Speech for "Homage to Mariana Yampolsky"


My dear Mariana,

It’s you, with the clear heart, your gaze is a prism of your thought, of your feelings, in hundreds of images
taken throughout time with which you build the mosaic of your history every day. 

Your gaze touches, creates, and documents – with the force of your name, - our multiple realities. It’s 
you, my friend, the one committed with time, with your people; the one who holds her head high for her
deep Mexico, no matter the sacrifices or the vicissitudes.

I see you in your study, you work on the plank, you make ridges on the wood’s vein. I watch you, your
hands hold the tools skillfully; maybe you are engraving the 1958 railway movement, denouncing repression,
or demanding – in your own way – liberty for Demetrio Vallejo. I see you are excited, you ink the plate and
place it in the mechanical press that was said to have served the “comuneros” in Paris, in 1871. I see you
leaving the Popular Graphics Workshop building hastily, the engravings in your hands not yet dry, into 
Nezahualcóyotl  street to carpet the roads of Mexico City with your gaze.

My dear Mariana, you gave something unvaluable to Mexico. We treasure the value of your work: the
engravings you did in the Popular Graphics Workshop, the illustrations for the National Free Text Book
Committee, the publication of Lo efímero y lo eterno del arte popular mexicano,  coedited with your
lifetime friend Leopoldo Méndez.

Children always found a generous space in your heart. You published the Colibrí collection for them,
where you assembled important writers, illustrators, artists, designers, and photographers.

You have published an enormous amount of books. Just to remind you of a few, I name La imagen de
Zapata, 1979. Imaginación y realidad, 1980. El ciclo mágico de los días, 1980. Diego
Rivera y los frescos de la Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1980. Francisco Toledo. 1981. 
Juguetes mexicanos, 1981. 

Among your photographic production books are: La casa que canta, La casa en la tierra, 
La raíz y el camino, Tlacotalpan, Estancias del olvido, Mazahua, Imagen y
memoria. All these publications have a view from the heart.

I see you travelling the roads of Mexico in the beginning of the century, when you collaborated in the edition
of Salvador Toscano’sfilm material to make the film Memorias de un mexicano

Your integrity is in your images that arise emotions, clear images we receive in perfect balance between
reason, feeling, and beauty.

I feel lucky to know you and be your friend; I honestly don’t remember when we first met, I feel like I have
known you forever.

In my memory I keep instants and scenes that become alive with the least of efforts:

 
Remeber when I saw you walking in the streets of Tlacotalpan, Veracruz, together with your dear 
friend Elena Poniatowska? You were taking pictures with the medium format camara you always 
carried with you.
Or when you arrived with Arjen to celebrate mi marriage to Angeles in Puebla’s Northern Sierra,
and we danced guapango two days long
When we travelled to N.Y. to the opening of a collective exhibition. I remember that during the 
trip you were restless because it had been long before you returned to the United States. It was said
that at some point you were on the American government’s black list for your work in the Popular
Graphics Workshop
I remember when the Mexican photographers’ collective exhibition was opened in ICP, N.Y.; later,
we were invited to a restaurant to celebrate. You looked happy during dinner, joking with 
Cornell Capa.
I also remember you sitting with your family at the dinner table in Thanksgiving, during that same trip.
When I had doubts or when I wanted to publish my work, your way of thinking and your wise gaze 
guided me
Do you remember when we went with a group of young photographers from the integral workshop of
the Image 
Center to visit you? You wore white gloves to show us your fine copies, describing every image.
When you performed the guardianship of the photography exhibition to commemorate 150 years of 
photography in 
Mexico..
Whenever we got together, you told me about your constant concern for the country’s social 
situation, and the financial difficulties photographers face to develop projects and live with dignity with
our work.
When your great exhibition was opened in the Image Center
When you told me about the proposal of selling your photographic record to an institution in the United
States. You decided to leave the record with us.
  

Mariana, thank you for sharing, for existing and being inside of us; thank you for your teachings, your books,
your memories. Remeber we will always be together through the “eye enchanted by your magic”.

Sincerely,

Marco Antonio Cruz.