THE EXPRESIDENTS ARE SURFERS
Woodcut printed on cotton paper
2015
50 x 50 cm
Installation of seven woodcuts printed on cotton paper
Edition seven copies
Point Break is a 1991 film directed by Kathryn Bigelow starring Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves, where the latter plays a detective investigating a case of bank robberies perpetrated by a group of thieves who operate using masks of former US presidents. In this film there is a famous scene where this character screams the "Ex-presidents are surfers!" when he realizes that the assailants are tanned.
This made me think of Jorge Serrano Elias, the author of the so-called "Serranazo", a self-coup perpetrated in 1993 in which this political character tried to dissolve the Guatemalan Congress, thus violating the Constitution of the Republic. After embezzling 143 million quetzals from the state, he escaped to Panama with an estimated $2.3 million and has resided there for 23 years with total impunity, probably enjoying the beaches and thoroughbred horse farms.
That phrase "Ex-presidents are surfers" reminds me that Guatemala's history is so absurd that most of our ex-presidents can actually enjoy life as ordinary surfers.
These woodcut portraits taken in 2015 represent the seven former presidents who have ruled Guatemala since the supposed restoration of democracy: Marco Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo, Jorge Antonio Serrano Elias, Ramiro de Leon Carpio, Alvaro Enrique Arzu Irigoyen, Alfonso Portillo, Oscar Jose Rafael Berger Perdomo and, until then, when the series was created, Álvaro Colom Caballeros.
In 2019, given the confusing political climate in the country, I decided to have the series reprinted en masse and asked several urban collectives to help me paste them up on the streets of Guatemala City, as posters.
