Art sights in Mexico
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A
Teatro Juárez
Worthy on the art front is the large mural showing the history of Tamaulipas in the lobby of the Teatro Juárez.
reviewed
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B
Santuario de Nuestra Señora del Carmen
The Santuario de Nuestra Señora del Carmen - facing the small plaza on the corner of Av Juárez and 8 de Julio - is lovely with lots of gold leaf, old paintings and murals in the dome.
reviewed
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Historia de México
The large Abelardo Rodríguez public market, east of the Zócalo, became a canvas for a group of young international artists in the 1930s under the tutelage of Diego Rivera (he paid them 13.5 pesos per square meter). One of the most intriguing (and best preserved) works, created by Japanese artist Isama Noguchi, is a dynamic three-dimensional mural sculpted of cement and plaster that symbolizes the struggle against fascism. It’s located in the community center, upstairs from the northeast corner of the market.
reviewed
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C
El Agua, el Origen de la Vida
Diego Rivera painted this series of murals, Fuente de Tláloc, for the inauguration of the Chapultepec water works (near Lago Menor). These were built in the 1940s to channel the waters of the Río Lerma, 62km west, into cisterns to supply the city. Experimenting with waterproof paints, Rivera covered the collection tank, sluice gates and part of the pipeline with images of amphibious beings and workers involved in the project. Though technically only open Saturdays, the guard can sometimes be persuaded to let you in, for a tip.
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Universidad Autónoma de Chapingo Chapel
Between 1925 and 1927, Diego Rivera painted murals for the Universidad Autónoma de Chapingo, an agriculture school just outside Texcoco that occupies the estate buildings of a former hacienda. Two dozen of Rivera’s panels cover the walls and ceiling of the hacienda chapel These sensual tableaux intertwine images of the Mexican struggle for agrarian reform with the earth’s fertility cycles. One depicts buried martyrs of reform symbolically fertilizing the land and thus the future. The curator will give you a brief description (in Spanish) of the murals upon request.
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D
Mercado Abelardo Rodríguez
The Mercado Abelardo Rodríguez, northeast of the Zócalo, became a canvas for a group of young international artists under the tutelage of Diego Rivera in the 1930s. Some of the most exuberant works, created by the American Greenwood sisters, cover the stairwell leading up to the community center, at the market’s northeast corner. On the 1st floor, Historia de México, by the Japanese artist Isama Noguchi, is a dynamic three-dimensional mural sculpted of cement and plaster that symbolizes the struggle against fascism. Other murals inside the market’s entry corridors are paeans to rural laborers and their traditions, though sadly some are fading from neglect.
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E
Secretaría de Educación Pública
The two front courtyards (on the opposite side of the building from the entrance off Plaza Santo Domingo) of the newly established Secretaría de Educación Pública are lined with 120 fresco panels painted by Diego Rivera in the 1920s. Together they form a tableau of ‘the very life of the people,’ in the artist’s words. Each courtyard is thematically distinct: the one on the east end deals with labor, industry and agriculture, while the interior one depicts traditions and festivals. On the latter’s top level is a series on proletarian and agrarian revolution, underneath a continuous red banner emblazoned with a Mexican corrido (folk song). The likeness of Frida…
reviewed
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F
Suprema Corte de Justicia
The Suprema Corte de Justicia, south of the Zócalo, has Orozco murals. In 1940 the artist painted four panels around the first level of the central stairway, two of which deal with the theme of justice. A more contemporary take on the same subject, Los Siete Crímenes Mayores (The Seven Worst Crimes), by Rafael Cauduro, unfolds over the three levels of the building’s southwest stairwell. Executed in his hyperrealist style, the series catalogs the horrors of state-sponsored crimes against the populace, including the ever-relevant torture-induced confession. On the southeast corner of the building’s interior, Ángel Ismael Ramos Huitrón’s En Busqueda de la Justicia…
reviewed