All posts tagged: San Luis Potosi

Leonora Carrington Museum / Centro De Las Artes San Luis Potosi / Diary # 6

Leonora Carrington Museum / Centro De Las Artes San Luis Potosi / Diary # 6

Was Leonora Carrington revealing to us a world of creatures that once existed in our world which we evolved from, or was she following the natural indicators that she sensed to predict the world and people that we would eventually become?

Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

These man/animal hybrids have been adapted into pop culture via science fiction and even by politicians and scientists. Today we have cameras that read faces and individual physical gaits, drones the size of insects, robots that carry bombs into homes like long-legged spiders tottering over all terrains, and the ability to change the weather.

Prehistoric world descriptions suggest the existence of dinosaur-sized monsters that could fly and mythic, even Biblical writings conjure images of heads covered with snakes, people turning to pillars of salt, men parting seas, walking on water, etc.

Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

I don’t know if I’m inventing the world I paint,” said the Mexican surrealist Leanora Carrington, “I think rather it is that world that I invent myself.”

Was she being a coy artist, or was she empowering each of us with the ability to bend the arc of time, to alter the future with our imaginations?

Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A recent visit to the Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi in Mexico gave us the opportunity to see a collection of her astounding otherworldly sculptures and drawings and to appreciate her mind’s suggestions in a fully dimensional way.

“Art is a magic that makes the hours fade and even the days dissolve in seconds,” she said.

The 1940s in Mexico sprouted surrealism in art and literature that met, rivaled, and sometimes superseded the movements of Dali, Breton, and Ernst. The British-born Carrington was a surrealist painter and novelist, living most of her adult life in Mexico City, a five-hour drive south of here. Considered one of the last surviving participants of the surrealist movement of the 1930s, this country hosted a legion of artists embracing the surrealism and spreading the magic realism equally through literature and painting with names like the poet Octavio Paz, painters Alfonso Michel, Carlos Orozco Romero, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, sculptor Luis Ortiz Monasterio, illustrator Roberto Montenegro, David Alfaro Siqueiros…

Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Industrial, post-industrial, and mechanized worlds were de-humanizing humans, pushing children into factories, de-naturing the natural world, compressing minds into chattel, steering humans into ovens, and giving them wings to fly high above the Earth – offering a continuous economic boom, followed by a bust, followed by a boom. Nothing has made much sense since then.

So it was little surprise to see the families at this exhibition in a former prison, the teens posing for selfies with figures that have animal heads, webbed appendages. Carrington’s references to sorcery, metamorphosis, alchemy, the occult and Celtic mythology blend magically into this country’s fixations- a native people’s psyche destroyed by the European invader, and Catholic church’s full-sized portrayals of the tortured, bloody body of Christ displayed in town after town – sometimes alongside the mystical hallowed figures that are so frightening as to evoke supervillans, or Phil Collins.

There is a strange logic to all of Carrington’s creatures – today grown adults wear similar costumes to conventions, and young men bomb villages in the Middle-East while sitting in a basement thousands of miles away. Are these wild frightful creatures what we were, what we are, or what we will become? Carrington is merely helping you imagine.

Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Leonora Carrington Museum. Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
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BSA Images Of The Week: 05.22.22 / San Luis Potosi Diary # 4

BSA Images Of The Week: 05.22.22 / San Luis Potosi Diary # 4

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Welcome to BSA Images of the Week!

San Luis Potosi is culturally rich, has a UNESCO protected historic downtown, and just hosted the Miss Mexico pageant last night – yet most people think of other Mexican cities before this one. It’s been an educational week discovering the city, its rooftop beer gardens, its cathedrals, it’s markets, museums, its seedy side of town with sex workers openly chatting, its gorgeous green parks that pop up every three blocks, its friendly helpful people, its mezcal, and its expansive safe walkways. This city may be one of Mexico’s most underrated.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Janin Garcin, Diego Rafel Lopez, Isela Vargas, Oscar Medina, Patricia Macias Mendizabal, Carlos Mejia, Says David, Panda, PaPa, and Celoz.

Janin Garcin. Detail. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Janin Garcin. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Janin Garcin. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Diego Rafel Lopez, Isela Vargas, Patricia Macias Mendizabal, Oscar Medina, Carlos Mejia. “El ojo que todo lo ve”. Centro Cultural de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Diego Rafel Lopez, Isela Vargas, Patricia Macias Mendizabal, Oscar Medina, Carlos Mejia. “El ojo que todo lo ve”. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Diego Rafel Lopez, Isela Vargas, Patricia Macias Mendizabal, Oscar Medina, Carlos Mejia. “El ojo que todo lo ve”. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Diego Rafel Lopez, Isela Vargas, Patricia Macias Mendizabal, Oscar Medina, Carlos Mejia. “El ojo que todo lo ve”. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Diego Rafel Lopez, Isela Vargas, Patricia Macias Mendizabal, Oscar Medina, Carlos Mejia. “El ojo que todo lo ve”. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist. Rio Verde. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Says David. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Says David. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Panda San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentifed artist. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Huellas del Crimen. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Huellas del Crimen. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Huellas del Crimen. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Huellas del Crimen. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Huellas del Crimen. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Huellas del Crimen. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Huellas del Crimen. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Huellas del Crimen. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentifed artist.San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
PaPa. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
CeloDocs. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
El Placazo. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Untitled. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
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“Sensacional” Mexican Design: Centro de las Artes. SLP, MX / Diary # 3

“Sensacional” Mexican Design: Centro de las Artes. SLP, MX / Diary # 3

One of the best ways to see a city is through its advertisements, especially when handmade. Perhaps we’re disposed to thinking this because increasingly there is a blurred line today between typical commercial promotions and street artists branding their legal/illegal work on the street with social media tags or websites that lead to products to purchase.

Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Currently, at the Center for the Arts of San Luis Potosi (Centro de las Artes de San Luis Potosi), the “Sensacional” exhibition invites you to witness the graphical and design interpretations you’ll find on the streets of nearly every neighborhood – and you’ll feel welcomed. Walking through the galleries and seeing the figures, fonts, and colors is like sampling daily flavors and emotions you’ll find on Mexican streets. It’s a handmade open vernacular that speaks directly in the design and imagery of gas stations, corner groceries, signage, flyers, packaging, labels, posters, and announcements. The images may be painted with intense color schemes, skewed proportions, a familiar cartoon or celebrity, and humor; a pleasing sense of humor specific to the culture that is rather free of the usual contrivances.  

Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Trilce Ediciones México. It has traveled to many cities since 2003 – including Glasgow (UK), Pasadena (US), Washington (US), New York (US), Boston (US), San Francisco (US), San Antonio (US), Zaragoza (Spain), Alexandria (Egypt), Bogota (Colombia), Zacatecas (Mexico), and Mexico City. Here in San Luis Potosi, we were happy to see many of the cultural influences that form the aesthetic of the street all joined together. The curators are well organized and the show is presented with categories that meld trade, food, aesthetics, nationalism, religion, animals, transportation, machismo, burlesque, music posters, and Lucha Libre.

Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Eclectic and entertaining, the everyday language of comics frequently appears in many images hand-created by untrained artists who function as advertising agencies for a client list that may include mechanic shops, churches, food vendors, liquor stores, mariachis, and wrestling expositions. Violating all kinds of corporate, copyright, and art school/trade rules, these idiosyncratic graphics are untouched by the blanded global commercial aesthetic, making them more authentic, human, and, definitely, pleasing.

Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensational: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)
Sensacional: Mexican Design. Centro de las Artes. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For more details about Sensational: Mexican Design and Centro de las Artes, San Luis Potosi, click HERE

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San Luis Potosi Diary # 1: Alive, Free, and Without Fear

San Luis Potosi Diary # 1: Alive, Free, and Without Fear

Certain sectors of Mexican society have a women problem. More accurately, they have a lack-of-reverence-and-respect-for-women problem.

Ongoing violence against women has pushed many in civil society to fight back in an organized fashion across classes, ages, trades, professions, religious and academic spheres. With marches, protests, street art, and speeches millions of Mexican women from all sectors of life and demographics have been coming out to the streets to let their leaders know that they are fed up.

Ni una más” is the slogan most often used; “Not one more”.

Unidentified artist. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

In March protests in more than 20 states across the country women called for an end to gender-based violence. The Mexican newspaper Milenio reported extensively on protests in Mexico City and included news about marches in cities large and small; Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Tijuana, León and Puebla – all saw marches, as did numerous smaller cities including Morelia, San Luis Potosí, Saltillo, Cancún, Mérida, Oaxaca, Guanajuato, Los Cabos, Veracruz, Zacatecas, Hermosillo, Tlaxcala and Chilpancingo.

This unidentified artist adopted Catholic iconography to make their point. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Several women’s rights organizations have accused President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of not making the problem a top priority in his administration. Even worse, some assert that he has callously blamed the problem on the victims themselves, adding to a general perception in the country that the president really doesn’t care. According to the Guardian, ten women are killed every day in Mexico.

This week in the historic district of San Luis Potosi we saw more references to this topic than any other in the street art and graffiti on walls. The technique and format of creation  varies, but the messages are empowering and they illustrate a determination and resilience of people who are advocating for change.

Slogans are stenciled on fencing, wheat-pasted graphics are stuck to door ways. Here in La Calzada de Guadalupe, a green and vibrant park that tourists flock to, a statue paying tribute to woman’s rights is adorned with fresh flowers and information about the Femenicidios (or Femicides) that terrorize people lays at its feet.

Every few blocks you can see a poster seeking missing young women taped to light posts. In a city that has such a strong reverence for history and the sacrosanct place of women in its evolution, it is striking to see such issues so fervently discussed in the art on the street.

Sculpture in La Calzada de Guadalupe park, San Luis Potosi (photo © Steven P. Harrington)
This unidentified artist adopted Catholic iconography to make their point. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
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