention-resolution-gratitude. The Undersigned. Singing all of human sorrows. We know we are alone. But when that dark day comes, and our heart is ripped out, we’d give anything for that false promise. To become one of these paintings.

But we will not.


more info:

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/infinitas-gracias.aspx
http://artswrap.co.uk/event/reviews-tickets-infinitas-gracias-mexican-miracle-paintings-wellcome-collection-20112012
http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Organ-donation/Pages/Introduction.aspx