JIVARO!

Jivaro Family on the Banks of the Alto Maranon, 1901
11 x 14 inches, pencils and spray paint on paper, 2020

I was involved in a discussion on facebook the other day about the separation of an artist's conduct and the work made. How it is now impossible to listen to the music of Michael Jackson or watch a Woody Allen movie no matter how great you thought they were at the time. I contributed to the arguments by stating that I believe today artists are more aware of ethical responsibilities than they were just twenty years ago, that the art world has changed to a culture of accountability. That these days it's harder and less romantic to get away with behaviors that hurt or harm others. Romantic ideas about artists and the creative process are a thing of past and we now come to a consensus that seeking extremes (perhaps required for depth in one's work) and social accountability are not mutually exclusive. Artists that came up as examples in the discussion, beside Woody Alllen and Michael Jackson, included Morrisey, Sinead O'Connor, Lou Reed, and Michelle Shocked. Discussed were the cultural tendencies that would allow and foster predatory behaviors. 

So here I am today painting images of indigenous cultures who may practice female genital mutilation, men who may beat their wives and rape others, trade them like cattle and consider the domestication of girls a task like that of the domestication of wild animals. Cultures who are perpetually at war with one another, who practice infanticide, and, as in the case with the Shuar who I am introducing here, eat human meat. The Shuar (Jivaro) who live in Amazonian Ecuador are perhaps one of worst societies know to men in that respect, whose traditions are so violent and nauseating that one wonders about humanity in general. Yet, the music of the Shuar, through recordings made by field archaeologists, and perhaps because of its outlandish nature, belongs to my most listened to and appreciated music of recent. For all its misogyny and incredible high rate of female suicide the Shuar (unlike the neighboring Yanomamo who are also known for their violent existence) allow for women to become shamans. In a recording made by Isabel Aretz and Felipe Ramon y Rivera from INIDEF of Venezuela one of such shamans is heard. The sounds on the recording, the voice of the woman, are so beautiful, sweet almost, and seem highly sophisticated. Listening to Shuara shamanic cantilation you wouldn't suspect such violent context to such a beautiful song. You would't suspect it either by reading about it. In the notes of the collection La Voz Humana compiled by Carlos Reynoso on which the recording appears, all that is discussed are tonal characteristics and rhythmic patterns. There's no mention that the Shuar beat up their wives.

Ecuador has been faring too well in terms of COVID-19 since I first reported on it a month ago. The numbers have gone up from 3,456 cases and 173 deaths reported on 4/4/20 to 31,881 cases and 1,599 deaths today (5/5/20). Since there are four Shuar recordings in the list I plan on drawing the third one on 6/6 and the fourth on 7/7 and see how the virus develops in Ecuador.