Mexico 2019 - Chopo Museum, Another Ciclovia, random stuff

El Chopo museum is a museum of contemporary art and is a part of the Nantional Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM.  It was originally designed as a pavilion for an art and textile exhibition in 1902 in Dusseldorf, Germany.  After the exhibition was over it was purchased by a Mexican, disassembled and brought to Mexico and reassembled.  In 1975 it was purchased by UNAM and is used as a centre for contemporary art, music, film, dance and lectures.  There was a nice exhibition on the hippie movement in Mexico complete with tabloid reports of drugs, sex and rock n' roll and Mexican covers of American rock at a Dick Clark type TV show with go-go dancers and the whole shtick. Wooly Bully in Spanish is a hoot   Here are some photos of the building.

Another Ciclovia

Bicycle built for 12

 Services for your body and/or your bike

 The route I took on this Ciclovia was quite long and much of it was on half of a big highway that ran through a part of the city, a huge expanse of road just for us.  Even a tunnel.

 Here are a couple from Chapultepec Park that I falsely announced in the last post.

Fountain of Nezahualcoyotl (a philosopher, warrior, architect, poet and ruler of the city-state of Texcoco in pre-Columbian era Mexico.

And finally, is it Worksafe?

Mexico 2019 - Soumaya, Jumex, Chapultepec

Another day, another art museum.  This time to the Jumex Museum in the tony Polanco neighbourhood.  I've posted about this museum before.  The museum operates under the auspices of the Jumex (mega juice company) Foundation.  Their collection is one of the most important in Latin America and the exhibitions at the museum are always cutting edge.  I didn't take a lot of pictures there as the exhibitions didn't lend themselves to photography.  One was Scripted Reality: The Life and Art of Television.  To quote from the wedsite: Exploring TV’s rich and varied history through installation, performance, painting and video, the artists of Scripted Reality present television as object, medium and subject.

Could Be (An Arrow): A reading of la Colección Jumex
Again quoting: Could Be (An Arrow) explores the way in which a series of women artists have sought to interrogate and, in some cases, subvert the traditional canons of image production in art. There were some very interesting works in this exhibition including a video piece that I particularly liked by a Canadian visual artist, Moyra Davey, a largely biographical piece that dwelt on Mary Wollenstonecraft, an English writer,  philosopher and advocate for women's rights in the 1700s and the mother of Mary Shelly.  Her works greatly influenced what we consider to be the modern feminist movement.  Sorry, no photos.  But there were some good photo ops of a stairwell and Carlos Slim's Soumaya Museum next door.

And random shots:

Mexico 2019 - Tamayo Museum

The Museo Rufino Tamayo is a public museum opened in 1981 and created originally to house the collection of the beloved Mexican artist, Rufino Tamayo, and to promote twentieth century art.  

 There were two major exhibitions there on my visit in February, the first being:  Nancy Spero: Paper Mirror.  She is an American artist whose work centers around social themes, feminism, war, isolation.

 The other exhibit was of works by Germán Venegas, a Mexican painter and wood carver.  His later works are infused by his interest in Buddhism.

 A ride through Chapultepec Park on the way home from the museum

 These big trees, like the one in the foreground and across the lake, are known as Montezuma bald cypress and are the national tree of Mexico.

Mexico 2019 - National Museum of Art

Here's another post for those of you with an interest in art.  All but the last two paintings are by an artist new to me, Carlos Mérida who (1891 - 1985), a Guatemalan artist who was one of the first to fuse European modern painting to Latin American themes, especially those related to Guatemala and Mexico.  I don't know how representative these paintings are as he was known more for his non-figurative, geometric work as shown in some of the works.  In any case, I liked the composition and colour.  

There was also a large exhibit of paintings by Saturnino Herrán (1887 - 1918), also new to me.  While I was not especially moved by his works he was an important figure in Mexican art history.  He's the word from Wikipedia: 
On top of being a professor, Herrán was an activist for modern art, a muralist, book illustrator, draughtsman, and stain glass colorist. While his work had influence from Mexico, Spain, and Catalan it did not fully break away from the traditional European style he was trained to paint in. Herrán, being of mixed descent himself (indigenous Mexican/Swiss), he recognized the multitude of races Mexico embodied, and painted people in natural habitats, capturing their strength, dignity, and inherent beauty. This realization was a part of a movement called ‘indigenismo’.

The building itself is also an endless source of beauty.

Mexico 2019 - Kandinsky

At the Bellas Artes when I arrived in CDMX there was a big Kandinsky exhibit.  Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was a Russian artist and art theorist credited with pioneering abstract art.  This was the first showing of his art in Mexico and it was very well attended with long lines at the busiest times.  

 In an alcove surrounded on three sides by Kandinsky murals, this fellow played classical pieces which he introduced.  Unfortunately my Spanish wasn't up to the task but I've learned that the pieces were by composers such as Wagner, Rachmaninoff and Schöenberg.  He played beautifully and it was a treat even for a non-classical music buff like me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzY9brglClU&feature=youtu.be

And something completely different down the street

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvTTtv2eM4c&feature=youtu.be