An interview with our most loved La Penita Artist Roberto Gil de Montes
Roberto Gil de Montes: “In Mexico, they sell paradise to ruin it”
Reprinted from El Pais Mexico
(Please excuse our computer translation)
Among the labels of migrant, homosexual or Chicano, the 71-year-old painter prefers that of an artist. He receives EL PAÍS in his studio in La Peñita, in Nayarit, while his work is exhibited at the Venice Biennale
CONSTANCE LAMBERTUCCI
La Peñita (Nayarit) – 03 JUL 2022 – 05:15 CDT
Before he knew he wanted to be an artist, Roberto Gil de Montes watched a documentary about the sculptor Henry Moore; it was three o’clock in the afternoon in Guadalajara, Jalisco, and there was nothing else to do. His parents had immigrated to the United States and he lived with his grandmother, who didn’t want to take him to painting classes because they were too far away. He couldn’t know it yet, but Moore’s work was influenced by Mesoamerican cultures that he would claim much later from the Chicano movement; although it was still missing for the sixties, for Los Angeles and for the political and cultural movement that brought together artists – and not only – Mexicans in the United States. The movie they were going on tv that afternoon “clicked” on him: “I said to myself ‘that’s what I want, that’s who I am.’
“Why, what did you see?”
“I was working in his studio, it was a huge studio.
Gil de Montes, 71, paints in a space of white brick walls and vaulted ceiling. He arrives at nine in the morning and leaves at three in the afternoon. That’s because he’s disciplined; also because he is distracted – if he stays at home he prefers to be in the garden. And because you need daylight to work. With artificial light, colors change. His most recent paintings are resting on the wall. They are two huge canvases where brown men pose naked in a tropical landscape. They will be exhibited in October at the Kurimanzutto gallery, which represents it. Until November, in addition, five of his works are exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the great international event of contemporary art. The pigments in the paintings he has behind him shine and echo in the area of the Mexican Pacific that the artist inhabits.
Roberto Gil de Montes in his studio in La Peñita, Nayarit.
He and his partner, Eddie Dominguez, a businessman, 69, arrived in La Peñita three decades ago and settled permanently 15 years later. They came for a painting, because a friend gave them to them and after hearing about the site, one day, they visited it. The place was a fishing village that today lives from tourism on the coast of Nayarit, an hour from Puerto Vallarta. Some time ago, from his house he could see the huge rock that emerges from the sea and gives its name to the place, which also appeared in the painting that was given to him and is hidden in the canvases of Gil de Montes, in timeless landscapes, sometimes fragmented, between characters with jaguar or devil masks.
Now it can also be seen, but in the middle houses, hotels and restaurants have been built. “Gentrification, how do you say? It’s gentrifying.” Domínguez, who accompanies Gil de Montes in the more than three hours of interview with EL PAÍS, helps him find the word. They have been together for 47 years. They met in Los Angeles when the two were part of the Chicano movement and were mobilizing for the civil rights of the Mexican community in the United States. Chicano is just one of the labels with which they define the painter; migrant is another; homosexual. The most recent has been surreal. “I think I’m an artist, that’s enough for me. Being an artist is already quite different.”
Question. Do you appreciate the difference?
Answer. Yes, right. Since I was a child I felt and was different; from a very young age I knew I was gay. And then being an artist… Even more different. I once had an event with my parents. It was my birthday, I invited my friends to my house and then we went skating. When I came back my dad and mom were very serious. Then my dad says, ‘Hey… I wanted to tell you that your friends are gay.’ I said, I don’t know how it occurred to me to say, ‘Well, Dad, are you going to pick my friends?’ He said no and that’s the end of the story. The acceptance of my parents gave me a lot of strength.
Question. For one of your first self-portraits, in 1968, your face was painted white. Masks later continued to appear in his work.
Answer. I was in photography school. I did not understand the master’s project and when I returned to the presentation of the works I realized that my portrait had nothing to do with those of others. We were learning lighting: everyone used lighting, and I painted my face.
Question. What have masks been for in your career?
Answer. A gay kid tries to mask that first. My first encounter with masks was the Day of the Dead in Guadalajara. A few days before a market was set, and then we went with my grandmother and I bought cardboard masks. I wasn’t interested in death, but I was interested in masks. In the United States, it became a fixation. The early days at the Los Angeles school were a shock because I had to swear the flag in English, when two weeks earlier I had been singing the [Mexican] national anthem in the schoolyard. After a few years you start to wonder if you have already changed, if you have already become an American. There is a questioning of identity and with the mask you either change your identity or hide it.
Self-portrait of the artist in Los Angeles in 1968
Question. Were there artistic references in your home?
Answer. Of course. There was the Bible [laughs] and two volumes of crusade books that I have in my house. They were fantastic engravings by [Gustavo] Dora.
Question. What do you think?
Answer. He was very religious as a child, but also, since he was a gay boy, he knew nothing except that it was all sin. At the age of ten I decided no, that I was not wrong, that religion was wrong. My grandmother told me, “You have to go to church, you confess, you take communion, and your salvation is already guaranteed.” Fantastic! Very obedient I did and forgot. Later, when I went to India, I was very interested in Buddhism as a philosophy; although the third time I went I knew I wasn’t a Buddhist. But since my mom died recently, I started praying. I had forgotten, what’s more, I don’t know if I’m doing it right.Question.
Question. Did you copy those drawings?
Answer. I tried, but I didn’t have the facility (I don’t have it yet) or the technique or the materials. I didn’t even know how to get started and a friend at school introduced me to something they call pantograph. With that I started drawing.
Question. How do you remember the years in Los Angeles?
Answer. I was 15 years old, we lived in the eastern neighborhood, which is where Mexicans live, and there was no place to go to paint or to play. Elsewhere in the city, of course they had everything! They had swimming pools… They had more opportunities. It was time to rebel. When we didn’t have anything, someone organized something called Mechicano Art Center, and it was this size and it was a mess. But there was art. There I met some artists with whom we were friends forever. It did improve [the situation], of course. But the United States still has many problems of discrimination.
Teddy Sandoval, Alonso Pando, Gronk, Roberto Gil de Montes, and Harry Gamboa Jr. at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions in 1978.
Question.At that time you created the Los Angeles Contemporary Art Exhibition (LACE).
Answer. In downtown Los Angeles there was an opportunity to do it because there were abandoned buildings. We got a 5,000-foot space [about 1,500 square meters] and then I called friends and other artists in my community. There were 13 of us. With our hands we set up a gallery and started having exhibitions. The idea was to open an alternative space for people like us, who left school and had nowhere to exhibit. As an artist you could not stay more than two years and after two years I left. The place was very successful, it still exists.
Question. As a migrant, how do you think Mexico and the United States are handling the border?
Answer. Rather, I think they’re not handling it. It’s very sad. The other day in a truck so many people died. A truck with people again! Recently, Eddie and I got on the road to 12 people who were going north from Central America, they were children! It’s very dangerous and it hurts, really. I can’t paint those things. I dare not do it.
Question. Do you identify with any of the labels you have been given?
Answer. With all, and there is more. Yesterday I met another one that I don’t remember right now. [In the late eighties] I participated in an exhibition of Hispanic art that traveled throughout the United States and Mexicans were scandalized: How about Hispanic art?! But those of us who were participating saw it as an opportunity because nobody paid attention to us. Art in America, in Los Angeles, is for white people. For example, two museums have just opened: one of Latin art and one of Chicano art. It’s like a ghetto, it’s like Chicano art doesn’t fit into contemporary art. There goes the other new [label]! Surrealist.
Question. Do you paint what you dream of?
Answer. No, I rather analyze the dreams that I know are important. Although later that does not necessarily turn it into the works.
Question. There is an image that is repeated in at least two of your paintings that I thought was a recurring dream. It is one in which two characters are seen, one on each side of the river.
Answer. It’s not a dream I had, but it’s a thing that’s like in a dream, that’s not real. My life would be easier if I painted the things I see. When I’m doing something like that, it’s an enigma. I like the idea that I’m doing something I don’t understand. There are two versions of that picture. In one there is a jaguar and a woman, it seems to me that it is called The land deal, like a land transaction. What happened here in recent years is that the government started selling the beaches to hotels. They sell paradise to ruin it.
Question. How is your relationship with La Peñita and your community?
Answer. I was telling Eddie that we’re half-colonialists, wasn’t we? That was the last thing I’ve been thinking of these weeks. We started participating in the community because that’s what we did in America as Chicanos. For example, we start recycling here. But at the same time we have some distance. There is a group of artists who paint murals and it has not occurred to me to do that.
Question. For not meddling?
Answer. I don’t like muralism. When Chicanos made murals I didn’t like it either.
Question. When you got here your colors changed.
Answer. There was a transformation. I look a lot at the light and the colors, and when I paint the figures in the river it is because I go and see them. Now the season is going to come when people here go to the streams to bathe because they are incredible, big and very beautiful. I really like that these places are almost like a secret to go for a bath.
Question. How did you see your work in Venice? It is the first time he has exhibited at the Biennale.
Answer. I am very afraid to see my work. I’m not a very confident artist. But I really liked it. Right on the opposite wall was the work of the other Mexican [Felipe Baeza] who lives in the United States, he is a dreamer.
Question. Is it unsafe?
Answer. Sometimes I talk to Eddie about this. Some of the insecurity I have is because I have no one to talk to. Before there was a friend who was a painter and we always talked about art or watched things together. I have many years without a friend who is an artist around here, so I don’t show my work to anyone. I had a different life than I lead today, I am missing that part.
Question.Why are you still here then?
Answer. Being close to the sea is wonderful.
