Mexican art exhibit rides country's film success
Fri Feb 23, 2007 7:07pm ET

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A group of Mexican artists is hoping to emulate the success of the country's filmmakers by showcasing cutting-edge works in an exhibit set to tour the United States.

The mixed-media collection features new works by established and a new breed of Mexican and Mexican-American artists that reflect the rising profile of Mexican-inspired art in the United States and other countries.
The exhibit follows the success of the "three amigos" of Mexican filmmaking -- directors Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Guillermo Del Toro, whose films "Children of Men," "Babel," and "Pan's Labyrinth" feature heavily at this year's Oscars.

"It is a very exciting time for Mexican art right now whether you are talking about visual art or in film," one of the exhibit's artists, Jorge Rojas, told Reuters.
"Mexican art is definitely popular right now and very hot especially in the States."
The exhibit, titled "Nuevo Arte," displays pieces including painted canvas, blown glass and a variety of mixed media installations using teacups and drums made from hubcaps. The exhibit, which closed this month in New York, opens on March 16 in Houston and then travels to Chicago and Los Angeles.
The collection is sponsored by Tequila Don Julio -- owned by the Diageo company -- which helped choose the works and will donate them to the Mexican Museum in San Francisco, where they will be on permanent display after a U.S. tour ending in August.

Tere Romo, the curator of the exhibit and the Mexican Museum, said the artists could benefit from the success of the Mexican directors, "who illustrated the universal appeal of Mexico's contemporary culture and art and helped introduce the Mexico a lot of people may not know."
Today's Mexican artists have grown in stature from the days when most Mexican artists in the United States were not fully recognized, said Romo.
"In the last couple of years, I've definitely seen this standing change," she said, citing more established artists included in the exhibit like Dr Lakra and Betsabee Romero whose works were featured previously in major exhibitions in the United States, Europe and Asia.
Rojas, 38, whose sister co-produced the Mexican film "La Misma Luna," a recent hit at the Sundance film festival, grew up in Mexico and the United States.
He said most contemporary Mexican painters and artists differed from a previous generation of well-known Mexican muralists such as Diego Rivera who gained fame painting bold images of Mexican society.
"The artists these days, I don't think they are interested in painting folkloric images of Mexico, it is more personal and intuitive," he said.
Two major exhibitions of Mexican art will be held this year at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Santa Monica Museum of Art.

__Nuevo Arte: Colección Tequila Don Julio, features the following 17 artists:__Dr. Lakra_Tatiana Parcero_Caleb Duarte_Betsabeé Romero_Ray Abeyta_Tania Candiani_Einar and Jamex de la Torre_Michael Hernandez de Luna_Arturo Ernesto Romo_Franco Mondini-Ruiz _Marcos Ramirez ERRE_Jorge Rojas_Viva Paredes_Julio C. Morales_Taka_Camille Rose Garcia

• New York City: White Box, January 12th – February 3rd _• Houston: New World Museum, March 16th – April 9th _• Chicago: Aldo Castillo Gallery, April 26th – May 26th _• Los Angeles: Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, June 13th – August 19th