(Zarco Guerrero) Welcome to the first part of Arizona State Museum's Masks of Mexico: Santos, Diablos y Más.
Let's begin our audio tour. Please face the wall directly across the exhibit doors which you entered. I am Zarco Guerrero, a mask maker myself, and I will be your guide. Let's listen as co-curator, Davison Koenig, gives his perspectives on the masks.
(Davison Koenig) I guess first just let me give sort of an overview of what I find fascinating about the masks, themselves, and masking traditions. It's the use of masks as a tool to interpret culture around you. And that we very much see this as a historical tradition, which it is, going back to pre-Hispanic times, here, on this continent. And then in Europe, going back even further.
But, what I find neat is how you can see the masks changing over time, interpreting the world around them.
For example, some of my favorite masks are in the intro panel, walking into the exhibit. You'll see, there's a large devil mask. Devil mask, because it has, A, horns; and, B, it's also sort of a death mask and a skull combined.
But, what's really interesting is if you look closely at the eyes, they resemble Darth Vader's fighter when he gets shot off into space at the end of the original Star Wars. And you can see that this mask carver clearly had seen Star Wars like most everybody had in the late '70's, '80's and up till now.
And he was interpreting Darth Vader, being the consummate evil character as the devil. And combined these together, and this was a real mask that was used in ceremony. And it's those little glimpses of what makes masks significant that I find fascinating. And it's a constantly changing process.
There's also another mask near there that I call the "Planet Of The Apes" mask. Because, it's clearly an ape mask. But... not a whole lot of apes in Mexico. And it looks exactly like "Planet Of The Apes" from the '70's. So, clearly this guy—these guys were watching mainstream television and using masks as a vehicle to interpret that culture that was now a part of their culture.
(Zarco Guerrero) This is the second time the mask collection has been featured as an exhibition at the Arizona State Museum. Diane Dittemore, curator of ethnological collections, tells us why the masks are making their encore.
(Diane Dittemore) We decided that we wanted to have this exhibit for a number of reasons. I'd say the main reason was it's—we've exhibited it two previous times and the public loves the masks. And when we take them down, they say, "What happened to the mask exhibit? We want the mask exhibit back." And so we decided to bring them back out of storage and to interpret them in some new ways.
In the past, we had put them on the walls and we've tried to tell people a little bit about them. But, when we first got the collection, there wasn't a whole lot that was known. There was a whole lot that was known about Mexican masks and traditions. But, The Cordry Collection, particularly, had a lot of masks that really weren't made in any amount until the 1960's, 1970's. And they were made for tourist trade that it turns out was largely promoted and expanded by Donald Cordry.
(Zarco Guerrero) Before the masks could be displayed, they were examined by conservators. They document the masks' condition and repair any structural damage that may have occurred in storage or in transit. A lot goes on behind the scenes. And it is because of the work of the conservators that these masks will be available to view, study and appreciate for many years to come.
Teresa Moreno, assistant conservator, tells us why the masks need to be cared for and what is done to insure that they are preserved.
(Teresa Moreno) As a conservator, I'm trained to look and understand the materials that the objects are made out of. In this case, we're dealing with masks, most of which are carved from wood. But, we do have other types of material such as metal or wax, textiles, papier mache. And there are other materials, actually, that are also added to the masks: hair, fur, paint, acrylic paints, other types of paints and pigments. And, textiles too—there's a whole gamut of materials that are involved with the masks.
And my role as conservator is to try and preserve those materials as best as possible. And, a lot of the masks are in very stable condition and have been because they've been so well preserved over the years, in the museum. But, some of them exhibited problems with flaking paint or unstable parts that were attached. So, in some cases, where you've got a mask that is carved out of wood but it has applied horns that are actually made out of horn, sometimes those joints where the two pieces are actually attached are loose and need to be stabilized. So, as a conservator, I look for materials and adhesives and ways of stabilizing structural problems with the mask as well as chemical problems.
Special Thanks to Gateway for their support of this project.
Many thanks also to the University of Arizona Disability Resources Center for transcribing the tour episodes.
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