Javier Aranda Luna: The Other Wings of Jorge Marín

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the last time that I visited his studio and the sculptures filled the space. Powerful hands, torsos, heads hidden behind beak-shaped masks, bodies that seemed weightless despite being made of bronze. They all conversed silently, the theme being the light and shadow between their forms.

Although here you find beautiful sculptures here and there, they're all finished and no longer in the work area. I no longer see the sculptor's heavy tables or tools.

In recent years, Jorge Marín has captured powerful images, such as the wings he built and brought to various parts of the world, or those monumental sculptures visible from miles away. I'd like to tell you that we haven't heard of any new projects from him.

–Yes, that's right. I reached a point where I needed a change. At first, I thought about a sabbatical, not because I was bored or anything like that, but out of curiosity. Look, I turned 60, and I started getting a series of questions that I couldn't answer.

“One was the finiteness of my time in this world. If my calculations are correct, I think I've already spent most of my time capital. So I said, 'Think carefully about what you want to do.'”

–Leave sculpture? Swap that passion for something else?

–I love sculpture; it's my passion, of course, but I discovered others. Perhaps the origin of my other passions began when I took sculpture to the streets. I was working in galleries and museums, and suddenly I went out and there was a connection with the public. That led me to make more interactive work, to share more directly with people. I remember when I did a project in Ixtapaluca, a metropolitan area in the Valley of Mexico, on the outskirts, toward the highway to Puebla. It's a marginalized area, and I came up with the idea of ​​doing a project there. I spoke with people, and what stuck with me most was their idea of ​​wanting others to know they existed as a community, that they were there. Then I thought of a huge figure. It's a figure that can be seen from afar from many places in the Valley of Mexico. A woman once told me that when she returned from work in Mexico City, seeing that figure, she knew her home was there, and her family was waiting for her. I really liked that.

–Did something similar happen to you with the colossal figure of El Vigilante, from Ecatepec?

–Suddenly, a group of very young kids sent me a song where they talk about the area where they live and how the sculpture impacts them in their area and what it tells them, what it provokes. That's when I fully understood that I was no longer important to the work. I said to myself: Jorge, you can go home and bake cakes or study philosophy, whatever you want, because the work has already done its thing and is growing on its own. It doesn't need your presence, your name, anything. The inhabitants of different areas have already integrated it into their vocabulary, their daily lives, their world, their heritage . The works have to be independent of the artist; they must have a social function, and for me, it already has that. That somehow freed me up to think about other things.

–You stepped out of your comfort zone.

–Yes, yes, I left, inevitably, when I realized that one is finite. Of course, I could have very comfortably watched sunsets for the rest of my life, but I said: "No, wait, what if, like the good atheist that I am, there really is nothing after that."

“'It's over. It's over; so, it can't be that all you did for the past 30 years was watch the sunset.' I said, 'No, no, no, I'm interested in other things.' Since I really enjoyed working with people, I wanted to do other things with people.”

–How to work with people, what?

When I went out into the street to make monumental sculpture, I began to meet with social groups at all levels, many of them very popular, because I put works in marginalized areas. That began to bring me closer to people; I began to awaken many things in me. I was an extremely solitary person, yes, reclusiveness is my thing, it's always been my thing, and I've enjoyed it immensely, but the time came to talk with others, and it's been fantastic, especially with the children. Look, I've had a very good understanding with them: how they see the world, how they expect it, how they perceive it, how they live it, how they interpret it; they're freer than we are. When I saw all that potential, I said: well, here 's the bet; we have to invest in these children, because we adults are already very spoiled, but they are wonderful. So, today I create programs to support their studies, with scholarships, breakfasts, in marginalized areas and rural schools. We're currently in Yucatán, and it's been very satisfying. We have people who are collaborating pro bono on this project to make breakfasts for children. We're a very small foundation, but the impact is tremendous: 100 breakfasts equal 100 children.

–They are your other wings.

–Exactly; so, this is incredible; it's another facet of my life that I'm discovering and really enjoying. I've also dedicated myself to reading about human thought. How amazing, it's so seductive to understand what the human being is, its essence, its way of thinking, how it's structured, how it's constructed, how it's reconstructed, what surrounds it, why humanity is the way it is. There are many philosophical questions that I'm pondering, and I'm nourishing myself with many texts and many authors. That's the other part I really enjoy, because it comes from my hermit side, which is there, the hermit survives. You could call it my biography: the hermit survives.