Javier Hernández Chelico, Special for “La Jornada”
Jorge Flores Manjarrez has left his mark as a painter and caricaturist in public and private places, as well as in magazines and newspapers. His drawings illustrate the column The shelf of the unusual of this diary. Now, for the third time, visit New York. The plastic artist said: “I came before the pandemic and last year. The previous time I had exhibited at Barrio’s Artspace, an artist’s residence in Harlem, the place where I will do it again, but now in the public library of The New Rochelle school, in New Rochelle ”.
During a telephone conversation, Manjarrez said: “I left the work of the last exhibition. They are doing something itinerant among the Latin community that loves Mexican art and culture here in New York. For the same reason I have thought of bringing works every time I come to exhibit or do a workshop. There are now three new pieces that will expand my collection in that small American town, which includes 12 rocker paintings and a Christ that I donated to St. Peter’s Church in Manhattan.
Regarding the new material made specifically to exhibit in New York, the author of the mural located in the Chabacano subway station said: “I brought paintings of Ramones, Chet Baker and David Bowie in addition to those of Miles Davis, Bono, Joaquín Sabina and Sid Vicius, who are in the Big Apple. Although, mainly, of Mexican artists to mount the exhibition boundless humor, so I arrived with the cartoons of Alarcón, Ahumada, Waldo Matus, Boligán, Darío, Kemps, Chubasco and Román. We have put together nearly 30 designs in high quality prints with the artist’s original signature.
“These pieces were exhibited in a room next to the one that houses my exhibition I love rock, in The East Harlem gallery, by Sandra Pérez, who has dedicated herself to promoting Mexican culture and doing things for the consulate and Rockefeller Center. She is from Puebla, but has lived in New York for many years; It was he who invited me to exhibit here and I suggested he do the caricaturist thing ”.
Manjarrez’s plans for 2023 in New York are already on the table. “I will return to exhibit in a place called Añejo. It is a bar located in the heart of Soho, surrounded by the main art galleries on Manhattan’s 10th avenue, opposite the Roxy Tribeca hotel. For the occasion, they want to organize an art sale for three days in a row. I will return in April to deliver a mural that I will do there in Mexico, I will bring it in fabric and I will install it in a very famous restaurant called Dos Marías, in Yonkers. I also have an invitation to exhibit on Long Island, where there is a lot of art. I am happy that my work is growing in New York ”.
Back in Mexico City, the cartoonist will also coordinate the exhibition Rock in the Senate will open on November 14th. In this regard, he specified: “They are rock-themed caricatures; there are Elio Flores, Naranjo, Magú, Carreño, Alarcón, Boligán and mine. There are 36 large-format works, 180 by 120, which will be in the bars of the Senate. It is interesting because people know the political work of Magú, Elio Flores and Naranjo, but they go to see rock cartoons ”.
