Sunday, April 6, 2014

Art In San Miguel de Allende



I met a woman at the hostel with an interest in art. Later we met for an afternoon and went to view art, her passion, my hobby.The Fabrica La Auroria is an art center inside what was once a thread mill, maybe a weaving mill, but the machinery that remains is huge and is for winding thread. Now the complex is art, gallery after gallery, each room featuring one or two artists. Some were there with their work, others were not. This was all work of artists from SMA, Guanajuato, in other words, they were from the region. I find I can only look at so much art before I get bored. It is not really a good thing to photograph their work but some of it was so fabulous I had to break the rules.


I love Mexico's obsession with death.

A screen of retables.

This is about four feet tall, made entirely of tiny little beads.
At La Auroria we talked to a young artist who, I think, was from Guanajuato. She said that the market in SMA is based strictly on the artist's bio, having more to do with the name, number of gallery showings and exhibits rather than the quality of their work. That is a difficult market for an artist to survive in and this girl's tone revealed a certain bitterness. She also told us that the story about the street murals in town was not true. According to her, those painters were already artists and did not need formal training from the local art community. Either way, I am enamored with street art and want to include it in this post. Some of the following murals are in Queretaro, a nearby city.


This mural and the one below are from a very decorative parking lot, all by the same artist.


This is one of the saner works I've seen.


This and the following are in Queretaro.


 

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