Acclaimed artists of the Ruptura, Aug 11, 2006, By Donald Sibley, Collages and jewelry from the Caribbean, Fashion and photo shoot at YAM, Capelo: Artist of the new reality, By John Barham

Mexican Modern Masters, Friday, August 11, 7-9pm

Galería Pérgola inside Instituto Allende, Ancha de San Antonio 20

Galería Pérgola is proud to present "Mexican Modern Masters," an exhibition featuring works by some of the most acclaimed Mexican artists of the 20th century. Comprised of engravings, lithographs, serigraphs and block prints, this exhibition contains many works created in the 1960s-a period referred to as the Ruptura (Rupture) Movement of Mexican art. The movement's founder, José Luis Cuevas, and several of its more eminent followers are represented in this exhibition.

Mexico's modern art was highly influenced by the Mexican Revolution and its infamous muralist movement. The country's Ministry of Education appointed Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco (who became famous as the Tres Grandes) to paint murals, mostly depicting heroic revolutionary deeds, on the walls of government offices in Mexico City. Realistic in style, the purpose of the murals was to enlighten and educate the illiterate masses. This mural renaissance sharply contrasted with European modernism, in vogue throughout the west at the time. The muralists believed in "art that serves people," as opposed to modernism's mantra of "art for art's sake."

As Mexico became an industrialized nation in the mid-20th century, these two powerful yet opposing art philosophies began to collide. In Mexico, this brought about the Ruptura. In 1958, José Luis Cuevas published "La Cortina del Nopal," condemning the Mexican mural movement as "the Cactus Curtain" and advocating more artistic freedom. Many artists of the 1950s and 1960s were eager to join Cuevas in opposing the nationalistic, realist painting style popularized by the Tres Grandes.

The movement promoted individual expression and figurative art reflecting the contemporary human condition.

"Mexican Modern Masters" focuses on this prolific period that marked a dramatic shift in artistic expression. Ironically, an important feature of the exhibition is a powerful series of lithographs by David Alfaro Siqueiros. Always experimenting with styles, materials and techniques, Siqueiros in the 1930s began to evolve toward abstraction, further solidifying his place in history as one of the most famous Mexican artists.

Created in 1968, the series was inspired by the noteworthy Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's epic poem Canto General and represents the forces of nature. Also included are two exquisite Rufino Tamayo color lithographs from his "Mujeres" series, printed in Paris in 1969. Other Mexican masters whose work is featured include Francisco Zúñiga, Rodolfo Morales, Alfredo Zalce and Vicente Rojo. Several of the artists featured in the exhibit were members of the prestigious Taller de Grafica Popular, founded in 1937, the most important printmaking organization in Mexico.

Galería Pérgola is pleased to honor the work of these outstanding masters and to bring attention to their historical significance in 20th century art. The exhibition runs through September 7.

Galería Santa Ana, located in the Biblioteca Pública's Café Santa Ana, presents the work of two new artists this month. Alejandra Mendoza, a painter, exhibits a series of collages called "A Beautiful Misunderstanding," and Alcides Fortes, a jewelry designer, shows a collection of artifacts and jewelry.

According to Mendoza, her work is a primitive struggle between sweet nightmares and grotesque dreams, of people with tame bull horns and bitter bird wings, fish tales, forgotten insects, impossible bodies dancing in unnatural positions with music that never existed. "I have learned that art has a life of its own and how I play with it is my endless task. I could say my work is often aggressively whimsical, much like my own country, Mexico," she says.

Mendoza was born in 1978 in Guadalajara. She is a self-taught artist now living in Playa del Carmen, and is a part-time resident of San Miguel. Her work is in private collections in Europe, the United States and Mexico. Her website and virtual exhibit is online at www.artealejandramendoza.com.

For Alcides Fortes, a jewelry designer from Cape Verde, Africa, minimalism is the quality of an object when every detail and every intersection has been condensed to its essence. It is the perfection of an artifact that has come to its minimal, beautiful expression. Alcides surprises us with his highly developed technique and unique approach to art in jewelry. He uses materials such as titanium, charcoal, blood-free diamonds and sometimes pieces of common items such as glass from Iraq or stones from Germany, putting them together into a dance of perfection.

Fortes studied jewelry design and art history in Amsterdam. His pieces are found in collections all over the world, and he won the prestigious Schone Award in 1995. For the past seven years he has worked and lived in Mexico, mostly on the Mexican Riviera.

The exhibit is open through September 30.

YAM Gallery is honored to present Materia R`evolution, an exhibit about garments, nature and art.

León Felipe Romero and Alessandro Alviani are the creators of this original concept for their firm, Leon Felipe. Their collections have been presented at international events such as Paris Fashion Week, Madrid Fashion Week, Milan Fashion Week and Mexico City Fashion Week, among others. They are noted for their creativity, the use of natural materials and quality. Each garment is unique and incorporates varying techniques to embody the designers' organic and sophisticated philosophy of life.

A fashion shoot will take place at the gallery.

Manifesto

The perfect imperfections with which nature
plays,
Ideas progressively mutating,
The exploration of possible alternatives,
Unexplored…

Material experimentation like alchemy touches
Reinvented and transform natural fabrics
Reproduction of the most assorted kinds of
Shadings

A sublime fascination for contradiction …
Wrappings covering the body in harmonious,
Balanced, disagreeable and aggressive ways.

Contrast among a wild and rigorous nature,
Primordial colors, harmony towards details,
The unperceivable.

Rough and ultra-refined fusion, blending.
Severe cuts, couture, or softish, fluid.
Dream of a relation between perfection and
imperfection.

Tradition and avant-garde,
Masculine and feminine,
Research, inspiration, creation because
of love.

Creation without markets rules, without profit.
Pure and accurate hand work,
Absolute love for the deep wish of something

Innovative, peculiar, unusual, unexpected …
Something that isolated enchants,
Communicates,
Protect from a mass system infection,
From uniformity, from mediocrity
And appearance.
Like witness of uniqueness and individuality.
the cloth it's alive, has a mood, is timeless,
without expiration.
Cloth born for the pleasure to exist
Cloth born for the well of being
Possessed
Carnal contact.

Capelo is a son of Mexico educated as an architect, but his creative works ensure him a ranking with the greatest artists of the 21st century. He is a native of the state of Guanajuato whose paintings and sculptures transport the viewer into new and wonderful worlds free of compromise, fear or apprehension.

With energy and vigor, each Capelo stroke summons forth the ultimate in expressive tones, making possible the accomplishment of the artist's objective to portray the emotions of life and the deepest feelings of the human spirit. Indisputably, the language of Capelo is free of duress and full of a dynamic zest for life.

Capelo's worlds are bursting at the seams with the beauty of existence and the assessment of material reality through the life of the mind. Each work speaks to the mission of the artist to celebrate the dichotomy of life, and to pay tribute simultaneously to everyday human joys and to the final fulfillment of death.

The art of Capelo is timely, relevant and deeply personal. His work is poetry and rhyme, and their stanzas literally mingle with and come to life in the artist's chosen media. Strikingly original and totally free of the contrived and the unnatural, each Capelo work is a delectable experience, whetting the appetite for further visual delights.

Such freshness is all too rare in a world of ever-increasing imitation and its accompanying style of off-the-rack art.

Widely acclaimed in exhibitions throughout Mexico, the United States, Canada, Germany and Japan, Capelo's works are sought by major collectors in many corners of the world. The reality of his work reaches through space and time, and its uniqueness surmounts barriers of culture, ethnicity and nationality.

The exhibit includes Capelo's oils and sculptures.