THE WEIGHT OF THE FRAGILE

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“Planted for sustenance is sacred nourishment for the man made of corn.
Planted for business is the hunger of the man made of corn.”
—Miguel Ángel Asturias, Men of Maize

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Portraits have traditionally been a way of preserving the image through time—an urgent need to leave a trace of what our physical form once was. It was during the Renaissance, particularly between the 15th and 16th centuries, that portraiture became not only a means of enduring in memory, but also the language par excellence of certain social aspects such as wealth and prominence within the social hierarchy. Countless are the images of monarchs posing in sumptuous garments, but above all, adorned with gleaming jewels and precious stones.

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Gold, the quintessential symbol of ostentation and power—the material from which necklaces, ornaments, and above all, crowns are made. The crown: that element which perfectly encapsulates superiority within the social scale.

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This portrait series by Jorge Chavarría deconstructs these traditional symbols of grandeur, endowing them with a narrative that diverges from the conventional history. In this case, the imposing headdresses made of corn husks atop the heads of the sitters grant preeminence to maize—the sustenance of Mesoamerican cultures, our true gold.

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These effigies convey the fragility of anonymous figures while elevating the prominence of this food, as present in our past as in contemporary culture, becoming a focal point within this gallery of images.

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The gaze also turns to the shifting nature of power throughout history, and how such power is understood according to the narrative of who commands whom… Is this an analogy about who holds power, or is it a re-signification and redistribution of it through the symbolic language of portraiture?

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Andrés Cordón
Guatemala, September 2024