PELLECER
TEKUM UMAM
2020
The project started very casual. On the way to work. I see the sculpture of Tekum Umam every day. In the hall of the Old Post Office Building. The expression of suspicion or estrangement that the bust shows always caught my attention. The bodybuilder Marco Tulio Ruano posed as a model for sculptor Rodolfo Galeotti Torres. This modern Guatemalan artist was trained in Italy as a sculptor. This western formation makes its representations and models respond to Renaissance, Greco Roman and European canons. I highlight this data by noting the selection of the model. A stocky manwho responds to the hyper masculine idea of how a hero should be represented. And to the samequasi Homeric idea of admiration for a sacrificed hero.
All these cross cultural contradictions are summarized in the figure of Tekum Umam. At some point this sculpture was the basis for the face of the 50 cent bill and this fictional identity was disseminated. The indigenous hero can only access a penny denomination. In the video that accompanies this research, the sculpture itself, in an exercise of giving it its own life, travels through the streets of Guatemala City thinking and questioning its origin and its identity and in all the historical, political and racial burdens that constitutes it self.
Legend has it that in 1524 the indigenous prince Tecun Uman fought a battle with the Spanish Conqueror Pedro de Alvarado and was defeated, in the Olintepeque valley at the battle of Pinal in the Guatemalan highlands. In a wound in his chest,
a quetzal (Guatemala’s national bird) fell on his chest in the young prince’s chest.
