Gringo : July : August 2001 : September 2001 :

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Tijuana Gringo
Daniel's Journal	by Daniel Charles Thomas
25 July 2001 -- A Visit to the Tesoros de Margareta

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Behind the country club golf course, up in the twisting streets and gentle hills of Chapultepec, sits a huge shell of a house which has stood empty for over twenty years. One of the younger artists of Tijuana, Daniel Ruanova, tells how as a boy he and his friends would come to play in this abandoned mansion. They called it la casa embrujada -- the bewitched (haunted) house. This summer that huge French pile has been brought back to life: cleared out, cleaned up, its graffiti-scrawled concrete walls freshly plastered over and then hung with dozens upon dozens of artworks. Finally, everything was ready. The house was thrown open for a two-week festival of art titled Los Tesoros de Margareta.

Tonight this gringo has been invited to experience the closing event of that festival. I wander with my girlfriend Tere through the mansion's many rooms, mixing and chatting with the evening crowd of art & society. Overhead, above the gallery walls, steel beamed ceilings have been left open to view, creating a curiously blended feeling of industrial and palatial sensitivity.

Gustavo Cardenas, original architect of the house, is kind enough to describe the basic layout as it was planned for the owner twenty-five years ago. Upstairs were to be a series of bedroom suites, a gym, a sauna and spa, and several spacious bathrooms. Now, room after room, opening off the central stairwell balcony, reveal gallery after gallery of works by many Bajacalifornian and Mexican artists.

Downstairs, the entertainment room, bar, and servants' quarters have become a hall of hors d'oevres, wine and beer bars, and sales shop. Outside, in the garden under gentle evening skies, a jazz band plays to a sea of seats and tables, then breaks, promising to return for a second set after tonight's auction.

La subasta de arte -- the art auction -- takes place in what would have been the great sala -- living room -- and spills over into the adjoining comedor -- dining room -- as well as backing out into the foyer up the base of the grand staircase. This closing event of the festival stands to benefit both the artists and the Centro de Humanidades de Baja California -- a non-profit educational center. Work after work is offered for sale by artists both young and established such as Berrigan, Candidiani, Ortega, Ruanova, Ruiz, and, regretably, too many others to name here. One by one their pieces are shown, bid, then gaveled and sold to the crowd of patrons and art fans.

Meanwhile, sour grapes sitting in the sometime dining room, away from the main auction crown, Tere gets upset with me because I won't go to a movie with her tomorrow, the night before I must fly north to a funeral in Alameda. Threatens to never help me with contests again (meaning never translate or correct my Spanish). Thus the personal entangles with the social. Like our own little Dallas or Dynasty. I am such a petty fool to write this. But it is now I decide that hell will freeze over before I ask her again. Of course, according to Dante, the center of hell IS frozen. {*grin*}

Around eleven-thirty, the auction closes, and the live music begins again outside. Hot Brazilian, Mexican and Northamerican jazz echoes into the night.

Sometime tonight, Nina Moreno, noted artist, collector, and gallery owner, will be quoted by a local newspaper reporter that this ¨muy suave¨ experience is very much what would come to pass on a regular basis in Tijuana if only this city could establish a permanent museum of modern art.

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thomas@masinternet.zzn.com

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Copyright 2001 Daniel Charles Thomas