Dans Hamptons

Despite the relative lack of art in the Yucatan’s Isla Mujeres, there is a rather stunning sculpture installation that dots the desert-like tundra near the one remaining Mayan Temple. It’s an area most likely missed by the tourists since it stands at the southern most end of the island.

The vista is complicated with many varied aesethetic elements. First, there’s the small stone Mayan temple positioned at the top of the cliffs, an extradordinary natural setting including the clear blue Caribbean waters and white waves below. The barren landscape, replete with scrubs and cacti, provides a carpet for the Temple and numerous metal sculptures.

Such works, we might imagine, constitute the modern temples of contemporary culture. Contradictions and ironies run amok: the drab brown stone Mayan Temple vs. the colorful metal sculptures; the Temple’s rectangle form vs. the vertical edifices; the Mayans’ simple structure vs. the modern artists’ abstract design.

Yet, somehow the contradictory compositions work, even if they are initially shocking and even if it means that contemporary art now exerts a presence in Isla de Mujeres. One other important advantage: the works were solicited by the regional government from all over the world, including the United States and Latin America.

Other ironic installations abound in Isla Mujeres, but they are not purposeful. Rather they are organic in nature, cropping up in the Christmas decorations, namely adorning the central plaza (lights strung around palm trees alongside Nativity scenes).

Playa del Carmen, described as the South Beach of the Riviera Maya, has its own charms. While very different and bigger than Isla Mujeres, it’s on the mainland, thus less isolated and definately less steeped in history. There, contempprary art is more prevelant, perhaps appealing to European visitors. Examples are abstractions, resembling Pollock at the small, stylish Mosquette Blue Hotel and slightly abstract figures evoking symbolic imagery by Italian artist Alejandro at Hotel Kinbe..

Offering a contrast is the work of Jaime Fierrod, whose studio down a side street recalls a thatched hut on the beach. His figurative paintings harken back to the past, conjuring up Mayan warriors and battles, his brown and red colors conveying the violence of the times. As far as we are aware, however, he is one of the few artists now working in Playa del Carmen.

We anticipate and hope that there will be more local art to follow during the subsequent years, although it may look like the kind we may find in Miami Beach.