The work of two renowned artists and teachers at Mexico's preeminent school of fine arts goes on display Sept. 24 at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Norlin Library.
Pieces by Arturo Miranda Videgaray and Antonio Salazar Banuelos will be featured in the library's third floor northwest gallery until Oct. 30. The display is curated by CU-Boulder fine arts Professor George Rivera, who will host an opening reception and gallery talk Sept. 24 at 5 p.m. in the Norlin Library, fifth-floor Center for British Studies room.
The reception and exhibit are free and open to the public. Paid parking is available in the Euclid Avenue Autopark, near the student union at Broadway and Euclid.
"The art work of Arturo Miranda and Dr. Antonio Salazar represents the post-Rupture movement in Mexican art, which was an artistic break with the mural tradition in Mexican art," Rivera said.
"The work of Miranda can be characterized as ecological art that addresses daily existence in Mexico City, where smog dominates everyday life. In addition, his work references the continuing violence that appears daily in the city," he said. "On the other hand, Dr. Salazar's work deals with imagery related to the gay experience in Mexico. His photographic work is in the tradition of Robert Maplethorpe.
"Both artists are professors at the Academia de San Carlos, which was the first school of fine arts in the Americas and is Mexico's and Latin America's premier school of fine arts," Rivera said.
The exhibit is the second in a series of three presented by a partnership of the CU-Boulder Office of Community Affairs, the University Libraries, the Center for Humanities and the Arts and Professor Rivera.
The work of Dr. Luz del Carmen Vilchis Esquivel, one of Mexico's few digital artists, was the first exhibit from April through June.
The final exhibit will run Nov. 4 through Dec. 15, featuring the work of father/son duo Arturo Fuentes and Alan Romero. The artists' works, "Colors of a Mexican Father/Colores de un Padre Mexicano" and "Colors of a Mexican Son/Colores de un Hijo Mexicano," will be on display with an opening reception Nov. 13 at 5 p.m. in the Norlin Library Center for British Studies.
Professor Rivera is a 2003 Fulbright Senior Specials grant recipient and will spend three weeks at the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia in Spain. In 2002, he was given the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. He has taught fine arts since 1991 and has curated numerous multi-national exhibitions with themes including HIV/AIDS, ecology, borderland psychology and death. As an artist, he now works exclusively in the digital medium creating "ethnograms," word-based visual telegrams that comment on current events and images in the Chicano culture.
Rivera will curate all three exhibitions at Norlin Library. The University Libraries actively supports diverse cultural activities on the Boulder campus. The southeast stairwell now showcases 12 contemporary American pieces from the Colorado Collection, a state-owned art collection housed in the CU Art Museum.
For more information on the Mexican artists and their works, contact Rivera at (303) 492-8374, or by e-mail at george.rivera@Colorado.edu.