From the Real to the Imagined: Mexican Traces
November 26, 2008 – February 8, 2009
De lo verdadero a lo imaginado: Rastros Mexicanos highlights the work of Mexican and Mexican-American artists through selections culled from the UAMA permanent collections. Diverse and distinctive, the works range in style and subject, from social realism to magical fantasy to colorful abstraction.
The word “trace” carries many subtle connotations: as a noun, it suggests a track, a mark of passage, evidence of activity, thought or feeling; as a verb, it implies reproduction — through sketching, say, or reiteration — and the inclination to follow closely.
The 21 featured artists — ranging from renowned 20th-century masters to acclaimed contemporary talents — demonstrate inclinations and interests traced from the pre-Columbian period to the present, complicated and transformed by context, art historical influence, and individual style. The works on view suggest the vital importance of the human figure, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic depictions, and fantastical symbolism, as well as thematic emphases on daily life, indigenous culture, social and political realities, myth and fantasy, that mark continuity through the course of Mexican art.
Artists: Alfredo Castañeda, Enrique Chagoya, Alejandro Colunga, José Luis Cuevas, Rudy Fernandez, Gunther Gerzso, Maximino Javier, Luis Jimenez, Alfredo Ramos Martinez, Alfonso Mario Medina, Leopoldo Méndez, José Clemente Orozco, José Guadalupe Posada, Diego Rivera, Gustavo Ramos Rivera, Artemio Rodriguez, Cecilio Sanchez, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Rufino Tamayo, Nahum B. Zenil, and Francisco Zúñiga.
Curated by Lisa Fischman, Chief Curator, UAMA
Thursday, January 22nd, 4pm
Lecture about the influence of Pre-Columbian art on contemporary Mexican art by Dr. Stacie Widdifield, UA School of Art
Download the lecture announcement
