Part of the mandala series, ¿Qué me ves? uses the emblem of the Aztec Calendar Stone, or the Stone of the Sun, to ask the ambiguous question What Are You Looking At?
Though the Stone of the Sun includes the names of the days and the cosmogonic suns, it is not a calendar, but a sacrificial altar. The stone tells of the creation and destruction of the Aztec eras, or suns, with the face of the sun god, Tonatiuh, at its center.
Used in currency, stamps, murals and even football kits, the stone has become the primary symbol of Mexican identity and culture.
Along with the Virgin of Guadalupe, skeletons that reference el Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, as well as Lucha libre. wrestlers, bean pots, and tequila bottles, the Stone of the Sun is a reoccurring motif in the collaborative work of brothers, Einar and Jamex De La Torre.
Their playful mixed-media sculptures blend glass blowing, cast resin, and found objects like fake money, plastic toys, junk food wrappers, old tires, barbeque grills, leather, and small items collected from dollar stores during their travels.
“The brothers intentionally disregard conventional borders between […] high and low art and sacred and profane, and between deluxe objects and the detritus of everyday life,” notes writer Gussie Fauntleroy.
Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, but raised in a small California beach town, the brothers grew up in a household that valued craft and folk art. Above their living room couch hung a reproduction of a late nineteenth century painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe, while a casting of the Stone of the Sun served as the coffee table.
"We had these two ubiquitous symbols of Mexicanity […] that are the biggest clichés,” the brothers confess, “and we grew up with them.”
Using these cultural symbols with “a certain irreverence,” Einar and Jamex admit, does not come without criticism. Yet, the brothers see their work as a tool to challenge identity, religion, consumerism, authenticity, and even art.
“Art is elitist almost by nature. We have a real issue with taste. It’s a filter that’s more about class than anything else,” Einar believes, adding, “Beauty goes so far it becomes ugly.”
¿Qué me ves? demonstrates the complexity of their work, fusing elements and ideas to create a maximalist, but humorous, aesthetic they call, “Ultra-Baroque.”
“As Mexican-American bicultural artists,” Einar and Jamex write, “We are on the one hand influenced by the morbid humor of Mexican folk art, the absurd pageantry of Catholicism, and machismo; and on the other hand, we are equally fascinated by the American culture of excess: its pornographic materialism, its blow-up doll aesthetic, and most of all, its lingering Puritanism.”
