Sights in Oaxaca
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Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca
The beautiful monastery buildings adjoining the Iglesia de Santo Domingo house, the not-to-be-missed Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca. One of the best regional museums in Mexico, this takes you right through the history and cultures of Oaxaca state up to the present day. Explanatory material is in Spanish, but you can rent good audio guides in English for around $50. Also here is a good book and souvenir shop.
A gorgeous green-stone cloister serves as antechamber to the museum proper. The museum emphasizes the direct lineage between Oaxaca's pre-Hispanic and contemporary indigenous cultures, illustrating continuity in such areas as crafts, medicine, food, drink and music.…
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Palacio de Gobierno
On the south side of the Zócalo stands the former Palacio de Gobierno, a wonder of marble and murals that houses a lovely, modern Museo del Palacio. Its stairway mural by Arturo García Bustos depicts famous Oaxacans and Oaxaca history, including Benito Juárez and his wife, Margarita Maza, and José María Morelos, Porfirio Díaz, Vicente Guerrero (being shot at Cuilapan) and Juana Inés de la Cruz, a 17th-century nun and love poet. The exhibitions upstairs are stunningly modern and high tech, looking at Oaxacan (and indeed world) history with lots of hands-on displays for kids. It also houses the world’s largest tortilla!
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Museo Casa de Juárez
One of the few Mexican national heroes with an unsullied reputation, the great reforming president Benito Juárez (1806−72) was born a humble Zapotec villager in Guelatao, 60km northeast of Oaxaca. His parents died when he was three. At the age of 12, young Benito walked to Oaxaca and found work at the house of Antonio Salanueva, a bookbinder. Salanueva saw the boy's potential and decided to help pay for an education he otherwise might not have received.
Salanueva's simple house is now the interesting little Museo Casa de Juárez. The binding workshop is preserved, along with memorabilia of Benito.
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Museo Textil de Oaxaca
Of the many colonial-era museum renovations, this new textile museum is one of the city’s best, focusing on preserving Oaxaca’s traditional textile crafts through exhibitions, educational programs, bilingual lectures and weaving workshops. The elegant collection of global weaving traditions is world class. Entry, lectures and workshops are free, though some classes have a materials fee and a limit of 15 students. Travelers hunting for one of the region’s brilliant textile pieces should inquire here for advice on weavers who use sustainable methods and endangered natural fiber dying processes.
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Basílica de la Soledad
The image of Oaxaca’s patron saint, the Virgen de la Soledad (Virgin of Solitude), resides in the 17th-century Basílica de la Soledad, 3½ blocks west of the Alameda. The church, with a richly carved baroque facade, stands where the image is said to have miraculously appeared in a donkey’s pack in 1543. The Virgin was later adorned with enormous worldly riches – but lost her 2kg gold crown, a huge pearl and several hundred diamonds to thieves in the 1990s.
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Museo Rufino Tamayo
This top-class pre-Hispanic art museum was donated to Oaxaca by its most famous artist, the Zapotec Rufino Tamayo (1899−1991). In a fine 17th-century building, the collection focuses on the aesthetic qualities of ancient artifacts and traces artistic developments in preconquest times. It has some truly beautiful pieces and is strong on the pre-Classic era and lesser-known civilizations such as those of Veracruz and western Mexico.
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Jardín Etnobotánico
In former monastic grounds behind the Iglesia de Santo Domingo, this garden features plants from around the state, including a staggering variety of cacti. Though it has been growing only since the mid-1990s, it’s already a fascinating demonstration of Oaxaca’s biodiversity. Visits are by guided tour only; for English-language tours it’s a good idea to sign up a day or two beforehand.
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Iglesia de Santo Domingo
The gorgeous Santo Domingo is the most splendid of Oaxaca’s churches. It was built mainly between 1570 and 1608 as part of the city’s Dominican monastery, with the finest artisans from Puebla and elsewhere helping in its construction. Like other big buildings in this earthquake-prone region, Santo Domingo has immensely thick stone walls.
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La Curtiduría
A diverse cultural center founded in an old tannery by artist Demián Flores Cortés, La Curtiduría stages and facilitates contemporary art exhibits, classes, community projects and assorted events (including films, live music and dance), and runs an artist-in-residence program.
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Templo de San Felipe Neri
The 18th-century baroque Templo de San Felipe Neri is where Benito Juárez and Margarita Maza were married in 1843; Margarita was the daughter of Antonio Maza, an Italian immigrant merchant who took in the young Benito when he arrived in Oaxaca as a boy.
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Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca
Though partially closed at the time of research for major renovation, a colonial house built around 1700 holds Oaxaca’s contemporary art museum, exhibiting first-rate contemporary art from Oaxaca and beyond.
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Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca
Almost opposite Santo Domingo, in a beautiful colonial house donated by artist Francisco Toledo, this institute offers changing exhibitions of graphic art as well as a superb arts library.
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Teatro Macedonio Alcalá
The Teatro Macedonio Alcalá was built in 1903 in the elaborate French style that was fashionable under Porfirio Díaz. It has a marble stairway and a five-tier auditorium holding 1300 people.
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Cathedral
Oaxaca's Cathedral , begun in 1553 and finished (after several earthquakes) in the 18th century, stands just north of the Zócalo. Its main facade, facing the Alameda, features fine baroque carving.
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Iglesia de San Juan de Dios
Finely carved facades adorn the colonial Iglesia de San Juan de Dios. It is a beautiful small 17th-century church, on the site of Oaxaca’s first church (which was built in 1526).
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Centro Fotográfico Álvarez Bravo
With a taste for provocative social commentary, this recently rehabilitated contemporary photo exhibition center displays high-quality work by international photographers.
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Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños
Housed in a spacious two-story downtown building, the Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños stages changing exhibitions by the state’s best artists.
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Arte de Oaxaca
This sophisticated gallery provides a beautiful setting to enjoy a wide range of contemporary Oaxacan art. It includes a room devoted to Rodolfo Morales’ work.
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Galería Quetzalli
Oaxaca’s leading serious gallery, handling some of the biggest names, such as Francisco Toledo and Sergio Hernández.
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Bodega Quetzalli
This very large, open space features roughly one artist, usually avant-garde, per month.
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Arte Contemporáneo Manuel García
Exhibitions of delightfully avant-garde stuff by Mexican and international artists.
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Galería Epicentro
Gallery belonging to artist Marco Bustamante and displaying his and others' work.
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Iglesia de La Compañía
Finely carved facades adorn the colonial Iglesia de La Compañía.
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