The Cervantino exhibition agenda, an attractive complement to performing art

The temporary exhibition program of the International Cervantino Festival (FIC) has always been a colorful complement to the performing activities of music, theater and dance. In its 52nd edition, around 35 exhibitions were presented, both in Guanajuato capital and in the cities of León, Salamanca and Silao; most will remain open until January 2025.

As the guest of honor of the meeting, Brazil participated with The sound of meat: Photographs by Ricardo Beliel (1953), in the Palacio de los Poderes Museum, and An inhabited space, by Vanessa Freitag (Santa Rosa, 1982), based since 2008 in León, Guanajuato, at the Olga Costa-José Chávez Morado Art Museum, both venues in the state capital.

Torrential storms like a meteorological accidentBeliel’s photographs They testify, with a look that sinks into the entrails, the bodies and temperatures of a mestizo and canoro people who own a profound lunar magnetism..

Researcher of textile language, Freitag’s work reflects on processes of identity, transit and construction of senses of belonging. Biographical aspects of the artist are visible, such as childhood in the countryside in Brazil and the migratory experience in Mexico.

Oaxaca, guest of honor, exhibits the work of Francisco Toledo in galleries of the University of Guanajuato. Likewise, the guest state is exhibited at the Casa Diego Rivera Museum With our feet on the ground and our heads in the sky: Scanning all the horizons. Founding an art of Oaxaca, review that combines the work of the entity’s great creators from various state and private collections.

This proposal continues in the Museum of the People of Guanajuato with the samples Aerial roots: Germinations and deviations from Oaxacan plastic; Irreducible other: Couplings of contemporary art in Oaxaca, y The gray hour: Interactions and transformation of the image of Oaxaca. Also, in the Regional Museum of Guanajuato Alhóndiga de Granaditas, with Archaeological tombs of Oaxaca; Casianämi Re Xitogolnu: Traditional Zapotec altar, y The 16 cultures and Afro-Mexican people and the sounds of the 15 languages.

The work of the Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) is another of the great attractions, in the exhibition structured universe, made up of 36 of its impossible structureswhich play with depths, heights and effects of distancing and distancing; It is also housed in the Casa Diego Rivera Museum. The venue also receives Memories, fictions and misplacements, expressionist painting by Enrique Guillén Sáenz (Mexico City, 1983), who resides in San Miguel de Allende.

The José y Tomás Chávez Morado Museum presents an exhibition of the former, a muralist and exponent of the Mexican School of Painting. The 47 pieces of The journey of an artist They reveal the observant and sensitive soul of José Chávez Morado, who could appreciate and interpret the environment that surrounded him, to leave in them a testimony of the natural landscapes and the Guanajuato horizon.

The collective exhibition Stitching territories: Contemporary textile art from Guanajuato It is exhibited in the Hermenegildo Bustos Museum, and Rock chart: The millenary luminous course, in the Congress of the state of Guanajuato.

The Iconographic Museum of Don Quixote houses three samples: A flor de ink: The collective imagination in Mexican engraving; The voices of graphics today: Collective exhibition of the Taller Caracol Púrpura, institution founded in 2000, with roots in the Taller de Gráfica Popular, and Ana Queral paints Don Quixote.

Since last September 5, the Conde Rul Museum has exhibited the ALAR Collection of Chinese art, consisting of 155 pieces, the result of a significant donation. It is also Faces of the East, exhibition of the photographer, traveler and collector of French origin Alain Gisbersztein, whose series of images document and illustrate his journey through the East in 1987. From now on the vocation of this museum will be Chinese art.

In Variation no.1, Omar Rodríguez-Graham (Mexico City, 1978) explores the historical legacies of painting through large-format canvases that seek to create immersive experiences. Using works by Giovanni Batista Tiepolo, the painter transforms classical figures into abstract strokes through digital manipulation. The host is the Museum of Art and History of Guanajuato (MAHG), in León.

Also in this one it is exhibited Freedom and rebellion, tribute to the photographer Lourdes Grobet; Almost gold, almost amber, almost light, exhibition in which works of Mexican landscape dialogue with a collection of Japanese painting, and Jorge in Joy: Story of a love. Joy Laville and Jorge Ibargüengoitia.

By Jesús Gallardo (1931-2018), Guanajuato artist, shown Virtuosity in the line, at the Guanajuato Arts Center, in Salamanca. In 2006, the art critic Graciela Kartofel (1945-2022) carried out an analysis of Gallardo’s graphic work produced in the Graphic Workshop of the State Institute of Culture. Currently, this exploration is part of the heritage of this venue, which, added to the collection of Gallardo prints, gives shape to the exhibition.

The Casa de Europa México, in San Miguel de Allende, presents Duatropic garden, by Magali Ávila. Finally, the Guanajuato Bicentenario park, in Silao, receives the international exhibition Notes of hope, relating to the story of Anne Frank.