GALERIA 409'S CLARK MAKES HIS MARK IN CORPUS CHRISTI

By Juan Montoya

Remember Mark Clark, the artist and owner of the Galeria 409?

Last February, after more than a decade of supporting local art and providing space for local artists to exhibit their work, he up and left for Corpus Christi. He is now the owner of the MiVidaLoca Gallery in his new hometown.

Just last week, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times dedicated a front-page story to his new gallery there.

Clark was in Brownsville in October to participate in the first annual Ancient Mexican Cultures celebration. During the celebration, he exhibited some of his pieces and told of his appreciation of pre-Hispanic, Mayan, Aztec and diablitos and calaveras pieces.

Clark moved to Brownsville in May 2005 and purchased the building where he located the 408 Gallery the following July.

“It took about a year to turn it into the ruin that it is today,” he told the Brownsville Herald. in an inteview. “They’d even bricked-up doors and windows, and that had to be undone.”

It became a space not only for art, he said, but for music and political organizing. His efforts preceded the modern push for downtown Brownsville revitalization.

“There was nothing going on downtown except for cantinas, prostitutes and drugs,” Clark said matter-of-factly.

“I really tried to encourage younger people to get in and exhibit their work,” Clark said. “Art is all about the exchange of ideas, and if no one sees it, there’s no exchange.”

In fact, Clark's art based on Mexican motifs and genres attracted the eye of the late George Ramirez, whose Half Moon Saloon became the anchor for the inner city's entertainment district. Ramirez bought Clark's version of Posada's Calavera Zapatista and it is currently hanging over the saloon's antique bar.

Cande Aguilar, whose BarrioPOP exhibit has been shown at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s Rusteburg Art Gallery, said Clark created opportunities for artists who normally would not be able to show their work in galleries.

“We’re definitely going to miss Mark’s presence in town,” Aguilar said, adding that Clark was a fixture at art shows and openings. “The arts in Brownsville is not a big thing, so the little support you get, you really appreciate."

But he was not without his detractors. Two local artists said his depiction of works based on the native motifs and the Mexican artists is not so much appreciation as it is what they called "cultural appropriation" by white artists of native arts.

In a letter submitted to the Brownsville Museum of Fine Arts when the organization hosted an exhibit of Clarks' works, local residents and artists Celeste De Luna and Nansi Guevara chided the board for showing it.

"We value artistic and the freedom of expression, but are not in favor of cultural appropriation," they wrote.

"(For all the folks that are not familiar with the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, it is predominantly made up of Latinx/Mexican immigrants and mixed status families. Mark Clark is a white male artist whose main body of work is composed of colorful reproductions of the Aztec codices.)

They vehemently objected to his painting of a Mexican woman in a bikini on the Rio Grande as Border Patrol agents look on and people from Mexico cross the river into the U.S.

"But Mr. Clark is a tourist in our struggle and in our long attacked art tradition. The imagery that he has chosen to appropriate, is part of a long indigenous tradition, the Aztec codices have a deep and sacred significance to its descendants that no cultural outsider can understand.

"These codices depict Aztec cultural and spiritual life, prophecies and visions, journeys and astrological knowledge. Colonization has kept trying to erase these images and stories for the past 500 years. And, this rich indigenous history is not taught in our local public schools or cultural institutions and is intentionally kept from us," they said.

As our cultural history continues to be ripped out of our curriculums (sic), Clark presenting this artwork as his own sends a dangerous message to our community that this imagery and tradition comes from the dominant culture.

"We live in a racist society and country, where colonizing forces have been historically prized and recognized for ripping and taking ownership of the knowledge and excellence of indigenous and people of color. Indeed, local college art departments discourage students from working in a style that is considered “too cultural.” Centering a white artist appropriating Aztec imagery while discouraging local brown students from using culture as content is surely a symptom of racist systems."

That view is apparently not shared in Mexico City because after Clark began creating paintings that included calaveras, diablos and ridiculing politicians he was invited to exhibit his Aztec and Mixtec styles in a 2015 Mexico City subway show.

“I like that we’re two tectonic plates of culture rubbing together,” he said. “I’m tired of seeing art that could have been made in Berlin or Beijing or Hong Kong. I really enjoy regional Mexican flavors.”

It's a curious way of looking at things. If imitation is the highest form of flattery (and I'm not saying Clark is an imitator), having someone from a different culture enhancing it and adding their own style to it is not necessarily bad, and may even be a source of pride to the native artists.

We are constantly amazed at the rendition of Mexican compositions by people from other parts of the world. Some of them are quite good.

We remember going out to the Narciso Martinez Cultural Center in San Bene where we listened to a Japanese group (Los Gatos Negros?) sing songs written and played by Tony de la Rosa. Although their enunciation was slightly different than the original, it was amazing how close they came to the conjunto sound.

A friend of ours turned us on to singer Viktorija Novosel from Croatia and her rendition of the Mexican classic Paloma Negra, composed by Tomas Mendez during a singing contest. Numerous Mexican and Mexican-American singers have interpreted this song, most notably Lola Beltran. Give it a listen. We think you'll be pleasantly surprised.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtP4EiZq7GA

Shouldn't it make one proud that other cultures embrace our art, our music, and even our language and cuisine? Does this make them "appropriators" of it? We think not.)