THE EXTINCTION RITUALS NEW WORKS
Rituals are important in our lives, they help us understand and cope with future events, they prepare us to deal with unknown situations, that could be moments of despair and uncertainty, they also comfort us when depression embrace our soul after a great loss.
There is no doubt that the diversity of life on the planet as we know is in great danger. Sadly, half of the world's wild animals have disappeared in the last 40 years, ¿Are we aware, that the planet is at threshold of the sixth mass extinction, and what this means to the future of man kind?
I have had the privilege of witnessing some of the most incredible spectacles of the natural world. With that responsibility in my back, I have never stopped thinking and acting accordingly. We nature photographers are real witnesses of these wonders and their destruction. At one point in my live I doubted my responsibility in the face of this new reality; it was out of frustration over the loss of many battels. My spirit was dealing with depression, and anger. In those trouble years I took refuge in the world of art, that was when The Extinction Rituals were born.
At that moment, life gave me another chance. Collect part of my past burden, youthful passions, unfinished experiences, acquired knowledge, and commitments to the wild. Use all the power of that frustration and channel it by creating a powerful language that can seduce the indifferent, a strong and provocative dialect that we can all understand, and a clear call that could bring down frontiers. All this to rediscover sanity for our trouble souls.
MY PLANET MY RULES, Banksy
The simple idea of a wild animal in a cage is controversial, ¿for emotional reasons? Today there are more tigers in captivity worldwide than those surviving in the wilds of Asia, this is a real fact that severely questions our intelligence and our survival. Even more so when identifying it as one of the most emblematic animals on the planet.
WILD HANDS, Coahuila Mountains
Water is the most precious commodity; humans have built large water tanks (pilas) for the survival of their domestic cattle. Wildlife can smell it from afar. Large mammals like the black bears are always curious of these large metal containers, sometimes they leave beautiful marks from their hands on the walls. When they cannot access the precious liquid, in desperation, they manage to climb inside, which is when some drown.
LAS ALMAS DE LOS DIFUNTOS
The souls of the death, Chincúa, Michoacan
In the Mountains of central Mexico there is a belief that the monarch butterflies are the souls of the death old relatives, friends, and neighbors. The natural phenomenon of the aggregation monarchs is a living testimony of an ancient relationship of deep respect with the natural world. I used photoshop to erase each butterfly in a symbolic gesture an also the fragility of this beautiful spectacle.
YA CHUPO FAROS,
It is going to die.
Roy Lichtenstein
Chanoc was childhood hero, a marine Tarzan of the comics of that time. Shark finning is decimating the world’s population of this ancient fishes. A great tragedy because they keep the oceans alive and vigorous, and the reason is because of a soup, a dish that is made of the fins of sharks, the culture in China is to blame, for this and many other possible extinctions of wild species. In this art work the text above says “On the
surface, the fin traffickers returned alive and mutilated, the sharks to the sea”, Chanoc said “Without fins, this hammerhead is death”. Faros is brand of a very cheap cigarettes, which were given in the Mexican revolution firing squads, as last wish to those to be executed, “Chupar Faros” means in a Mexican slang, you are sucking death.
THE CHRIST
OF THE SKULL,
Ivory & Bone
The meeting of two extremely powerful symbols, the skull of an Asian elephant and the figure of an ivory Christ. Elephants represent the planet´s largest land mammal, and the deity, carve in ivory, representing one of the most important religions in the world. How far can our love for God, go without destroying his creation?
MY ENVIRONMENTAL SINS, Topi and hartebeest
In Africa sorcerers and shamans’ course someone by nailing a wooden figure with nails. Throughout my life I have committed countless environmental crimes, from the extreme use and irresponsible disposal of plastic “small sins”, to more severe actions of which I feel guilty and ashamed, to those I classified them as “mortal environmental sins”. Creating these two sculptures was part of my penance, part of my healing.
ROJOS SON LOS DESEOS,
Red are the desires,
The Hummingbird.
Trees are blooming three to four months earlier, this change everything for a small pollinator. Ore you late for the banquet o your newborns will starve because they just follow the natural rhythms. Warmer springs as the world climate fluctuates, could be fatal for many species that depend on other species to survive. How wild spices will cope with this changing environment?
"Red are the desires,
fires of my soul.
Seasons of indifference,
your heart rips off,
in flight I fold my wings."
PRG
FALLING PETALS,
PENDING LIVES, Colibri
Life is a long sequence of heartbeats, and is extremely short for a species that becomes extinct, out of its time. A jewel in flight is the colibri, true treasures from times of abundance and diversity. Living souls that briefly caress our spirit, with their deliciated fluttering.
LAMPED WILD CAT
This paper silhouette was in the trash of a taxidermy workshop, the artist who created it capture the essence and spirit of a wild cat, these animals are mostly nocturnal, and are constantly run over by cars on highways and roads, because they simply freeze in front of the headlights of vehicles. This installation illuminates the real profile of the animal presence, it the darkest night.
ELEPHANT IVORY, Robert Mappelthorpe
There is something, a Macho thing about the male hunter, it is printed in our genes, we were providers, and for that we gain sexual favors. To wear claws, fangs, horns spooked about our cunning and bravery, of how successful our genes were. To bring down and elephant you ensured the future of the clan. In communities where hunting is still practice in Africa, the relationship with the natural world is extremely strong. With the Bushmen the hunter is punished for this offense to Nature, and is forbidden to him to eat the flesh of the pachyderm. Today´s sport hunters simply don´t do the ritual, they just show off their manliness.
PRAY FOR A MIRACLE, Exvoto, Teporingo
In certain Latin American countries, if you faced death because of a terrible accident, or an incurable illness, you ask a Saint, or the Virgin Mary, to help you deal and heal the situation, if this occurs, then you do a ritual, you ask a local artist to make a small representation of the moment in which you requested help. These paintings are called milagritos, little miracles or exvotos. The teporingo, or volcanic rabbit, is endemic to the transvolcanic belt of Mexico, it is an endangerd species, its greatest threats are climate change and habitat loss. In this work of art I have summoned the spirits of the Iztaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl volcanoes, to protect this small mammal from these threats, for this I painted Dalia's body in white, representing the silhoutte of Iztaccíhuatl volcano, an on her hip I painted an exvoto, with the image of the teporingo, and the accient legend of the lovers that became the two dormant-volcanoes. The hole thing is a much larger-pray for a miracle.
EL LINCE DE MIRÓ
A few years back, the Spanish lynx was the most endangered terrestrial mammal in Europe, today it represents one of the most extraordinary recoveries stories of a wild species. At the time of making this art work, the populations of this small cat were still at risk. Inspired by one of Spain´s most well know painters, Joan Miró, I present this run-over death lynx. The fragmentation of its Mediterranean habitat, as well as the kills on roads are their greatest treats. A Catalan body-painted model, Carlota lies on top of the pavement, on a dark and moonless night, up right the drunk driver is upside down, and the marks of passing tires are still on the cat’s body.
O´KEEFFE´S PRONGHORN
Barbed wire fences have severely fragmented the planet's wildlands, separating wild animal populations from important breeding grounds and hampering natural migrations to find food and water. The pronghorn antelope is as emblematic to the American Southwest as the painter Georgia O'Keeffe, who uses open landscapes and wild animal skulls in her work. Pronghorns are also the fastest land mammal in the Americas, and the fragmentation by the barbed wire is a deadly obstacle to their speed.
SNARE ZEBRAS, Annie Leibovitz
In the bushmeat business, the local actors use a wired loop, call snare to capture wildlife. Desperate animals lose limbs in their attempt to escape, it is terrible to watch. Googling for the most famous lovers, in the first place the image of Leibovitz of John Lennon and Yoko Ono for the cover of the Rolling Stones magazine appeared. I used the same composition and ask a couple of female and male models to pose painted as zebras, and the tragedy of being pull apart by snares.
JAGUAR MASK, Guerrero
Wearing a mask transforms you, you become another entity, for the short time that you wear it you are allowed to behave according to the new spirit that you have become. In the southeast of Mexico, the Jaguar Totem is very powerful, all that magic, and the rituals around these celebrations are just what provokes and leads me to present the different problems that wildlife faces and seek to humanize them to seduce the public.
POWER LINES,
Piet Mondrian
Chaos is the common structure in some urban power lines, years of use of the same poles, adding more and more wiring, to the point where they have become part of the city, part of the town. Visual contamination or fascinating compositions? it depends on the viewer. Those chaotic multi-wired swarms remind me of Mondrian´s work.
COURSING THE POACHERS, White Rhino
The populations of the six species of rhinoceros that still survive on the planet are being decimated by the illegal trafficking of their horn to satisfy the traditional Asian medicine market. In the last 10 years the population of the white and black rhino in the emblematic Kruger National Park in South Africa was reduced by 70 percent due to these causes. The first in line in these crimes are the poachers, who supply the mafias who later sell to wealthy buyers in China and Vietnam.
In Central Africa there is a ritual among communities to curse those evil spirits, people who steal, kill or do evil things. This consists of inserting a nail into a human figure or some wooden animal, thinking about that evil spirit or person. It is worth mentioning that bad people strongly fear these figures.
With the idea of ​​pointing out this absurd practice of traditional Asian medicine within the work The Extinction Rituals, I requested permission to make a mold of an original white rhinoceros ‘skull from southern Africa, and make a life-size sculpture. in bronze, with the aim of covering it with curses from colleagues, photographers, conservationists, naturalists, writers, artists from all over the world, curses to those who illegally kill these giants of the African savannahs, to the poachers, to the mafias, and to the buyers who all cause their horns to be cut off, sometimes the rhino is still lives alive.
I asked these people to handwrite their curse on a small piece of paper and insert it into an empty high-powered bullet casing, then use a drill to make a hole in the skull and insert their thought. The sum of all these curses acquires symbolic force at a time when the planet is on the threshold of the sixth mass extinction.
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Some of the participants curse:
THREE TIMES I CURSE
Savannah Splendor
The light
in the shade of the acacias
Thirst
around the spring
The beauty
of the herd grazing.
I curse the eye
of the murderer poacher.
I curse the eye
of the voracious buyer.
I curse the eye
that forged the bullet.
Three times I curse the eye
that silence the splendor.
Alberto Ruy Sanchez
Mexican writer
Nov 22, 2020
For those who are responsible
for the rhino’s demise;
the ignorant and greedy Chinese byers;
the mafia kingpins and corrupt politicians;
the heartless poachers who shoot,
hack and chainsaw
the still living creatures
face and horns off;
may there be a special place
in hell reserve for them.
Thomas D. Mangelsen
Nature Photographer
Nov 16, 2020
I curse all who knowingly
contribute to the murder of
any animal for profit
or to gain pleasure from the needless exploitation
of its body parts.
may fear and pain torment you
for the rest of your miserable life
Roz Kidman Cox
UK Naturalist & editor
To those who kill rhino
or trade their horn,
may the weight of the rhino
be on your soul
Vance G. Martin
World conservationist
I curse God to kill Man
I curse God to kill the beast
I curse Man that praise God
I curse Man to kill the beast
I praise the beast
Antoine D´Agata
French photographer
To kill a magnificent rhino,
a sentient being,
for profit
or “sport”is murder.
First degree murder
Jane Goodall
World Conservationist
We are the poachers, all of us,
Living on this wondrous planet
we call earth.
We must not forgive ourselves
for what we have done.
We must do everything in our power
to change the outcome.
The rhino is our earth.
Chris Eckstrom & Frans Lanting
Writer and Nature photographer
To Humankind:
You have almost killed us all, the unique and impressive white rhino.
Every living being has a right to exist.
Without compassion and a lack of morality you destroy nature's beauty.
If you mindlessly continue this, I guarantee that this curse upon you
will ultimately destroy you too.
George B. Schaller
Conservation scientist
A curse upon the
destroyers. They kill
themselves when they
kill the white rhinos.
Jack Dykinga
Nature photographer
Poaching is not only destructive, it is self-defeating!
At this stage in the history of the planet biodiversity
is more important than ever, especially the saving
of iconic species.
Robert Bateman
Wildlife painter
I ´m ashamed
of my species,
that kills without reason.
I´m proud
of my heart
that I give you
to live…
Francisco Márquez
Nature photographer
May poachers be poached
and kingpins be brought down.
Nature is under assault
By the greed of bad souls.
Now is the time to fight
The good fight
And protect what’s left
Art Wolfe
Nature photographer
….I curse the poachers, for absolute lack of conscience
that what they kill will never come back.
Guillermo Arriaga
Writer
…I like him because it gave me the impression of a safe box protective and inviolable. It´s impossible that now is gun down, disappearing, it will be like killing the world equilibrium.
Elena Poniatowska
Writer
Extinction it´s a dark road, with no return... if nature falls, ¡we all fall!
Exequiel Ezcurra
Conservation scientist
There is more time than life.
Pablo Ortiz Monasterio
Photographer
May poachers be poached
and kingpins be brought down.
Nature is under assault
By the greed of bad souls.
Now is the time to fight
The good fight
And protect what’s left
Art Wolfe
Nature photographer
I curse the greed and stupidity causing many species to go extinct.
I curse the poverty that leads many to poach.
I curse our collective indifference, our blindness to other species’ suffering.
Ultimately we are cursing ourselves into extinction.
Daniel Beltra
Nature photographer
Hunting species for economic thrive,
with a market value
could not have another treatment than criminal.
Adelaida Casamitjana, Jose Sarukhan
Biologist, Ecologist
STUPIDITY TARGES NATURE
Saguaro Carnegiea gigantea is one of nature´s most iconic plant species, it´s size and longevity are unique in the world´s flora, and its ability to survival in arid lands is truly astonishing. The Sonora Desert is their home, the only place in the planet where they live, one of the strong holes for the species is in southern Arizona, where there are some US Air Force complexes. A few years ago, Pilots used to shoot this giants out of planes just to practice their aim.
EN LA PIEL DEL LAGARTO, Francisco Toledo
Is it okey to use wild animal skins for our own clothing? Hundreds of generations have done it in the past, where do we draw the line?
The Mexican artist Toledo provokes us with his animalistic world, where humans and animals interact in various rolls, some of them sexual. His ability to transform the essence of each species into human characters is amazing, the idea that we are all interconnected is why his work is so powerful. Here I used the real skin of a caiman or lagarto, to show its use in the manufacture of footwear, which Mirel the model uses for this piece. The lagarto, an essential character in Toledo´s work, symbolize the animal on each one of us.
VELÁZQUEZ, DEATH IN THE MIRROR
The mirror Venus, (1647-1651) by Spanish painter Diego Velázquez is one of the most emblematic nudes in history. The original in the National Gallery in London has been attacked twice, first in 1914 by a Surrogateactivist and in 2023 by Just Stop Oil activists. The PRG´s version of the famous painting was made before the second attack. Inspired by the first, where the perpetrator uses a butcher knife to stab Venus body seven times, Patricio used wild animal skins instead of Velazquez´s exquisite fabrics, to question their use in the fashion industry. In a performance at Patricia Conde Gallery in Mexico City, Patricio´s piece was staged seven times with a Machete intervening the canvas and therefore the image.