Just opened in May at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, DC, La Vida Entre Latidos, in collaboration with IBERO University, features the lush, high-definition photography anthological series of Mexican artist Miguel Milló (b. 1959). Best translated as “Life Between Heartbeats,” the show highlights strange and fragile figures that are the protagonists of the portraits. The personages represented are colorful, mysterious, and phantasmagorical. Each work is accompanied by a QR code that takes visitors via smartphone to abstract mini-fictions inspired by Milló’s photographs. These fictional vignettes were written by students from Mexico City’s Ibero-American University. According to the exhibition’s explicatory literature, the interplay of words and images “enhances the range of meanings” that Milló’s works convey. Indeed, the exuberant, glossy photos of subjects covered in a gaudy mix of dried plaster, flowers, and leaves—may be the stuff of dreams, nightmares, or even some especially trippy episode of The Mandalorian. That Milló ostensibly foregoes any digital technology to transform how his models appear makes his art feel doubly otherworldly. Each portrait invites us to enter a different, unknown world replete with its mythology, language, and symbolism. In these faraway realms, the rules of physics and chemistry are suspended. As the title of one of the pieces suggests, Es Agua, es Fuego, También es Luz , which means “It’s Water, it’s Fire, and It’s Also Light.” Another work, simply titled Mandrágora or Mandrake, seemingly refers to the legend of the mandrake root, a plant originating from the Mediterranean and said to possess magical properties. For Milló, the human body is a tabula rasa , or clean slate, and the actual creation of the art is itself a performance. Milló photographs his subjects only after hours of planning, preparation, trial, and error.  He seemingly becomes a type of pygmalion to his models, his Galateas.

Milló’s art is remarkably clever in speaking to our present moment and reminding us of how indebted contemporary society is to the Baroque style. From the present day, it may seem that talk of identity fluidity is a relatively recent phenomenon—a cultural novelty characteristic of, say, modernity, postmodernity, or late capitalism. Milló’s art illustrates how revolutionary Baroque art was and how rooted we remain in ideas that are, in fact, over 500 years old. Debates surrounding transgenderism, racial identities, and body transformation were already known to those living from 1500 to 1700. In his study of the Early Modern period, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare, literary critic Stephen Greenblatt describes how dramatically inventive artists of the day were, many of them carefully crafting their public personae. Thus, a 16th-century Spanish nun, Catalina de Erauso lived her (his) life as a male soldier. A Black slave, Juan de Pareja, was acknowledged by the Spanish Courts for his immense talents as a painter.  Finally, Queen Anne of Denmark donned blackface, transforming herself (albeit briefly and discriminatorily) into a Nigerian princess for the performance of playwright Ben Johnson’s The Masque of Blackness. The Baroque period constantly tested the limits of identity, especially in the Atlantic World. Milló’s art revives this spirit for contemporary times. 

Others have already pointed out how Milló’s work finds inspiration from the Baroque world. One particularly fruitful connection specifically links his art to that of Italian Giuseppe Arcimboldo, an artist who specialized in painting playfully syncretic portraits of lush viands. Milló, too, puts flora, fauna, and environmental elements front and center of his work. 

La Chula captures a svelte, pixie-like figure covered in colorful clay, exotic flowers in full bloom seeming to emanate from the model’s eyes as if some élan vital was rising from the depths of the mystical being’s soul. With Radiante, a halo of pointy leaves floats around a model’s bald head, traversing the figure’s face directly at eye level, thus giving the appearance of a celestial body. Where do the heavens end and the earth begin? What parts of the natural environment are supernatural? 

The term “Baroque” originated from Portuguese and is defined as “irregularly-shaped pearls”—something natural, beautiful, and imperfect. These were the guiding principles of early modernity. Perhaps there is even something deeply Baroque in our everyday consumer society. Milló’s art proposes nothing less.

In a city full of simultaneously expansive, free, and unabashedly patriotic museums, it’s only fitting that a small space like the Mexican Cultural Institute dedicated to Mexican culture may get lost in the shuffle. For those who know and love Mexico, stopping by the Institute is like a brief but remarkably pleasant visit to our southern neighbors. The Milló exhibit reminds us how playful identity can be.

La Vida Entre Latidos is slated to run through mid-August 2024 and should not be missed.

Dr. Kevin M. Anzzolin has been a Spanish lecturer at Christopher Newport University since 2021. His book, Guardians of Discourse: Literature and Journalism in Porfirian Mexico, was published by the University of Nebraska Press in May 2024. His research focused on the Mexican narrative from the 19th to 21st centuries, and other works have been published in journals including Letras Hispanas, Hispania, and Studies in Latin American Popular Culture. https://cnu.academia.edu/KevinAnzzolin