Jimmie Durham
(c)image: Dirk Pauwels
The Spanish conquerer Cortez (Hernán Cortés), portrayed here by Durham as a metallic soldier made of objects and machine parts, pipes and a mask, was the lover of La Malinche and one of the first settlers in the American continent. According to the artist, “Tzvetan Todorov tried to explain that Cortez became a modern man by the curious intention of discovering (and therefore conquering) America, unlike Columbus who intended only to prove that his previous knowledge was correct (and therefore force the New World to be old)” [full text here]