María Kodama, Chairman to  the “Fundación Internacional Jorge Luis Borges” 

(With the interview de Cristina Castello)

What was art to us? The magic possibility of perceiving reality through sounds, colours, through weavings that, transformed by creative alchemy, offer the mirage of a different reality.

It was the shared emotion, because you knew, when at the foot of the Louvre steps I rose my eyes and discovered the Samotracia Victory, that in that moment, voiding time, the image of an art book leaf given to me by my father was overlapping this sculpture. With this book, without me being conscious of it, he gave me, at the age of four, the first aesthetics lesson in my life. He taught me beauty. I remember how, because of my disappointment at the figure having no head, no face, with infinite patience he told me to watch the tunic’s folds waving under the sea breeze. Stopping this movement, towards eternity, that sea breeze, that was beauty.  Art, and only art could manage this.

I never forgot; this someway marked my life, and forwarded itself in what was to be our relation. Our lee relation, travelling through different facets as time went by, till it grew into the love that dwelt in us much before you ever mentioned it to me, or I was aware of my feelings.

This love, that once discovered, was unquenchable passion, filling in the vague, incomprehensible childhood feeling I lived when someone translated to me a poem you wrote to a woman you loved before I was born. You wrote to this woman:

I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart;

I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.

This love that left its footprints throughout your books, without telling me, till you revealed it to me in Iceland. This guarded love, as in the “Völsunga Saga”, thanks to a magic fire circle , whose light guarded us from unwanted watchers,  allowing us to be Ulrica and Javier Otárola, names I choose, among the many we called each other,  to carve in the stone marking the spot from whence you soul dived into the Great Sea, as Florentines would call death; but as well, mark our meeting. Though it might seem a paradox, life and death are not opposite signs, but an only flow, and love is the link between who leaves and who remains.

This is why, when I was shown the project of a painting exhibition on the works you dedicated me, I was afraid of the materialisation your words would undergo when blended into inspiration motives for other creators.  Still, I thought about the dept moments we lived at the museums, throughout the world,  and concluded that perhaps this could be a marvellous alchemy  extolling  a Love blindly sought by two still nameless souls, that were, are and shall be a man and a woman,  Tristan and Isolda, Dante & Beatriz, Frieda Kahlo & Rivera, Ulrica & Javier Otárola, names little matter so long as in their meeting they feel they belong to each other with the unquenchable passion flame that not only never ends, but bestows strength  to feel that, even in hell, as Paolo and Francesca,  this punishment is not terrible because it is shared. For those who love, even hell is an illusion, as the world itself is, because only they exist.

This non inheritable and non payable dynasty is a challenge  and a gift that must be kept throughout our life time and beyond centuries, through art’s magic.

From the heart of our secret garden rises this flame, belonging to lovers’ dynasty. From our meeting onwards,  thanks to the pre agreed star movement, or, should we rather have it, to luck, the invisible chain is linked, that, carried on by art or by the sole fact of living, shall manage that future generations will, in spite of all,  keep on believing in Universe’s harmony.

This flame I hope shall bee a spotlight whose rays reaching the unthinkable limits of the world, so that if anything remains of the human soul, it shall reach you, and you shall feel that this flame, built on love, faithfulness, passion, that once we shared,  is alive in me for you "for ever and ever ...and a day”

* María Kodama, to Jorge Luis Borges.

This letter was published en “De Borges a María Kodama”

Homage at the Centro Cultural Recoleta.

From November the 30^th. To December the 24^th., 1995

It included works of 42 plastic artists, who worked on Borges’ texts.

Translation: Patricio Doyle  doylepatricio@arnet.com.ar