Jamie Martinez: The Shadow of Colonialism at GHOSTMACHINE

 Installation view, Jamie Martinez: The Shadow of Colonialism at Ghostmachine Gallery, New York, 2024. Image courtesy of Ghostmachine Gallery.

By JONATHAN GOODMAN May 30, 2024

Jamie Martinez is currently showing a politically focused exhibition in the space called GHOSTMACHINE, located deep in the Lower East Side. The exhibition, curated by Emireth Herrera Valdés, consisted, most prominently, of a facsimile of Christopher Columbus. Created as a 15-foot blowup of the explorer, the plastic replica of the so-called “discoverer” of the New World inflates and then deflates, performing on its own throughout the exhibition. He also shows a series of trapped embellished conquistador books and a few clay sculptures to complete the story.

Stuck in a tight wall in the gallery space, the effigy of The Rise and Fall of Christopher Columbus (2024), undergoes various indignities–collapsing on the floor, getting wedged in one of the wall’s corners, bouncing off the ceiling, bumping into the lights and deflating to the point where the figurative balloon’s facial features become deformed, unreadable. This is precisely what Martinez wanted to express–namely, a devaluing of the Columbus myth that would reveal the imperial absurdity of a colonizer known entirely mistakenly as a cultural hero and benefactor. The most symbolic part of the work is the deflation of Colonialism itself, as he towers over the space, slowly gasping for air, struggling to stay inflated and relevant. 

Jamie Martinez, The Rise and Fall of Christopher Columbus, 2024, vinyl, thread, acrylic paint, timer/remote control, and air blower, H 15 feet x W 9 feet x D 7.5 feet. Image courtesy of Ghostmachine Gallery 
 

This point of view not only accurately represents the feelings of many Americans and Natives around the continent. It also is historically correct. Martinez is determined to reveal the false myth. Several of the other objects, set on replica plantain leaves, are books trapping Columbus’s and Cortes’s disingenuous narratives; they are reworked with other materials that turn the traditional stories in the “cons” they are by reclaiming the narrative.

For example, in The Big CON–Conquistador: Hernán Cortés, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs, by Buddy Levy (2024), Martinez takes a recently published book and covers it with non-fired clay, acrylic paint, polyurethane, and natural green fluorite. The book is transformed into an object, so its physical status, as a description of military and cultural domination on Cortés’s part, becomes as important as its message. Moreover, the piece literally glows in the dark, the result of Martinez’s use of the fluorite.

Jamie Martinez, The Big CON - Conquistador: Hernán Cortés, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs by Buddy Levy, 2024, purchased book covered with non-fired clay, acrylic paint, natural green fluorite, glue, polyurethane, H 12” x W 8.5” x D 3”

In the moving work Embellished Crosses, made in 2024 of green aventurine on wood, Martinez establishes, quite literally, a graveyard for the ruined indigenous culture of the three whitish crosses on a black background. The dimensions of the work are small, but the meaning is clear: mourning needs to occur in the face of loss–of land, of culture, of the indigenous natives themselves.

 Installation view, Jamie Martinez: The Shadow of Colonialism at Ghostmachine Gallery, New York, 2024. Image courtesy of Ghostmachine Gallery.

Originally from Colombia, Martinez moved to New York with his family and has been working as an artist for some time now. This piece harkens back, in a general fashion, to the hardship of Native peoples in the face of Spanish expansionism. Martinez is as displeased as if it happened yesterday; he is right to retain his indignation in the face of centuries of violence, neglect, and contempt. His blowup of Columbus is absurd, but then the American adoration of the man is absurd, given the terrible period of exploitation he began. By turning histories of the problem into sculptures, suddenly, the problem is turned into something permanent, as the terrible historical narrative should be. We are thus made aware, by virtue of Martinez’s sharp transformations, that history can be the substance of art–but only if it tells an undeniable truth. WM