The Tribe


IN SEARCH FOR THE SACRED SPACE



Man-created images tend to interpret the mysteries of the universe and, at the same time, to multiply the possibilities of their findings, eternally embedded in historic memory. For Guy Pierre Tur, the constant challenge to delve into the cosmic mysteries, in the mythological sense of this term, constitutes his artistic work.

To choose as leitmotiv, in spite of the deep difficulties it entails, a constellation of symbols—pagan, ascetic, mythic, and religious—with openly tribal hues reveals his predilection for the hermetic rather than the artistic without undermining, at all, the excellence of his craft. The mystery he is sincerely concerned for lies not in the container, but in the content.

The graphic elements used in his pictorial work, in his drawings, or in his sculptures, are ways to search for an integral vision of the human condition in relation to the magical thinking—they shape an alchemical metalanguage rather than a conventional aesthetics.

Guy Pierre is a poacher who hunts for the origins of rituality; a shaman of the descendants of Venus and Mercury, a builder of mandalas. The elements in his body of work interact in such a way that rather than an exhibition they deliver the contemporaneous concept of an INSTALLATION.

Dr. Moíses Ladrón de Guevara, Professor of Aesthetics, UAM-Iztapalapa.

Installation



Sculpture



What I try to communicate through LA TRIBU [THE TRIBE] can be learned at various levels. There are different TRIBES.

There is the inner TRIBE, made up by various characters which inhabit in us: the mystic one, the cheerful one, the child, the warrior, the zebra, the tiger, etc. These roles live together inside us and we have to find an accommodation for them however we can.

I am aware that our task is to bring them together, respecting and recognizing, one by one, all the members of OUR INNER TRIBE.
The second level is that of the modern man who lives in great urban centers, of which Mexico City is an exceptional and spectacular example. Wandering through its streets, crowds, public transport, markets, museums, parks, plazas, I have felt the immense solitude of the traveler in a great metropolis.
In these moments, loaded with the loss of contact with the other, inside me I dream with a return to THE TRIBE that I managed to establish for myself in this excessive jungle of 21st-century crowding, apparently too strange for a human scale.
Another approach to MY TRIBE is the communication with all beings in this world. In our days, we emphasize our characteristics, identities, and differences—ultimately, what makes us different to others, what we call ‘personality.’ We always fear (sometimes with a good reason) to be denied in our specificities because of our differences, that should be esteemed with legitimate respect. But we also have common points, similarities through which dialogue is facilitated. That is why I say, and even yell, through my body of work: “IF WE KNEW TO WHAT DEGREE WE ARE ALIKE, WE WOULD TALK MORE TO EACH OTHER.”

Guy Pierre Tur

Subway Pilgrimage




The Tribe of Delights