Los Grandes del Arte Moderno Mexicano
Event on 2013-12-28 00:00:00
Art
Mexican modernists from the 1920s-'30s, 6/7-6/30/14, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA Nights reception 6-9 pm, 8/23, with music, talk on Manuel Alvarez Bravo by Jim Escalante 6:30 pm, screening of "Simon of the Desert" 8:15 pm, ; gallery talk with Don Thompson 12:30 pm, 10/17; MMoCA Nights with lecture with Melanie Herzog, music by Black Marigold, Geoff Brady, Reptile Palace Orchestra 6-9 pm, 11/1, ). 257-0158
When: Daily until 06/30/14
Call: 608-257-0158
Web: www.mmoca.org
More Information:
Los Grandes del Arte Moderno Mexicano (Masters of Mexican Modern Art) showcases the artists who, more than any others, defined Mexican Modernism in the 1920s and 1930s: Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Frida Kahlo, Leopoldo Méndez, José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo. The paintings, prints, and photographs that comprise the exhibition are drawn from the permanent collection of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, which is particularly strong in twentieth-century Mexican art. Los Grandes del Arte Moderno Mexicano will be on view in MMoCA's Henry Street Gallery for approximately one year, beginning June 7, 2013.
Modern Art is generally understood as belonging to Europe and the United States. But as the works in this exhibition demonstrate—by artists considered to be among the finest of the twentieth century—it also found a home in Mexico. In presenting Los Grandes del Arte Moderno Mexicano, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art places the Mexican achievement in a world context for acknowledgment and celebration.
Following the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), modern art enjoyed a vital period of artistic achievement in the country's newly egalitarian society. Mexico City was the movement's hub and the city played host to an international gathering of artists. Although their presence created a cosmopolitan exuberance comparable to that generated by the international avant-garde in Paris, it was the Mexican painters, muralists, photographers, poets, and printmakers who dominated the art scene, especially the artists represented in this exhibition.
Friday, August 23 6-9 PM
Imagine yourself south-of-the-border and join MMoCA for a festive celebration for Los Grandes del Arte Moderno Mexicano, the museum’s year-long exhibition of Mexican Modernist prints and paintings. Linger in the sculpture gardenfor live music, complimentary Latin-themed hors d’ouevres from Fresco, a cash bar, and an additional 10% discount at the Museum Store.
August 23, 2013 – 6:30 to 7:00pm Talk
Jim Escalante on Manuel Álvarez Bravo
Manuel Álvarez Bravo’s photographic achievement extends nearly throughout the twentieth century. Artist and educator Jim Escalante will offer a discussion of Álvarez Bravo photographs on view in Los Grandes del Arte Moderno Mexicano. Henry Street Gallery.
Rooftop Cinema returns with Simon of the Desert, Luis Buñuel’s wicked and wild take on the life of devoted ascetic Saint Simeon Stylites, who waited atop a pillar surrounded by a barren landscape for six years, six months, and six days, in order to prove his devotion to God. Yet the devil, in the figure of the beautiful Silvia Pinal, huddles below, trying to tempt him down. A skeptic’s vision of human conviction, Buñuel’s short and sweet satire is one of the master filmmaker’s most renowned works of surrealism. "[A] powerful, funny, startling but inconclusive commentary on man's frailties" (The New York Times). 8:15–9 pm
MMoCA Nights are sponsored by Newcomb Construction Company; The Alexander Company; and BMO Harris Bank; with additional support from Fresco and media support from Isthmus|TheDailyPage.com.
EXHIBITION BACKGROUND
In rejecting the art of the past, modern art was itself a revolutionary model. As Mexican artists wished to recognize and honor the ideals of the Revolution in their art, they departed from the academic tradition of their colonial history and enlisted the principles of modern art. The modernity of Mexican art was found in contemporary subject matter of social import, signified by fresh expressiveness. Like artists in Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States, Mexican artists in the period between World Wars I and II sought a new modernized realism that championed social reform and national identity. This new artistic movement was nationalistic but tempered by Expressionism and Surrealism, which were among the most important avant-garde directions in Europe. Mexican Modernism was also enriched by references to indigenous folk art and Pre-Columbian art, which, as markers of pre-colonial identity, were also compatible in their exaggerations and simplifications with the precepts of modern art.
EXHIBITION DETAIL
José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Siqueiros, the esteemed muralists known collectively as Los Tres Grandes, also made significant contributions to the modern print, and works by each artist are included in the exhibition. The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art has a nearly complete set of Rivera's lithographs, most of which rephrase in lithographic crayon portions of his famous murals.
Equally celebrated is Frida Kahlo, whose Still Life: Pitahayas, a major still-life painting executed in 1938, will also be on view. Kahlo's meditation on death is rendered in terms of a magical realism that links her to both European Surrealism and native folk-art traditions. Rufino Tamayo, of all the masters of Mexican modern art, was most indebted to European modernism, especially to the Parisian avant-garde. A painter and printmaker, he is represented in the exhibition by a selection of early woodcuts and color lithographs from a later portfolio of his lithographs.
Modernist photography reached new heights in the hands of Manuel Alvarez Bravo, who was the most important Latin American photographer of the last century. Selections from two of his photography portfolios will be on view, including Retrato de lo Eterno (Portrait of the Eternal) of 1935. This gelatin silver print is modernist in its clear focus, artful contrasts of black and white, and embrace of everyday life. A portrait of a nameless subject, a humble young woman looking into a mirror while combing her long hair, it speaks to Mexican identity. In its title—an allegorical tribute to timeless beauty—it makes the ordinary wondrous, a critical aspect of surrealist art and literature.
Leopoldo Méndez's El Rebozo de Soledad (Soledad's Shawl), from 1952, is a woodcut by an artist esteemed as the greatest Mexican printmaker of the twentieth century. Méndez's social agenda was to show compassion for the indigenous peoples of Mexico, but the slashes of white and emotional intensity of this print ally it to the sensibilities of expressionist movements abroad.
Exhibitions in MMoCA's Henry Street Gallery are generously funded through an endowment established by the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation.
COMPLEMENTARY PROGRAMMING
A major grant from the Madison Community Foundation has enabled MMoCA to develop a broad range of educational programming for Los Grandes del Arte Moderno Mexicano. The exhibition's year-long display allows the museum to present an extensive series of programs and events that illuminate Mexico's modernist period and celebrate Mexican art and culture.
Programs will include after-school programs for youth and weekend family art workshops, musical performances, film screenings, and gallery talks by specialists in twentieth-century Mexican art, history, and politics. A child-centered learning center will feature bi-lingual activities and books about Mexican art and culture. Modern Art/Contemporary Art/MMoCA Collects, a website dedicated to significant works from the museum's permanent collection, will prominently feature pages dedicated to each artist represented in Los Grandes del Arte Moderno Mexicano. The site will also include a narrated virtual tour of the exhibition, as well as teaching resources for educators planning onsite exhibition tours.
The Madison Community Foundation encourages, facilitates, and manages long-term philanthropy. It was established in 1942 as a tax-exempt community trust and is governed by a Board of Governors representing the broad interests of the community.
Hours at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art are Tuesday-Thursday (noon-5 pm); Friday (noon-8 pm); Saturday (10 am-8 pm); and Sunday (noon-5 pm). The museum is closed on Mondays.
Admission to exhibitions at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art is free of charge. MMoCA is supported through memberships and through generous contributions and grants from individuals, corporations, agencies, and foundations. Important support is also generated through auxiliary group programs; special events; rental of the museum's lobby, lecture hall, and rooftop garden; and sales through the Museum Store.
TALK Oct. 17, 2013 – 12:30 pm to 1:00 pm
GALLERY TALK WITH DON THOMPSON Don Thompson will discuss how works of art in Los Grandes reflect ideals of the
Mexican revolution of 1910 and the importance of Mexico City as an intellectual center,
including how its art incorporated international influences. He will also highlight how
they reveal personal, even autobiographical elements, as in Frida Kahlo s painting, Still Life Pitahayas. Don Thompson is professor emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Department of Anthropology, specializing in Latin America. MMoCA Henry Street Gallery.
EVENT
Nov. 1, 2013 – 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
MMoCA NIGHTS On the first Friday in November, people will gather at MMoCA to celebrate Los Grandes del Arte Moderno Mexicano, the museum s year-long exhibition of Mexican Modernist prints and paintings. At 6:30 pm, Melanie Herzog will present a lecture, Los Grandes: Mexicanidad and International Modernism. Robust with activity, the evening will also offer live music from 6-6:30 pm from Black Marigold, a woodwind quartet, and Goeff Brady on the Theremin; and Reptile Palace Orchestra will play from 7:30-9 pm. Nearly coinciding with El Día de Los Muertos, a live performance and special hors d oeuvres from Fresco will nod to one of Mexico's most lively traditions.
TALK Nov. 1, 2013 – 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm
ART TALK WITH MELANIE HERZOG Los Grandes: Mexicanidad and International Modernism Following the Mexican Revolution, artists in Mexico commemorated the achievements of the Revolution, illuminated ongoing struggles for social justice in Mexico and internationally, and rendered visible the life experiences, dreams, and desires of ordinary Mexican people. Mexico City, in particular, was also a locus for an international modernism that infused these artists' visual proclamation of Mexicanidad, or Mexicanness. As they sought to produce a democratic art, giving primacy to accessible and reproducible media such as printmaking and photography, these artists also advanced the modernist enterprise in a uniquely Mexican idiom. Melanie Herzog is a professor of art history in the Department of Art at Edgewood College. She is a leading scholar on the art and life of Elizabeth Catlett and the work of the Taller de Grafica Popular. Her books include Elizabeth Catlett: In the Image of the People (Yale University Press, in 2005), and Elizabeth Catlett: An American Artist in Mexico (University of Washington Press, 2000). MMoCA lecture hall.
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