Diego Perez, communal clay cooking and eating table at Museo Experimental El Eco
The Espacio Escultorico hearth
the torres de Satelite appear in clay
getting the fire ready
Begoña Inchaurrandieta heart of El Eco
garden around the table
the Espacio Escultorico fire is ready
and getting the meat for the tacos ready
Our House is a camping Ground
Diego Perez at Museo el Eco
text by Mauricio Marcin
Our lives runs through in the illusion of time. These, are sustained in dieting and breathing.
Even though there have been diverse vegan movements —still fledgling fads— our times are omnivorous: we eat everything.
Generally, mankind is still the wolf of mankind. Progress is the most savage wolf ; he eats the Good Savage and the developing Third-Worlder. There are those who don’t want any development. Diogenes, for example, ate raw octopus and died in consequence. He rejected Prometheus, who stole the Fire of the Gods to bring it to mankind, who use it to burn meat and food: the cooking pot and the casserole pot.
Contrary to Diogenes, we decided to be part –ashamed or not– of human kind. And we can congratulate ourselves of what the opposable thumb started. Or not. To who declares: “Living is bad”; we can suggest: “No, living bad...”
The building of the Chimney.
After long trips to the Barra de Coyuca in Guerrero, Diego Perez decided to move two tons of clay and sand all the way to the Museo Experimental El Eco’s patio. What for? To create a communal kitchen and a temporary hearth[1].
The table-kitchen, beside the exhibition of objects, works for various purposes that the museum provides. El Eco is a vessel that assumes and facilitates actions. The table is –in its own way– the same. It was made to be used; for it to host pleasure and intelligence.
Description of the transformations.
Our lives runs through in the illusion of time. These, are sustained in dieting and breathing.
Even though there have been diverse vegan movements —still fledgling fads— our times are omnivorous: we eat everything.
Generally, mankind is still the wolf of mankind. Progress is the most savage wolf ; he eats the Good Savage and the developing Third-Worlder. There are those who don’t want any development. Diogenes, for example, ate raw octopus and died in consequence. He rejected Prometheus, who stole the Fire of the Gods to bring it to mankind, who use it to burn meat and food: the cooking pot and the casserole pot.
Contrary to Diogenes, we decided to be part –ashamed or not– of human kind. And we can congratulate ourselves of what the opposable thumb started. Or not. To who declares: “Living is bad”; we can suggest: “No, living bad...”
The building of the Chimney.
After long trips to the Barra de Coyuca in Guerrero, Diego Perez decided to move two tons of clay and sand all the way to the Museo Experimental El Eco’s patio. What for? To create a communal kitchen and a temporary hearth[1].
The table-kitchen, beside the exhibition of objects, works for various purposes that the museum provides. El Eco is a vessel that assumes and facilitates actions. The table is –in its own way– the same. It was made to be used; for it to host pleasure and intelligence.
Description of the transformations.
One side of Barra de Coyuca is beaten endlessly by the open sea, the other is tampered by the soft waves of a lagoon. Reynold lives in the middle of both waters: fisherman, cook, family man. Reynold brings his cousin José Luis to put him in charge of taking out the clay from the lagoon’s floor.
The clay that lays half meter under water is perfect for modelling.
It’s the same clay that the inhabitants of Coyuca (and the rest of the Guerrero coastline) use to build their chimneys to cook their food. This stove building technique has been passed on from one generation to the next; with little variations, but still current. Diego Pérez learned this technique from these people to duplicate it in Mexico City.
An elliptic chimney.
In order to build the table, beside the Coyuca native technique, Perez alluded to Mathias Goertiz aesthetics. The Satélite towers are the foundation of a griddle.
Perez work implies an ethical aesthetic; its an object of knowledge and use. Contrary to the idea that it is useful because it’s beautiful, we could say that his table is beautiful because it’s useful.
We don’t know what will happen around it. A “pescado a la talla” is to be expected, “tortillas” in the griddle are expected, and also diners.
For this city “that is a waste land”, Pérez built something similar to a garden or a shelter, a public and living place. You may bring charcoal or wood, or a book; you can take care of this place and think about Montaigne’s proposal: Our most petty and glorious master piece is living as it should be.
[1] The word in Spanish for hearth, hogar, comes from the Latin focus, which is the root for the Spanish word fuego (fire). It’s common knowledge that a bonfire was maintained whenever possible.
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