Virtual exhibition explores life and art behind bars in Lecumberri

On the occasion of the 124th anniversary of the Lecumberri Palace (September 29, 1900), the virtual exhibition is presented Views of confinement: Life and art from behind barswhich records the most iconic characters who passed through there, including political prisoners who were engines of change, as well as the prison art that captured what was experienced there.

In interview with The DayVirginia Soriano (Mexico City, 1983), deputy director of communication of the digital repository Memérico, México Haz Memoria, explained that the exhibition is made up of four rooms: the first, A glance inside, commemorates the inauguration of preventive prison number one , and with photographs explore the architecture and interiors of Porfirio Díaz’s project.

The next one, Characters, is “a review of some of the most iconic people who passed through the Black Palace throughout its 76 years, such as the first drug trafficker, Lola La Chatawho suffered rape and extortion in prison, but also exercised power over the police, since there was some collusion for her to continue committing crimes in prison.

“There is also Goyo Cárdenas, convicted of murdering four women; the writer William Burroughs, who accidentally killed his wife by placing an apple on her head while they were practicing archery, and Trotsky’s murderer, Ramón Mercader, among others,” the interviewee detailed.

The third room refers to the political prisoners who “were very important, not only because they reflected the critical moments of society, but because within they were actors of change, and later they denounced the violations of rights that were carried out in Lecumberri. Among them, the Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros, the social fighter Valentín Campa and the activist Demetrio Vallejo, as well as the students of the ’68 movement.

“Some pieces are still preserved: Siqueiros made some screens for the plays that prisoners performed in social rehabilitation programs. There is also the painting Pity in the desert by Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, who was rescued when the prison collapsed and later taken to the Palace of Fine Arts; It was created in the prisoners’ visiting room.

“The work shows an indigenous woman who represents the iconic madonna, hugging a prisoner who is practically fainted, the mother’s face, totally desperate and discouraged, but, in the end, welcoming her son. “It gives a message of hope to the families and prisoners who gathered there.”

Soriano explained that “Rodríguez Lozano was accused of theft of works of art at the Academy of Fine Arts Painting, where he was director; However, it was a setup by his enemies due to his affiliation and sexual preferences. In prison, the cells were divided by letters to classify crimes; When they identified homosexuals, they were taken to the jota bay, hence the derogatory nickname. It was not a crime to be gay, but it was classified as disturbing public order or breaches of morality. It is said that the composer and singer Juan Gabriel was there.”

In the fourth room, Prison Art, there are the works of prisoners who were not famous, but who expressed their problems through poetry, graffiti, collageacrylic painting, in which they represent “images that range from the religious and the psychedelic, to nudes and decoration of their cells. It is a way of reflecting to us what they faced. There are pictures of a lot of violence, sexual and physical; “Very surreal pieces, which allow us to know the psyche, the dreams, the ambitions of these people who were imprisoned in Lecumberri.”

A mural of 20 prisoners

The person also in charge of reviewing the archive commented that “in 1977, when part of the building was demolished, historians such as María Teresa Franco, first director of the General Archive of the Nation, asked the Ministry of the Interior to recover the building. At that time, photographer Arturo Córdova Tovar captured the work of these prisoners.

“He captured all this artistic expression that he found in the cells from a human and aesthetic vision, trying to understand how they appropriated space, time and, to a certain extent, to enjoy the little freedom they retained. An example of this is the mural in the assembly hall, where 20 prisoners paint the history of Mexico in three episodes: the Conquest, the Colony and the Independence,” he said.

For Soriano, this part of the sample is the most relevant, since before “the social reintegration of prisoners was not thought of; Rather, it was like removing those ‘scum of society’ so that no one would see them, hiding them. Now, the purpose of the building is to make it visible and build that memory of our country.”

The curator Karla Baltazar did the research on the artistic production of the confinement and integrated some texts into the exhibition such as that of Erving Goffman: “Prison graffiti not only represents the appropriation of space, but it allows the inmate to regain control over the course of the bullfight.” time and memory.” This becomes fundamental in the prison environment, where “time is plundered,” because “the days are incredibly short, all it takes is an oversight like getting up late or extending coffee breaks for the day to go by blankly.”

Views of confinement: Life and art from behind bars It is made up of 50 resources from collections such as the Photography Archive Museum, the Media Library of the National Institute of Anthropology and History, the M68 Archive and the General de la Nación. It can be seen in https://memoricamexico.gob.mx/es/memorica/Lecumberri_Miradas_del_encierro.