CANALCATORCE — broadcast
20260806 230000 UTC
481 transcript segments
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[00:00:00] the revolutionary armed forces, Álvaro López Miera and the chief of
[00:00:03] general staff Roberto Legarazo
[00:00:06] Tolongo. You are informed, continue to enjoy the
[00:01:03] When Orozco didn't like the development a
[00:01:06] painting was taking, he wanted
[00:01:08] to destroy it.
[00:01:10] In Mexico, to the dismay of fellow artists and officials,
[00:01:14] including José Vasconcelos, he destroyed
[00:01:18] and erased several
[00:01:19] frescoes.
[00:01:23] During the years Orozco remained in New York,
[00:01:26] he occasionally tore up or ripped
[00:01:29] from their stretchers and burned several
[00:01:32] important paintings that had been favorably received by the
[00:01:36] press and the public.
[00:01:39] The reason the artist generally gave for eliminating a painting
[00:01:43] was: it bothers me. If
[00:01:46] one tried to dissuade him from his announced purpose, he defended
[00:01:50] his reasons with even more dramatic language,
[00:01:53] insisting that the painting had become a
[00:01:57] heavy stone around his neck, and that its
[00:02:00] very existence prevented his progress and
[00:02:04] hindered him from taking the next step.
[00:02:47] is very, very important, what
[00:03:10] masses should respect, right, that they were in
[00:03:23] Born in Jalisco, appreciated by the
[00:03:25] people of Guadalajara, Orozco carried out his most extensive mural work in the
[00:03:29] city of Guadalajara.
[00:03:32] At 52 years old, around 1935,
[00:03:36] he began the great task.
[00:03:39] And, without a doubt, the most important work of that era were the
[00:03:43] murals of the Hospicio
[00:03:44] Cabañas.
[00:03:53] That euphoria for painting murals that existed in Mexico City in the 1920s
[00:03:56] seemed to be fading, it was no longer interesting.
[00:04:00] Controversies and fights broke out, because filling
[00:04:03] walls no longer seemed to be in fashion.
[00:04:07] In fact, Orozco had decided to go into exile in the United States to
[00:04:11] be able to continue with his muralist passion, since in
[00:04:13] Mexico commissions had been paralyzed for several
[00:04:17] century. What
[00:04:18] Orozco wants to intervene. What years.
[00:04:22] However, a new political stage began in the country with the
[00:04:25] presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas and especially in Jalisco, with
[00:04:29] governor Everardo Topete. A group of
[00:04:32] enthusiastic Tapatios did not hesitate to offer the walls of the city of
[00:04:35] Guadalajara to the
[00:04:37] redemption, which is what artist.
[00:04:39] is A revaluation of nationalism also an already overcome Cristero
[00:04:42] War. A dispute between religious fanaticism
[00:04:46] and the anti-clerical government.
[00:04:50] They needed a secular affirmation of
[00:04:53] can be seen in the upper part of the spaces. Thus it was decided that the hospice with its
[00:04:56] chapel would be dedicated to civil and
[00:04:59] Mexican themes. and not to
[00:05:01] religious ones.
[00:05:05] Orozco's presence in Guadalajara is due to a series of
[00:05:08] favorable circumstances. The
[00:05:12] fact that he was in a situation of
[00:05:15] certain financial and
[00:05:19] professional difficulties in New York, which became known
[00:05:23] here in Guadalajara through his friends and
[00:05:27] admirers, among the promoters of his arrival in
[00:05:30] Guadalajara were the architect Luis Barragán, who met with
[00:05:34] Orozco in New York, the
[00:05:37] former governor José Guadalupes Uno,
[00:05:40] and these aforementioned people. and other people
[00:05:43] convinced the
[00:05:46] governor of how important it
[00:05:48] would be for that administration and for
[00:05:52] Jalisco to have or count on
[00:05:55] the work of their compatriot, although there
[00:05:59] were also intellectuals who disagreed with that idea of painting
[00:06:03] on walls, like Salvador Novo, who stated, "Painters
[00:06:06] can't see anything without thinking of spoiling
[00:06:10] it, they must have thought it improper,
[00:06:13] indecent, their desire to paint on the walls of
[00:06:17] buildings."
[00:06:21] But Orozco's trajectory was impeccable, moreover,
[00:06:25] he was a native of Jalisco, born
[00:06:28] in 1883 in Zapotlán el Grande,
[00:06:31] and then lived until he was 8 years old in Guadalajara,
[00:06:35] then he moved with his family to Mexico City where he stood out
[00:06:38] first for drawing and caricature
[00:06:41] and then murals of San Ildefonso,
[00:06:45] which at that time was the National
[00:06:48] Preparatory School.
[00:06:51] The commission was from the Secretary of Education José Vasconcelos in
[00:06:54] 1923.
[00:06:56] There he proved his great capacity as a muralist. Guadalajara
[00:07:00] knew of his abilities and they gave him the challenge. He had to
[00:07:04] give his best. The intellectual community was a bit
[00:07:07] divided, whether it was well done, whether it was a good project or not a
[00:07:11] good project. On the part of the government itself, there were those
[00:07:15] who said, among them the treasurer,
[00:07:18] that it was a waste of time to make those doodles, to be
[00:07:22] paying 400 pesos weekly, which at that time was certainly a
[00:07:26] respectable amount, because it wasn't just Orozco, it was his
[00:07:29] assistants, it was the bricklayers who were preparing the
[00:07:33] walls and so on, and it was also a time-consuming
[00:07:35] job. Furthermore, the greatest risk for politicians
[00:07:39] was that he was a terse, difficult man,
[00:07:42] he couldn't be told what to do or suggested
[00:07:46] anything to, he demanded absolute
[00:07:48] freedom.
[00:07:51] Dr. Carrillo Hill, a close friend and collector of his work,
[00:07:55] describes José Clemente Orozco thus:
[00:07:59] When I met Mr. Orozco, he was
[00:08:02] over 50 years old, he was of medium height, very
[00:08:05] thin, slightly stooped,
[00:08:08] dark-skinned, with sparse hair and dressed with great
[00:08:12] modesty. His face revealed his
[00:08:16] shyness and his reclusiveness. And he was
[00:08:19] always stern. He habitually spoke in a low
[00:08:22] voice. He wore thick glasses, as he couldn't see without
[00:08:25] them. And I think he was severely
[00:08:28] nearsighted. In his initial interactions, he seemed
[00:08:32] shy and distrustful, and his responses
[00:08:35] were abrupt, especially with people he didn't
[00:08:38] like. In contrast,
[00:08:41] he enjoyed it when he found
[00:08:44] someone he trusted and could
[00:08:47] expand in conversation.
[00:08:50] This man of select friendships was a tireless
[00:08:53] worker. In a few years in the city of Guadalajara,
[00:08:57] he painted with his only hand—he was
[00:08:59] one-handed—more than 2030 square meters of
[00:09:03] murals. In 1935, he began with the
[00:09:07] murals of the amphitheater of the rectory of the University of
[00:09:10] Guadalajara, then the staircase of the government
[00:09:13] palace, and in 1937
[00:09:16] he undertook the chapel of the ex-Hospicio
[00:09:19] Cabañas, which for many people is his greatest
[00:09:22] work. Justino Fernández
[00:09:25] equates it in importance in this essay, in
[00:09:29] this book where he
[00:09:33] establishes as
[00:09:35] emblematic works of Mexican
[00:09:38] culture, the Coatlicue, the altar of
[00:09:42] the Kings, and in terms of the
[00:09:46] modernity of Mexican
[00:09:48] art, the mural of the Hospicio
[00:09:52] Cabañas. Around 1796, the
[00:09:56] Bishop of Guadalajara, Juan Cruz Ruiz de Cabañas,
[00:09:59] requested permission to build a building to assist the
[00:10:02] homeless. He named it the House of
[00:10:06] Mercy. The building was commissioned to the renowned
[00:10:09] architect Manuel Tolzá. The
[00:10:12] aid house during the War of Independence was taken as a military
[00:10:16] barracks.
[00:10:19] It was not until 1829 that it recovered its original vocation
[00:10:23] and the assistance institution took the name of Hospicio
[00:10:27] Cabañas.
[00:10:29] These photos correspond to the years in which José Clemente Orozco
[00:10:33] began to work on his murals in this precinct. For
[00:10:37] some years it continued to be an aid house. The
[00:10:41] enormous spaces and the architecture of Manuel Tolzá
[00:10:44] seemed to be waiting for a painter to take
[00:10:46] them.
[00:10:51] This photo shows what the blank walls were like.
[00:10:56] Only the pendentives have some religious
[00:10:58] images.
[00:11:01] And so, who better than José Clemente Orozco to take advantage
[00:11:05] of the site?
[00:11:13] Orozco's pictorial project was planned to occupy all the
[00:11:17] spaces of the chapel, even the smallest
[00:11:19] ones. There are about 1200
[00:11:23] square meters of murals.
[00:11:32] Whoever walks through the nave will have the impression of being in a portico
[00:11:35] looking out at the city of Guadalajara, old and
[00:11:38] new.
[00:11:46] There is painted the archiepiscopal seat of Monsignor Cabañas
[00:11:50] or a modern political
[00:11:54] demonstration.
[00:12:00] In the commemorative panel of the murals, there is a cartel that
[00:12:03] mentions Governor Eberardo Topete and the three murals
[00:12:07] he commissioned Orozco to do in public
[00:12:09] spaces.
[00:12:11] The building painted here is emblematic because it was where
[00:12:14] his muralistic odyssey began. It
[00:12:17] is the University of
[00:12:19] Guadalajara.
[00:12:23] In the 1930s, the city was modernizing,
[00:12:26] growing. Currently, some of the buildings from that
[00:12:29] era can still be
[00:12:31] seen.
[00:12:36] At that time, there was an architectural debate that ranged from neo-colonial
[00:12:40] proposals to very modernist ones, such as those proposed by the
[00:12:43] renowned architect, Luis Barragán, who became
[00:12:47] a good friend of Orozco.
[00:12:50] He designed and built this house where he lived for a short
[00:12:53] time.
[00:12:59] José Clemente was passionate about architectural themes.
[00:13:03] Orozco intervened in these discussions about the urban
[00:13:06] image of the Tapatío capital.
[00:13:22] But let's go back to the murals. This panel is called the wheel of
[00:13:26] time, there is a concern to refer to
[00:13:30] technology and power, it is a
[00:13:33] resplendent wheel over several strata of
[00:13:36] vestiges. In these years there was a great
[00:13:40] impulse for roads. The Mexico
[00:13:43] Laredo highway was inaugurated as a great novelty. Public
[00:13:46] works generated a profuse iconography of the
[00:13:49] automobile. This panel alludes to that
[00:13:52] progressive enthusiasm that Orozco
[00:13:55] spoke about. Well, I think it is very clear
[00:13:58] a very intense historical
[00:14:02] reflection and a desire
[00:14:05] to
[00:14:06] intervene
[00:14:10] in the discourse on history.
[00:14:13] Most of the Hospicio Cabañas
[00:14:16] was painted as World War II approached, the Spanish
[00:14:20] Civil War was ending. Public
[00:14:22] opinion, that is, the body of
[00:14:26] journalists, those who write opinions in newspapers, the politicians
[00:14:30] who give speeches, generates the image
[00:14:33] of the great apocalyptic
[00:14:35] conflict.
[00:14:38] It is in this discussion that
[00:14:43] Orozco seeks is to propose a critical
[00:14:46] way of thinking about the past, a notion
[00:14:50] that for him has always, well, two sides.
[00:14:53] That of human sacrifice and the
[00:14:57] authoritarianism of religions and that of hopes for
[00:15:04] in the dome of the
[00:15:06] hospice.
[00:15:14] His interest in history and technology
[00:15:18] the chapel. In the vaults we find how
[00:15:21] he represents together the monsters of nature and
[00:15:25] society, the armors pile
[00:15:28] up, everything is a jumble of
[00:15:31] swords and metallic
[00:15:32] bodies.
[00:15:36] Let's see the combat that takes place on the far left of the
[00:15:39] vault.
[00:15:43] A two-headed horse illustrates the opposing forces that govern
[00:15:46] man. On the far left, the
[00:15:50] struggle between an automaton and an
[00:15:52] indigenous person.
[00:15:56] In other panels, the struggle is less even. The
[00:16:00] steel has done its job and the bodies appear defeated or
[00:16:04] dismembered.
[00:16:08] These are representations of the conquest of
[00:16:10] Mexico.
[00:16:17] Also in the vault of the main nave there are several oppressive
[00:16:21] characters. One panel shows Hernán
[00:16:24] Cortés, the other a
[00:16:28] friar. Both have at their feet the prostrate
[00:16:31] or dismembered figure of
[00:16:34] an Indian. Cortés with his empty
[00:16:37] body, without entrails, is a mechanical
[00:16:40] man, being advised by an
[00:16:44] angel, a female
[00:16:47] automaton.
[00:16:49] In the friar's panel, the angel carries a blood-stained canvas with the
[00:16:53] alphabet.
[00:16:57] Both panels are personifications of
[00:16:59] violence, of how culture and
[00:17:03] technology are imposed.
[00:17:07] panel represents the King of Spain,
[00:17:09] Philip, who is seen embracing a gigantic
[00:17:13] blood-stained cross,
[00:17:16] completing the triad of monumental and oppressive
[00:17:18] figures.
[00:17:21] Here Orozco paints the conquest, but his
[00:17:25] interest and curiosity for the history of Mexico is found in all his
[00:17:28] work.
[00:17:42] the circumstances in which José Clemente Orozco intervened
[00:17:45] in the building that is the University of
[00:17:48] Guadalajara, emerged from
[00:17:52] promotions that were made for Clemente Orozco to be here in
[00:17:55] Jalisco.
[00:18:02] Characters from Guadalajara's own culture such
[00:18:06] as Enrique Díaz de León,
[00:18:10] José Guadalupe Zuno, also
[00:18:13] Dr. Atl in a
[00:18:16] cultural group called "El Centro
[00:18:18] Bohemio".
[00:18:21] What Clemente Orozco does here, which
[00:18:25] Clemente Orozco does,
[00:18:28] expresses on the back
[00:18:30] wall a society that he considered to be
[00:18:34] in decadence.
[00:18:37] Monstrous, that manipulated the
[00:18:40] masses, they said what were
[00:18:44] the laws that the
[00:18:47] humility, but not only in humility, in
[00:18:50] misery, socially exposed, in total
[00:18:54] ignorance, right, so on that wall
[00:18:58] on the end wall is what Clemente
[00:19:01] Orozco does, to point out,
[00:19:05] to indicate the conditions in which the people, the masses,
[00:19:19] lived. But in the dome, as is Clemente
[00:19:23] Orozco's painting, as is the concept, as is what Clemente
[00:19:27] Orozco proposes, there is in a certain way the
[00:19:30] annunciation of how better forms of
[00:19:33] social coexistence, better
[00:19:36] constructions, of a more just, more
[00:19:39] egalitarian society, can be achieved, and that it is
[00:19:42] precisely through two-headed man for the
[00:19:46] two sides where knowledge,
[00:19:48] science and art
[00:19:52] move, where the technical, the
[00:19:55] scientific is, meaning that
[00:19:57] the university provides
[00:20:05] that. He claims
[00:20:08] that it is not possible for a society, a people to exist
[00:20:11] under those conditions, while another part
[00:20:15] has everything in their
[00:20:18] favor, from the laws to economic power.
[00:20:33] A direct negotiation
[00:20:35] with
[00:20:39] a official or something
[00:20:42] in which Orozco as a muralist submitted,
[00:20:46] I don't know about that. For that he had very
[00:20:51] little tolerance. Suddenly he played
[00:20:53] very harsh jokes. I think
[00:20:57] Everardo Topete painted his portrait on one of
[00:21:01] the panels of the Hospicio Cabañas. He had a photo taken and sent it with a
[00:21:04] note that he urgently needed to be paid and Topete understood the
[00:21:08] message. This gentleman's check, right now.
[00:21:12] But there is no
[00:21:15] concession in the discourse, that is, it was just a
[00:21:18] joke, really,
[00:21:22] what there is is a dialogue,
[00:21:25] a certain negotiation
[00:21:28] in the field of
[00:21:30] ethics, and that is what makes Orozco such
[00:21:34] an important artist, from my point of
[00:21:37] view, is that the
[00:21:39] negotiation to enter the public space will be equally
[00:21:43] intense and will be very, very effective almost
[00:21:46] always on his part, on the part of his agents like Alma Reed. The
[00:21:50] discourse will be critical and we will tell them things they won't
[00:21:54] like and you will
[00:21:57] forgive me, but what will be
[00:22:00] put here will be carefully
[00:22:03] chosen to cause you a problem. The point is precisely
[00:22:07] that this hypercritical discourse
[00:22:10] appears on the walls of the government palace,
[00:22:14] because if it appeared in a painting in a private gallery, in a
[00:22:18] magazine, whatever, in the era, they would probably have
[00:22:22] censored it and that would be
[00:22:24] it, no, they would have censored it and three people would have seen it
[00:22:27] and that's it. The point was to put
[00:22:30] that radically critical discourse in a very
[00:22:33] intolerant era for criticism,
[00:22:37] in which the Mexican state was very intolerant
[00:22:41] of direct criticism, that this
[00:22:44] appeared on the walls of a government
[00:22:47] palace, of a public university, or
[00:22:50] other state institutions, not to mention the Supreme Court of
[00:22:54] Justice. The theme of violence and
[00:22:57] authoritarianism is addressed in all the
[00:23:00] murals, but it is in the government palace where
[00:23:04] Orozco became direct,
[00:23:06] ruthless.
[00:23:13] The main invitation to work in the Tapatío capital was to
[00:23:16] intervene in the cube of this staircase.
[00:23:23] Orozco exalted the figure of Hidalgo, the hero who
[00:23:26] initiated the struggle for Mexico's
[00:23:28] independence.
[00:23:32] With force, he contrasted him with all the authoritarian
[00:23:34] figures who proliferated at that
[00:23:37] time. He did not criticize the past, rather
[00:23:40] he was implacable with his
[00:23:42] present.
[00:23:47] Actors like fascism and Stalinism and the
[00:23:50] church were at that moment active and
[00:23:53] threatening.
[00:23:59] If we look at the mural of the government palace, well, there are all
[00:24:03] the leaders of the moment equally,
[00:24:07] I mean, turned into not just laughingstocks
[00:24:11] but the purest expression of scorn,
[00:24:14] no, that is, there is no way out, there is no peace for the
[00:24:18] clean, there is no way out for... He is a skeptic,
[00:24:22] I don't know how much he would have read Nietzsche during his
[00:24:25] youth, but nevertheless one could think that there
[00:24:29] is one of the main sources of nihilism,
[00:24:32] no?
[00:24:37] The role that Hidalgo ends up having is that of leader of a
[00:24:40] popular rebellion, but it is a
[00:24:43] figure with two edges,
[00:24:46] because yes, it is a redemptive figure, very
[00:24:50] strong and everything and they put him in all the textbooks, even
[00:24:54] including the slaughter that is underneath, which has nothing
[00:24:58] positive and is not very flattering, and
[00:25:01] it is a massacre between workers of the 20th
[00:25:07] he seemed to have wanted to
[00:25:11] say is that he is indeed a very strong figure and at the same time very
[00:25:14] dangerous. The relationship between myth and violence
[00:25:18] is quite close.
[00:25:23] The non-religious
[00:25:26] discourses about political legitimacy
[00:25:29] end up
[00:25:31] being as authoritarian as the religious
[00:25:35] discourses that are the object of the opposite wall. He doesn't spare
[00:25:39] them either, not even jokingly.
[00:25:53] We continue.
[00:26:02] it breaks your body,
[00:26:06] it shatters your mind, it alienates you, it shatters your
[00:26:10] family.
[00:26:13] Crystal shatters your
[00:26:15] life.
[00:26:18] Choose to be happy, if you need help call the lifeline
[00:26:22] 800 911
[00:26:24] 2000, government of
[00:26:28] Mexico.
[00:26:33] Fentanyl is a trap that ensnares you at the first
[00:26:35] contact,
[00:26:41] it disconnects your body from your
[00:26:42] mind
[00:26:45] and turns your head into a nightmare.
[00:26:48] Fentanyl kills
[00:26:49] you.
[00:26:54] Choose to live, call the lifeline. 800
[00:26:58] 911, 2000, government of Mexico. They say
[00:27:01] like father, like son, as if the
[00:27:04] family were the origin and destiny.
[00:27:07] It will be everything that fills us with love and we fill with love, perhaps,
[00:27:11] the street becomes the studio and you the
[00:27:14] protagonist, you give everything for them unconditionally, without expecting anything
[00:27:18] in return, like the most beautiful form of love that I
[00:27:21] know, inherited, but also in some cases it can also be
[00:27:25] chosen, here among us Saturday
[00:27:28] 8:30 p.m.
[00:27:32] I believe that laughter is revolutionary, I believe that laughter breaks down the
[00:27:36] walls of power, it takes the
[00:27:40] solemnity away from idiots, it
[00:27:42] horizontalizes us, I don't think there's anything that makes a
[00:27:46] guy like Trump angrier than us laughing at him, he has
[00:27:50] gone after presenters and comedians who
[00:27:53] have laughed at him because they can't stand it, they say, with all the power I
[00:27:56] have, with all the money I have, with how important I am, and
[00:28:00] these slobs laugh at me. Well... Yes, there is no
[00:28:03] greater devaluation for a politician than being ridiculous, right?
[00:28:06] And that's the case of
[00:28:09] Trump.
[00:28:14] We'll be back.
[00:28:28] In the years when Orozco painted these frescoes, the Spanish Civil
[00:28:32] War broke out.
[00:28:34] It is possible to say that it is not only a reference to the conquest, but also to
[00:28:38] fascism. Cinema, newspapers and
[00:28:42] magazines used to publish news of the victims of the
[00:28:45] war. Fascism was a plague that was beginning to
[00:28:49] spread.
[00:28:57] The mechanized figures today look like a pile of
[00:29:00] scrap metal. Now they would be different
[00:29:03] monsters, but in the 1930s, machines, pulleys and
[00:29:07] levers operated by the working class were
[00:29:09] representations of very modern
[00:29:12] technologies.
[00:29:16] The massive bombings over Spain reminded him,
[00:29:19] they were a consequence of the age of
[00:29:22] metallurgy and weapons, symbols of high
[00:29:25] power.
[00:29:29] The dismemberment of enemies was not invented in the 20th
[00:29:32] century. Orozco combined it and placed it in the 16th
[00:29:36] century, with the
[00:29:37] conquest.
[00:29:40] By uniting two eras, he speaks to us of the universality of slaughter.
[00:29:56] Orozco used to write to his wife Margarita, whom he met in
[00:30:00] Veracruz when he was 32 years old, and with whom he had
[00:30:02] three children.
[00:30:05] The correspondence they maintained tells us about their daily life, their
[00:30:09] economic difficulties. He
[00:30:11] moved alone to Guadalajara to work on the murals and stayed in
[00:30:15] some downtown hotels.
[00:30:18] Margarita, everything is going well and I hope to be
[00:30:22] able to start painting next week, let's see
[00:30:26] if next Monday. The guys here are
[00:30:30] helping me well. I'm temporarily
[00:30:32] staying in another hotel near the station called
[00:30:36] Casa Morales, the rooms are as
[00:30:39] good as in the Roma and the food is slightly
[00:30:43] better. This boy, León
[00:30:46] Muñiz, is the one who says he is installing his bathroom in
[00:30:50] his house, and says he wants us to go with him,
[00:30:53] but you know I don't like a lot of people.
[00:30:57] strange and maybe I'll stay.