VBS.TV Blog

MY FRIEND MIKI

July 27, 2009
by SEBASTIAN HOFMANN

Art Talk

• Art
• Culture
• Latin America

Miki Guadamur has been destroying the Mexican Art underground for over ten years now. One could even say he is the Mexican Art underground, though that might be a little tacky. Nevertheless, many successful artists and musicians now freely admit being influenced by him at some point. But Miki hates his past and claims that if he could erase it all he would. Talking to him you sense a bit of guilt for starting certain trends in performance art that have gone 180 degrees and are now the commercial mainstream. 

When I first met Miki I was already a big fan of his. I remember listening to his first vinyl LP and imagining making a music video for it. Back then he used to sell his crap at garage sales and sometimes galleries. He would sit by his stand with a bitter face and watch people buy parts of his collection of cereal box toys, magnets, old magazines, and comic books. Miki is the greatest collector I know and if you are lucky enough to visit his home you will have a hard time going through all the stuff he has accumulated over the years. Miki has gotten into verbal fights with most of the curators he has worked with, his record label, as well as the publishing company responsible for the distribution of his first novel Generation Mex. 

Miki reminds me of Andy Kaufman in the way that you never know is he’s being serious. He runs everywhere because he hates transportation. I used to live in downtown Mexico city and it would take him about four hours to run from his house to mine. Then back at around four or five in the morning. We would talk for hours until I was starving then we’d go to a 24-hour chinese diner and he would only ask for bread and sugar. He fills half a glass with sugar and eats it using a spoon. For him eating is not a pleasurable thing but rather a task he most force on himself to keep functioning. I can only compare his diet with that of Robocop’s. He eats a lot of puree just to get the essential vitamins and calories to make into energy. For the past four years I have been working on a documentary about him and his work. I have only come so close to getting to know him. Unlike most artists in Mexico who claim to be the crazies and the eccentrics, Miki is the real deal. He just says he will die within the next few years. I want to be there when it happens.