If you have friends that have vacationed in Mexico City, it is likely you may have glimpsed photos of a striking pink house on their Instagram feed. The taut geometric marvel is the vision of Luis Barragán, the Mexican poet among architects of the Modernist movement who worked with Louis Kahn. Those who have not heard of him should not be alarmed; access to his work is difficult to come by. Jill Magid’s documentary, The Proposal (2018), serves as an insightful primer on why that is, as well as providing an introduction to Magid’s own crafty work interrogating institutional and systemic powers. In 2002, when Amsterdam police forbade her from decorating CCTV cameras with rhinestones, she did so under the guise of an invented company, System Azure Security Ornamentation.
After the Pritzker-winning architect died in 1988, his works were largely divided between a personal archive, which became the Casa Barragán (co-owned by the Fundación de Arquitectura Tapatía and the Government of the State of Jalisco), and a professional archive acquired by the Swiss design company Vitra in 1995. According to rumors, Vitra’s president bought the $2.5 million collection of 13,500 drawings, 7,500 photos, 3,500 negatives, and more for his then-girlfriend Federica Zanco as a wedding gift in lieu of an engagement ring. Magid learned of the story while putting together an exhibition on Barragán, and faced by the difficulties of obtaining access to his work, started writing letters to Zanco, who maintains rigid control of both the archive and the circulation of photographs of the buildings. (Heinz Emigholz, a filmmaker whose work also concerns architecture, called it “active censorship perpetuated by capitalism.) The real life contents of their letters, read in voice-over throughout the film, is a guarded exchange. Magid’s requests have a sheen of flattery while Zanco’s responses are ones of measured politeness.
Barred from the Swiss archives, Magid heads to the Barragán residence in Mexico. We see her living in his main house in Mexico City, balancing the lofty work of imagining his routine and probing into his life and relationships with everyday living—painting her toenails and smoking cigarettes in the courtyard. Her human imprint—empty water bottles and an opened suitcase—mar the minimalist interiors with signs of habitation. At first glance, the journey feels dully introspective, nearly a demonstration of research and one artist's passion for another. But Magid’s schemes—like Barragán’s designs, which only become apparent as you navigate their premises—hold an element of surprise, each passage gradually revealing the larger plan. Behind the serene images and voice-over is a fiercely engrossing intellectual inquiry into legacy and what happens when it is co-opted by corporate interests. In an ingenious display of defiance, Magid, with permission from Barragan’s heirs, arranges to exhume the architect’s corpse and have his ashes crystallized into a two-carat diamond. The film will culminate in her offering Zanco the ring, in exchange for the return of the archive to Mexico. Applying a romantic narrative and establishing what Magid refers to as a “gothic love story,” or what some newspapers deemed a “sinister barter” or “ghoulish plot,” Magid illuminates the complexities of artistic ownership, access, and repatriation.
CONTOURS is a column developed by Saffron Maeve examining films that thematize the world of visual art: heists, biopics, documentaries, and experimental fare. Maeve also programs a screening series of the same name and premise at Paradise Theatre in Toronto.
The Proposal screens tomorrow afternoon, December 14, and on December 18, at Metrograph as part of the series “Absconded Art.” Director Jill Magid will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening on Wednesday.
