DAVID-BAPTISTE CHIROT: LENGUA Interview with Victor Sulser; performatic Mexico president

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Interview with Victor Sulser, performatic Mexico president

Iris Mexico

Recently, Victor Sulser and I, took some beers and not any coffee (because he does not like it) but either chocolate (that was a beer afternoon). His rabbit –handmade by himself- showed himself from time to time from his bag, whose content is pending to review in another occasion… Between cheers and drinks we were drawing this interview…

Who is Victor Sulser: performatic Mexico president, contemporary performer, Beuys' fan, nostalgic salesman of future…?

I am an artist who decided to proclaim myself president of Mexico in September 2006. I wear a presidential band; elaborated with fabric used to make flags bought in "La Parisina" store. I went out, I saw that there were not millions asking for my resignation and I decided to remain in the position.

The other two contenders for the presidency did not know about it, because if something has my presidency is to be modest. Thus we finished being three. One is legal. The other is legitimate. I aspire to be a real president. Simply to exist. A president whom you salute if you find him in some place. I do speeches; I cut ribbons; I like confetti; I uploaded some videos on youtube; I appear in event when they invite me and in some where I'm not invited, but I surprise them.

As artist I began with drawing and painting, something typical of my generation. Then I walked on the extended art field where actions, processes, objects are the art work. Lately I have made some video.

I do like Beuys. One of my most known pieces alludes to the work "How to explain pictures to a dead hare" It is the rabbit Alter, fabric doll present as spectator in numerous events and activities related with art. In his sense of reference to Beuys it is to assume the inheritance left by XX century art. To establish a fertile genealogy for the art of the present.

II.

Politics interest you in artistic terms… since adolescent times -ceceacheros, uameros, unameros- (talking about CCH, UAM, and UNAM, public universities in Mexico City) or since a childhood in which you dreamed with militant rabbits?

Art and politics interested me from quite young. When I was 16 years old I was on CCH. I was part of the university movement of that 1986. I drew posters and flyers, I painted blankets and walls, I made collective and individual actions which a pair of years later I would know were related to action art. These activities were part of what decided me to get into the National School of Plastic Arts, ENAP, UNAM, where I continued as a university activist. I also got into the PRD, politic party from which I left enough years ago.

Being in the ENAP I separated an aspect of my work from my political activity. Since then there are some explicit politic moments on my work but a good part of my work is not. Although in one or other way the aesthetic and the politic can be related in forms not so evident. Art acts from some filed of power in order to establish its space of enunciation, thus it can be on the simple defense of a personal space of expression.

III

You say that activism often is "to sell future", you even mention one analogy in which this belief and to bet on the future is also present in grants and other supports for artist, yet is not only the realized work but also the potential they offer, the reason why they get the economical support. Tell us more about this idea of selling future… and what future do you sell to the spectators-citizens as performer-president…

I mentioned the idea of selling future related with the times of university activism; where all an imaginary construction of the future corresponded to each current. If you are radical or moderated it is not only perceived from the decisions of the present, it is perceived as a future. Perhaps the moderate one will be a deputy; the radical a guerrilla. This does not happen always. Perhaps they finish in the opposite side, or dedicated to another thing.

The project of future related to your political positions attracts different people. This works even for making out. The man with a Che style beret attracts girls with adventurous spirits. This selling -I will be that or the other-, also works in the art field. At the present time perhaps people speak more about future in market. Beyond the commercial bets there is the being pro or against different tendencies. In a deeper sense it is possible to value an artist from a hypothetical impact of his work the artistic media; to think if the artist will contribute with new or at least fresh works.

When people buy art it is difficult not to find the expectation of future sale, although as a joke people say "wow, what will it cost when you be famous". The economic supports, as grants, also tend to be oriented to the future. When you compete for a support you try to convince someone of the possibility of a future work, you will be an interesting artist at least during the next year. Expectations are had even more ahead, which varies in multiple ways. In one of other form what is supported is the construction of a network with what each one considers the best for the art future or for the art itself.

But you were asking me about what I offer as future in my presidency of the republic. In fact is not much, compared with other presidents who offer to Mexico to be the fourth world economy by 2040. I try to make less cruel jokes. As president I hope to do nothing. Because the majority of the presidents do something and you see the provoked disasters. To be in the presidency and not to cause disasters is already a gain.

When we speak of adolescents and universities, we generally think about the small power groups of fancy and outsiders, nerds and rebels, popular and hermits, etc, etc. It is a point to debate between who is fancier or more outsiders in schools or art universities, public and private… I hope you can illustrate us on the matter as far as these gradations… and what is what from those scholastic sectarianism and social gradations we still live in the "adult" society"?

All of us, in one or other way we form groups and we compete for space and resources. Which is natural, until certain point. The necessity exists to coordinate efforts and to share interests. But it is not only that, we play to belong to a group and to exclude in some way the other. Those games change with time. In school it works as learning, bad or good, of these social dynamics.

In adult society these behaviors of property and exclusion continue. They work from symbolic constructions and real facts. A question is not to enter in a place, like a bar, because you have not enough money. Another is the series of implicit messages in the existence of such place, the social networks and the discourses designed to maintain some certain type of people out. I choose this bar example because after all it influences the media in which we move, talking about art, because there are things done more in the party than in serious interviews. Who party with whom? But this has different returns in the opening cocktails and the activities after cocktails.

On the other hand, it is not necessary to despise the simple impulse to get yourself drunk as a reason for these activities. But something is undeniable; openings and other events surrounding art are frequented by more or less the same people establishing networks more or less stables.

In Sulser' childhood… what anecdote or mischief do you want to share with us, to catch insects in the garden, games with pets or hallucinations? Some of those anecdotes let a glimpse to your performatic future?... I have to tell here, that between beer and beer I confessed that one child mischief of mine was to bring down a papaya tree, story that Sulser find pretty exotic, hahaha.

I'm an urban being; all my life has passed in Mexico city. Thus, to have the possibility of bringing down a papaya tree is something fantastic. My childhood passed in the borders of the city, I have not changed of place, but the border of the city moved many kilometers. Perhaps I would enjoy more elements of the nature at the present time, but always in the orbit of an urban surrounding.

Then my childhood had things as to climb to the wall of the great channel of the drainage. Thence I threw stones to the rats, which has its way to do it right, because the best strategy is to throw a stone to make them jump and immediately later to throw another stone trying to anticipate where the rat will fall. I do not believe that this anticipated in some way my art future, either the other infantile pranks.

There are important as experiences, antecedents of what I am. Later I decided to be an artist. Of my childhood I would say that I was curious, because I amused me observing insects in the very small garden of my house. The best thing was the ants' wars, between each other or against other insects. I had a chemistry game with which I made experiments that were not in the manual, sometime I made a kind of bazooka with cans; in short, just a curious boy.

Which is the project that you offer today as president, in general, in national and international terms, besides the one explained on youtube with the campaign "to privatize your mother"?, elective suffrage nonre-election or 70 years of power Mexican style?

I don't think about reelection, but if the people want it, who am I to say them no. But in fact I would love to resign. I am not demanding, if people full the Mexico city zócalo to demand my resignation I would retire enchanted. Even with half zócalo I resign.

My government program is very ample, very. So ample that I cannot summarize it. At different moments we have outlined some parts. As the proposal to privatize the mothers of Mexico, because although we privatize and privatize things the truth is that we still need money. I am pro the border wall with the United States, but make it pretty. Something as the Chinese wall, thus we attract tourism. In its constructions we can use Mexican workers, and then we will not have countrymen going to the other side. And I don't know, my government has so many important initiatives that I would not know by where go on telling you.

VII

And why is that beer kills coffee?

I don't find cool the combination of stimulants with alcohol, even when they are light.

VIII

And what position has the rabbit in your government?, is it that the rabbit has a artistic politic statement?

Rabbit follows on his business, to observe all questions of art and its environs.

Anything you would like to add…

Thank you for the invitation, the interview became more about the artist than about the president, but the president also is thankful for this opportunity to direct me to the Internet public.

Thanks!

Víctor Sulser

http://www.youtube.com/user/presidenciamexico