Feeling relaxed, somewhere in South America

Forgotten histories, Erotic art, and Principle!

Nadie pudo
recordarlas después: el viento
las olvidó, el idioma del agua
fue enterrado, las claves se perdieron
o se inundaron de silencio o sangre.

[No one could
remember them afterward: the wind
forgot them, the language of water
was buried, the keys were lost
or flooded with silence or blood.]

-Pablo Neruda,
Amor America (1400)¹ 
1. Pablo Neruda, Canto General, trans. Jack Schmitt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991)

I had covered nearly 10 kilometres on foot when I happened on a privately-owned museum in the old city centre of Quito, the Casa del Alabado Museum of Pre-Columbian Art. Bear with me. Visiting a museum every so often won’t kill you, and in many cases, actually makes you a lot smarter, and some museums might even make you blush with some of the artifacts they have on display – trust me, the prudery of the 21^st century is hilarious. We all think about sex, and in private we all talk about sex, but when it comes to providing kids with smart education it seems as though sex is considered the work of the devil and not to be talked about – hypocritical I’d say. All this is to say that some museums I have been in have had some rather graphic images and artifacts on display that might quite easily offend some of the more narrow-minded people of today. OK, fine, check out The Larco Museum Erotic Gallery in Lima, Peru. Check out the special exhibit at the National Library of Brazil. You get the idea. Anyway, there is plenty to see and a whole lot to learn in museums, and the Casa del Alabado Museum is no exception. The museum houses more than 5,000 Pre-Columbian artifacts, arranged not in chronological order, but rather thematically, so that they will be viewed as works of art instead of mere historic artifacts. The pieces are arranged to portray cultural aspects of ancient Ecuadorian cultures, including their cosmology, their religious ideas and practices, and their relationships with ancestors as well as nature and their environment. I have included some images from the museum here.

Pre-Columbian art – warrior

Fertility-related artifact

Pre-columbian artifact

 Paintings and Passion

After the Casa del Alabado, I continued my walk through the old city, and after visiting several more churches and libraries, I looked at one final place that I wanted to visit that day. I started out by foot, but then recalculated the distance I would have to cover, and realized that by walking, I would never reach the artist’s home before dark or closing time. I hailed a taxi, and I must admit, the comfort of the seat was a blessing. Indicating I wanted to visit the Museo de Guayasamín and the Capilla del Hombre or The Chapel of Man, the driver struck up a mostly one-sided conversation, with me able to grunt a few replies every few minutes as my brain processed the language. The painter Oswaldo Guayasamín is to many Ecuadorians their greatest artist and considered a national treasure. His images “capture the political oppression, racism, poverty, Latin America lifestyle, and class division found in much of South America”². Much of this work can be found in the ‘Chapel’ specially designed by the artist himself, and located in the north-eastern section of Quito just below his home. We slowly made our way up the slopes of the mountain and reached the gated entrance. The artist’s house is well positioned and affords a wonderful view of the city further below. The interior of the house has been preserved much as it was when Guayasamin lived there, and many of the pre-Columbian pieces collected by Guayasamin are on display in the house. The ceramic, bone and metal artifacts are arranged thematically: fertility figurines, masks, etc.

Guayasamin’s studio

Unfortunately photographs of the interior were not allowed, but then again, that was a good thing, as I would have spent the next 6 hours walking around and photographing everything. Guayasamin was also an avid collector of religious artifacts, mainly crucifixes, and his collection includes some amazing works from highly skilled indigenous artists. From the house I ventured down to the ‘Chapel’ and wandered around for nearly an hour, taking in all the wonderful works on display. Trust me, they are not easy works, and much of Guayasamin’s work revolves around humanity’s suffering caused by war, poverty and discrimination, but there is also hope and the potential for greatness. Guayasamin’s “characters pulsate with emotion and his rich evocative pigments bring to life a vehement, passionate consciousness…As contemporary Chilean poet and Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda instructs, “think before approaching [Guayasamín’s] painting, because it will not be easy to withdraw.”³

Drenched, 30 bucks, and PRINCIPLE!

It was nearly dark when I left the museum, but it had been a day well-spent. I hailed a taxi, and made my way back to the home of my host. Exhausted as I was from the day’s walking, I sat down for a wonderful meal with my host, and we had a long evening discussing many different topics, including our shared passion for travelling. It was already late before I crawled into bed, and the following morning, as far as I was concerned, came around much too early. There was nothing on my schedule for the day, other than to go to the offices of an airline to sort out my ticket in Peru – I had ordered the ticket online, and I had paid for it, (or so my credit card company told me), but I had not received confirmation of this from the airline.

Quito old town

Uncertain, I traveled to the offices, explained the situation, then protested when they insisted that since I was getting the ticket in the office, I should pay the extra 30 dollar fee for doing so – I won the argument, eventually, but at the cost of having my credit card blocked for 48 hours after one of the employees overcharged my credit card, then decided to reverse the charges, and then tried to charge me the right amount. Somehow, three similar transactions was more than the card system would allow, and I was forced to pay in cash, the airfare fee that had originally been charged to my card but had been reversed and then overcharged and reversed and ………. whatever. Then I had to try to contact my bank in Thailand to sort out the lock-out (it might have been wiser just to pay the extra 30 dollars, but you see, it’s the PRINCIPLE of the thing). Finished in the airline office, I headed out the door, needing some fresh air. I had noticed a huge park nearby the mall, and it was my intention walk home through the park, but as I crossed the street, the first fierce drops of what appeared to be a tropical monsoon slammed into the pavement around me. I made a mad dash for the nearest shelter, a small Tourism Ecuador kiosk, and for the next hour stood precariously on a slight curb, trying to keep my feet dry while engaging the attendant in conversation about all the wonders that Ecuador has to offer. Finally, the rain let up, and I could resume my stroll, but by now my shoes were soaked, as were my socks, and I was starting to feel the cold. I managed to hail another cab, and made my way home, looking, for all intents and purposes, much like a drowned cat.

2. I quote from a research paper that is linked to in the wikipedia article about Guayasamin – the research paper appears to be archived at the University of Miami’s Scholar Library. Unfortunately, the paper carries no author name.

3. Oswaldo Guayasamín and Pablo Neruda, “America: My Brother, My Blood” (New York: Ocean Press, 2006), 2.