Vampiros vegetarianos

Remedios Varo

It must be Sinners effect, but I have Remedios Varos’s Vampiros vegetarianos (1962) on my mind. I loved the film - it’s combination of lore, sensuality, love, desire and the supernatureal appealing to all my sensibilities (once an Anne Rice girl, always an Anne Rice girl) and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since seeing it on Good Friday (appropriate). Anyway, let’s talk about Remy.

I have written about Remedios a few times for this newsletter, like here, here, and here, but there is something so fun and joyful about her trio of vegetarian vampires gathered around a table supping from their individual portions of fruit - which seems to replenish not only them, but their entire auras - as their kind-looking leashed chicken/feline hybrids wait patiently at their feet (Varo loved cats and frequently painted them). Returning to the roots of Surrealism, Susan Aberth has noted that “like in a stereotypical Parisian café, two pampered pets on gossamer-thin leashes patiently sit under the chairs. These whimsical creatures, half rooster and half cat, are pictorial relatives of the many hybrid creatures featured in the paintings of the surrealist Leonora Carrington, Varo’s closest friend in Mexico.” (And another cat lover).

The colours of Vampiros vegetarianos are similar to the palette Varo used for La Llamada (The Call) which she painted one year earlier in 1961, fiery hues and sunshine rays. The angular, sharply slender faces of the figures of Vampiros vegetarianos are almost skeletal, and bear a resemblance to the Calaveras of Mexico’s Día de los Muertos celebrations. However, as with all of Varos work, her protagonists - whatever realm they come from - are never a threat, and always appear gentle, sweetly dispositioned, and kind; they may sometimes be mischievous, but they never intend to cause harm. And they are always mysterious. Here, the trios headgear appears to have wings, something that is a play on Mercury’s winged helmet but with but bats wings replacing birds’ wings. As Aberth notes, “birds, bats, wings, flying creatures of all sorts are a staple in Varo’s work, often hinting at flights of fancy and mystical ascendancy.”

Varo passed away from a heart attack in 1963 aged 54, and in 1962 - the year of the painting - she had her second one-woman show at the Galería Juan Martín in Mexico City. The overwhleming success of the exhibiton saw her inundated with work and praise, and as Janet Kaplan noted, it came at a price. This long-awaited success during her fifties, as Aberth has said, “was tempered with increasing anxiety about her health and aging.”

While the fruits on the table and the scene has drawn comparisons to Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights and the vital energies existing in all living entities, there is something more fun that we can note: the tomatoes on the table are the main ingredients in sangrita, a popular Mexican mixer that when combined with with tequila, it makes a drink known as Vampiros Mexicanos. Vampiros Mexicanos was a favorite cocktail of Carrington, and as Aberth says, “one can imagine her and Varo drinking Vampiros Mexicanos as they merrily planned one of their many naughty hijinks.”