Centre de Cultura Contemporánia de Barcelona,
Nov 09, 2010 - Feb 27, 2011
Barcelona, Spain
The Baroque D_Effect
by Joaquín Barriendos
In that sense, the idea of conceiving the defect of the baroque as a monolithic hegemony common to all Hispanics is not just a broadening of the idea of the adamant classicism put forward by Rubert de Ventós, but also seems to take what he calls the American "baroque situation" for granted: "In the Indies we can therefore see the paroxysm of what I have called an American "baroque situation": the need to amalgamate different realities and communicate with unknown audiences. And its brilliant resolution in churches that did not let themselves be impressed by the Indian spirit without impressing and seducing it with the magnificence of its choruses, litany, images and metaphors: all the ingredients that according to the Jesuit Lejune "inspired such a deep admiration in Indians’ minds that they embraced the beliefs of those they admired, without any pressure or constriction" [my italics]. For Rubert de Ventós there is thus nothing Indian, native or transgressive in the Baroque churches of Taxco (Mexico), just the imposition of a deceptive style that was imprinted in the Indian mind (through crossbreeding) while leaving the style and politics of the Spanish baroque intact. The narrative is that of an abrasive colonial baroque style imprinted on an innocent subject wanting to be impressed. For Rubert de Ventós (and apparently to the curators of El D_Efecto Barroco) the "Indiatids" that subvert and supplant the "Caryatids" on the façade of San Lorenzo (Potosí) are nothing more than juggling with form; mere decorations of the signifier that confirm the acceptance of the baroque as an ecumenical language. They are merely a way of devoting oneself to the spectacle of the diversity of form. In other words, both the notion of the American "baroque situation" and the notion behind El D_Efecto Barroco run contrary to the idea of the Indian baroque as an exercise in liberation and counter conquest. As mentioned, the relationship between esthetic form and political content of the baroque runs in at least two directions in the Spanish-speaking world.
In its most radical interpretation, El D_Efecto Barroco’s idea implies that the baroque inevitably works in favor of the Spanish as a brand and the essence of a supposedly exceptional identity. Consequently there is no critical baroque, countercultural baroque, anti-Spanish baroque, anti-creole baroque, etc., because if there were their theatricality would be trapped in continuity and in the reproduction of the myth of the Hispanic. Since drinking a couple of beers in a cantina with almost any Mexican is likely to give rise to a legitimate, exacerbatedly anti-Spanish and anti-Hispanic creole baroqueness on his part as a subliminal form of nationalism (or Latin Americanism, if our Mexican is doing postgraduate studies in Europe or the United States), the interpretation of the inverse exceptionality of Lo Hispánico set forth in El D_Efecto Barroco as an ecumenically deceitful, vacuous, essentialist and conjuring policy that extends throughout the Hispanic cultural sphere is paradoxical, although suggestive.
I would like to close with a few questions regarding the exhibition: does the baroque work in the same way in the political and cultural imaginary of Spain as it does in Latin American countries? Does the same baroque policy operate in the Ibero-American drive for integration promoted by the Spanish monarchy as it does in the Bolivarian separatism touted by Chavez? Does taking the baroque out of the Hispanic have the same (political) consequences for Spain, for Latin America and for different Hispanic communities in the U.S.? Does the myth of the Hispanic imply the same historical, cultural and political dilemma in those communities? Are we prepared to accept that there is not just a single, identically hegemonic supranational imaginary in Spain, the United States and Latin America, but also a sole transatlantic myth of the Hispanic that sparks the rhetorical, affected fuel of the baroque in the same way in Miami, in Valladolid and in Arequipa? Lastly, is the issue of the Spanish exceptionalism (emerging from the mono-cultural myth of the Reconquest and its need to contradict other national Euro identity supposedly-universal myths) comparable to Hispanic America / Latin American exceptionalism (stemming from coloniality, imperialism, creolism and the instrumentalization of mestizaje as a strategy for differentiation from the metropolis)?
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