Mexico 2018 - Museo de Zacatecas/Museo Pedro Coronel

The Museo de Zacatecano houses many artifacts from the city's history 

but what was of particular interest to us was the display of Huichol art.  

I've blogged about this indigenous group and their unusual art before and the collection of it in this museum is really exceptional.  In one part of the exhibit, you are invited to step into a little enclosure where, what is intended to replicate the peyote experience through a video, is shown on the ceiling.  Here are some clips from that video, so, put your computer in to full screen mode, lay back and trip out.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SLN6BtWuCw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwfEUYjbmvQ

Classic Huichol textiles

Pedro Coronel was a well known and innovative Mexican painter and sculptor who was born in Zacatecas.  Influenced by the muralists like Diego Rivera and particularly, Rufino Tamayo, his art diverged into abstract realms and gained notoriety throughout Mexico, the US and Europe.  Shortly before his death, he donated his personal collection to the state and this museum was created in a former Jesuit College to display the amazing works he collected from all over the world.  Everything from African and Asian art to the European masters, originals by Picasso, Chagall, Max Ernst, etc, a room of small Goya etchings, ancient artifacts from around the Mediterranean and Mesoamerica.  

 Bullfight inspired etchings by Goya

 

And from Africa:

Next stop: the museum of Pedro's brother, Raphael Coronel

Mexico 2018 - Zacatecas

In both February and March, there are a lot of festivals and holidays in Guanajuato (and in Mexico in general) culminating in Semana Santa.  The city seems to fill up more with each long weekend and almost every weekend seems to be a long weekend.  Then we saw that the annual car rally was looming and knew that it would bring a lot of weekend visitors and a lot of car noise so we thought it might be a good time for that visit to Zacatecas we had been talking about.  I've been to Zacatecas a couple of times in the past and I like the city.  Some five hours north on the bus, Zacatecas is the capital city of the state by the same name.  Like Guanajuato, it is a UNESCO site, a former silver mining city, blessed with a lovely colonial core, and a city with an abundance of art and culture.  In fact, Zacatecas has the most museums per capita of any city in Mexico.  Several famous Mexican artists are from Zacatecas and have fostered the flourishing of arts there.  Brothers Raphael and Pedro Coronel, each notable artists, have museums in their names filled with their collections of astonishing art from around the world.  But I'll come back to them.  The first one we visited was the Museo de Francisco Goitia.  Goitia was an artist working in the same period as the famous muralists but was much lesser known, a reclusive and difficult person.  He nonetheless left some great works, a few of which are on display in this museum, enough so that there was a museum named after him. The building and the grounds are probably the most noteworthy part of the place; the art was so-so with the exception of Goitia's pieces which were very good.  

 

 The grounds around the museum and the park below it are beautifully tended, lush and green in contrast to the arid landscape.

This aqueduct was built in the early 19th century and functioned until the 1920s.

On to the next museum shortly

Mexico 2018 - Cervantes/Guanajuato

Guanajuato has had a relationship with Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, since the mid-twentieth century when short plays called entremesis, written by Cervantes, were performed around town in plazas and parks.  This small initiative became popular, got state funding and soon turned into the Festival Internacional Cervantino, a three week long festival with thousands of performers from around the world.  So, naturally, there is a Cervantes museum there and gallery containing a lot of Don Quixote/Cervantes related artwork as well as some temporary shows. 

In addition to the art museum, the space is used every evening for different cultural events, e,g, Mondays are free movie nights, Thurs is music, there are talks on other nights, and so forth. 

Mexico 2018 - Guanajuato 2

There are a few venues around Guanajuato that exhibit contemporary art.  One of these is attached to the University of Guanajuato (UG) and shows the works of Mexican artists, many of them local.  Since this particular show coincided with the annual horror film festival, it had a somewhat macabre slant.  

Nancy and I signed up for yoga classes held on this rooftop space of the beautiful Casa Cuatro.  A pretty nice environment for yoga.

 This is our view while doing poses:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24DwQilXok8

Cacti seen on our first hike of the year with Paul and Lisa in Guanajuato

 

Mexico 2018 - Back in Guanajuato

It was an inauspicious beginning in Guanajuato for me this year.  For the first time since I started coming to Guanajuato, I had agreed to staying in a different place than usual.  The usual is Casa Bertha.  The location is great, it's not very expensive and there's usually a good social scene there.  That's where I met Nancy in fact. But this year some friends of ours discovered a new place and convinced Nancy and I to book one of the apartments there so we could be their neighbours for this winter's stay.  Then it developed that the friends wouldn't be joining us until much later than originally planned, he, probably not at all.  From the very first introduction, I did not get good vibes about this place.  It was an old home quite near Casa Bertha, just a little closer to the action down in the centro.  The owners live in Celaya, a larger industrial town a couple of hours away, and they wanted a retreat in Guanajuato so bought this old run down house and did a major renovation, creating four apartments.  They did do quite a remarkable job on the reno but there were some things they couldn't change, like the night club nearby, or the fact that you could hear everyone going by.  The noise at night was appalling.  Even with windows closed up and good earplugs in place, sleep was difficult.  Not only that, but my apt was, was less than satisfying. And I had two weeks there on my own until Nancy joined me. I put up with that for a while until I could change to a bit nicer room but the noise was still horrendous. The day after Nancy joined me there, we both got up from a sleepless night and had the same thought:  go to Casa Bertha and see what they could offer.  Originally we had booked our entire time in Guanajuato at the new place but I realized right away that that wouldn't work so I had already booked our usual room in Casa Bertha for March but we wanted out of our present accommodations immediately.  Turns out they had a room for us that would do until our room of choice opened up.  So we happily bailed. It was great to get back to Casa Bertha.  I know the people there and felt comfortable.  I did notice that, even there, the noise level was higher than in previous years.  It seems that Guanajuato has been discovered in a big way and was overrun by tourists.  And what was strange, despite the increased number of tourists, Casa Bertha was pretty dead and the usual travelers didn't show up.  So, despite the fact that it is still a lovely little gem of a city, the days there were long and often boring.  That's not to say that it was terrible and we did have some nice experiences there but probably wouldn't go back for any sort of extended stay. 

Before Nancy got there, when I was hanging out on my own, I met Arnold, a bicycle tourist from Holland, it turned out.  I was admiring his bike and got to 
chatting.  He was cycling from the northern most point of Alaska to Patagonia, then across New Zealand and finally across Australia.  Camping most of the time.  This is remarkable enough on it's own but, the fact that Arnold is an albino, makes it even more remarkable.  I didn't realize it, but vision problems are characteristic of albinism.  I knew about the sun sensitivity but Arnold has only about 15% vision.  The irises vibrate so his vision is blurry and can't be corrected.  

I wound up taking Arnold under my wing for a couple of days, found him a room at Casa Bertha and fed him.  He was on a very tight budget so I was happy to be able to feed him well and show him around.  I enjoyed the companionship and I hope he enjoyed a break from his spartan lifestyle.  

Photos from around town:

 The Normal School

 University of Guanajuato

 

Mexico 2018 - more CDMX wanderings

More random scenes wandering around the city.  

Frontón México Gran Casino

 A big demonstration for the rights of the "campesinos", those who work in agriculture.  This was not the first time I ran into big demonstrations by this same group.

 People come from near and far to participate.

 Impromptu restaurant for the demonstrators

 Vendors in place, selling to the demonstrators.  Wherever there's a crowd.  

On a different note:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfubVRhhbEk

This little video is of a ubiquitous occurrence in CDMX, trucks that drive around soliciting for your unwanted appliances and furnishings:  mattresses, furniture, microwaves, etc.  They all use the exact same recording to broadcast their presence.  

That just about does Mexico City.  After a wonderful month there, it was time to move on to Guanajuato.