Leonard brought the magic
By Kenneth Stillwell August 22, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Art Opening
Collages by Leonard Brooks
Sat, Aug 23, 5–8pm
La Galería Aspen
Mesones 74

Leonard Brooks is the greatest living Canadian artist. He also may be the greatest living Mexican artist. He is listed with contemporary Mexican painters in the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City. In 1984, a 30-year retrospective of the artist’s works was held in…Mexico, not Canada. The show opened in Mexico City and travelled around the country as part of the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the National Institute of Fine Arts.

Mexico regards Leonard Brooks as one of its own and without him, San Miguel never would have become an important art colony.

Surely such recognition never entered his mind during his first one-man exhibition in 1933 in Chelsea Old Church, London, England. Nor in 1949 when he had his first show in the US at the Cowie Gallery in the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. But the extraordinary talent was recognized early, for in 1939 he was elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Artists. In 1965, he was honored with an exhibit in the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City, which signifies acceptance at the highest artistic levels of Mexican culture. He still paints every day with full vigor at the age of 97. He has had literally decades of one-man exhibitions and joint exhibitions in Canada, Mexico, the US and Europe. His works hang in the National Gallery in Ottawa and the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City.

The internationally known cellist Gilberto Munguia said of Brooks, “Leonard was responsible for bringing people to San Miguel. Other painters came. Then he got involved with music. All the cultural activity was what made San Miguel what it is today, the big center for arts in Mexico. When he arrived in San Miguel, it was a sleepy little town where magic was about to happen. Leonard brought the magic.”

Although already highly regarded as a major Canadian artist, after World War Two Brooks felt he had no future as an artist in Canada. In 1947, a friend told him about a little Mexican art colony: “a marvelous little village and it doesn’t cost anything to live there.” Leonard and his wife Reva (who is regarded as one of the top 50 women photographers of all time) came to San Miguel and met Stirling Dickinson, director of the then-current fine arts school in town, and Leonard quickly joined the teaching staff.

The school needed a “status” artist and it succeeded in contracting the great David Alfaro Siqueiros to teach and to create a great mural. Siqueiros was one of Mexico’s leading communists as well as a founder of the Mexican mural movement, and a very powerful man. (His role in the assassination of Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary given asylum by Mexico, is still a matter of conjecture.) The school was giving fraudulent master’s degrees and the students and teachers, including Brooks and Siqueiros, arranged a boycott, asking that the school be reorganized under new management to comply with Mexican artistic standards. Among those signing the manifesto of support were Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Rufino Tamayo and Jose Clemente Orozco.

Siqueiros and Brooks appealed directly to the President of Mexico, Miguel Aleman, for permission to open a new school and on August 25, 1949, the Escuela de Bellas Artes was approved and became part of the Mexican educational system. The government asked Brooks to become the first director of the music department in 1962, a position he held 25 years, until his 75th birthday. His first love was teaching chamber music to Mexican children.

Although a world-class watercolorist, Brooks began experimenting with collage. He writes, “One day in Paris in 1961 I did my first collage—the first of hundreds to come. I saw this lovely blue paper in the middle of the street. Nearby there was a yellow piece of plastic. I saw the makings of a painting. I stopped the traffic, also finding a piece of plastic netting. If I could put these together on a canvas, I thought, what a fine painting I could make.

I took the “garbage” back to my studio and glued them to a canvas, making my composition by shifting the materials until they pleased me. My first collage was born! I still have it and enjoy looking at it on my wall.”

A critic said of his collages: “The painter’s eye of Leonard Brooks has become so keen that he can pounce on a cloth scrap and use it with the cunning of a squirt of oil paint. He has been experimenting with collage for the past 10 years. He can mix a shred of corrugated paper, a wisp of tissue, a label from a sauce bottle with a sweep of oil or acrylic, and there it is: a kind of visual journal of his life in Mexico.”

It is an extraordinary thing to be able to meet a world-class artist, the leading contemporary artist in Mexico who also was largely responsible for creating the magical, creative atmosphere of San Miguel that we all enjoy. Brooks is a painter and a musician and a profound part of the history of San Miguel.

La Galería Aspen presents an exhibition of his collages August 23, and Brooks himself will be present to sign his recently published book, My Collage World.

The biography, Leonard and Reva Brooks: Artists in Exile in San Miguel de Allende by John Virtue is an excellent source of information.

Kenneth Stillwell is the curator of La Galería Aspen.

Art for ancianos
By John Edwards

Art exhibit and sale
Paintings by Gershon
So Others May Eat benefit
Thu–Sat, Aug 28–30, 5–8pm
Arroyo Galería
Rinconada de la Aldea 27

Photo caption: Gershon hands out clothing to the elderly Photo credit: Benjie Neal Nelson

Local artist Gershon claims he is best known for giving three-hour massages, but perhaps he is known best as the man who braves the cobblestones barefoot every day. The self-taught painter premieres his work during a three-day benefit that kicks off with food and music on August 28 at one of the city’s newest art venues, Arroyo Galería. 

At 70 years of age, this barefoot artist has walked interesting paths, both literally and figuratively. Shoeless by choice for the past 27 years, he has trod from San Diego to Washington state, across to New York, then to Baja California and Mazatlán. He began writing and painting with his left hand 20 years ago—though he is naturally right-handed—to gain a new perspective on art and creativity.


Since living in San Miguel, Gershon has volunteered his time each Christmas, passing out blankets and sweaters to San Miguel’s elderly. It was his idea to have a benefit art show to help raise money for these wonderful people. 

Half of the proceeds from the art sale will benefit So Others May Eat (SOME), a weekly program that provides a sit-down hot meal and boxes of food to the city’s elderly Mexican community. The show is timed to coincide with the Día de los Ancianos, or Day of the Elderly, observed annually on August 29.

SOME is one of several community services for older residents orchestrated by Antonette and Joe Lim, owners of The Spa. Allan Gross, a long-time resident who volunteers with the Lims and is coordinating the benefit art show, described Gershon’s color palette as vivid and rich, and the works as evocative of the artist’s travels in Asia and Mexico. The painter’s impasto technique, using heavily layered oils, results in vibrant and original canvases.

Arroyo Galería is a beautiful new gallery in Barrio de la Aldea managed by Suzy Taylor. From Ancha de San Antonio, pass through the gates to la Aldea, then turn right at the first alleyway, Rinconada de la Aldea. Go down the steps and follow the walkway. 


John Edwards, a local writer and editor, is a former staff member of Atención who, unable to wean himself completely, continues working behind the scenes each week.

A great love of nature and film
By Victor Aguilar

Art Opening
Del Lavacoche Hacia La Natura
Photographs by Lander Rodríguez
Fri, Aug 22, 7:30pm
Art Print Photo Gallery
San Francisco 11

Lander Rodríguez is a gifted photographer who has worked in the field of commercial art for over 25 years. He previously owned a graphic design firm in Mexico City where he worked with film, editing commercial and music videos as well as working on set and prop design for clients in the Los Angeles area. He has also worked as a visual consultant for Mills Corporation in Madrid, on the Xanadu-Madrid Mall Project.

Since his re-location to San Miguel in 2003, he has been working as a freelance graphic art consultant for prestigious businesses in the city. He has also taught digital photography and digital media courses at the Instituto Allende’s Master of Fine Arts program.

Rodríguez began taking serious photographs during his first year as a graphic design student. He bought a brand new Nikon F2A camera (which he still owns) from one of his teachers.

Back then he never really considered himself a professional photographer; however as the artist says: “images and textures were always on my mind.” After having certain experience working in production, at the time when computers were just being introduced into the graphic design industry, it became an easy and natural jump for Rodríguez to switch from traditional to digital photography. It was when Rodríguez moved to Spain in 2002 that he bought his first digital camera and a laptop. He then began working for Mills Corporation as a professional photographer. From this moment on, his work expanded into two directions—graphic design and photography.

Besides commercial photography, Lander focuses on his personal artistic work. The images exhibited in “Del Lavacoches Hacia la Natura” are a selection of his most recent artistic work.

The artist explains: “It is difficult to describe or speak about one’s own work; however I would say that there are two things which have influenced me greatly. My great love of nature and my love of film, both motivated in part by my father. Since I was a child I often traveled to deserted beaches and later became enthusiastic about mountain climbing. I always tried to document adventure graphically and it was through this attempt that I became interested in photography. Film has contributed as well, since I see everything as a part of a story, an instant is like a frame which contains the essence of the moment which we are living.”

“These photographs are an example of both moments, both influences, each very different than the other. The urban (carwash photos) are closer to the language of film: complicated, contrasting, sometimes nebulous.

On the other hand, the landscapes reveal open spaces, desolation and mysticism that excite and ground us. Trees and branches have been a recurring subject matter for me; I find that the capricious way in which they form patterns and structures, belittle man’s creations.”

“I seek a way to describe, to transcribe in an image this strong passion which I have for shapes and forms.”


Victor Aguilar is a professional photographer who has been living in San Miguel since 1994.

Art & activism: An interview with Susan Plum
By Barbara Levine

Art Opening
Luz y Solidaridad/Light and Solidarity
Susan Plum
Fri, Aug 29
Bellas Artes
Hernández Macías 75 

Susan Plum is part of a growing worldwide movement among artists to make socially relevant art. Working in a variety of media including installation, painting, sculpture and photography, and with materials as diverse as plastic, wax and glass, Plum creates transcendent imagery about the body, the soul, the cosmos, collective consciousness and activism.

Her work is in the exhibition, The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama, currently traveling throughout the US, Asia and Europe. Her sculpture was chosen for the Museum of New Zealand’s Toward a Balanced Earth, where she received the 2008 Green Leaf Award. In Houston, Texas, she recently exhibited photographs at Photo Fest and created the Intersection installation for the Project Row Houses gallery.

Raised in Mexico City, Plum spent most of her life in the US until 2003, when she relocated to San Miguel de Allende. Her experience and influences as a bicultural person are at the core of her work. In recent years, her focus has been the Mexican-American border and the disturbing disappearances and violent murders of young women in Juarez. Luz y Solidaridad/Light and Solidarity is her elegiac installation to the missing women and their grieving mothers. The installation premiered at Museo de la Ciudad in Querétaro in 2006 and will be on view for the first time in its entirety in San Miguel beginning August 29.

On the occasion of her upcoming exhibition I had the opportunity to visit Plum in her studio and interview her about the installation.

Barbara Levine: Describe your Light and Solidarity installation.

Susan Plum: The exhibition honors the families, particularly the mothers, of the hundreds of young women and girls who have disappeared or been murdered in Juarez since 1993.

When you enter the gallery you will see hanging from the ceiling five 12.5-foot black brooms, each tied in a knot. In pre-Hispanic Mexico sweeping the temples was considered sacred and only performed by priests and priestesses as cleansing rituals. Today this ritual continues as part of cleansing outside the home or business. The knots tied in the black brooms symbolize the cutting off of the feminine as well as the Buddhist knot. Behind the brooms on the gallery floor are six metates, the kind used for centuries to grind corn. The metates, centered with cast glass images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, represent the lineage of the Virgin from the Aztec goddesses Tonanzin and Coatlicue.

You also see a bronze tree sculpture based on the Maya World Tree. The base of the tree is circled with small cast-wax figures of women covered with cloaks of tears. Photographs showing people throughout Mexico and North America lighting candles in solidarity with the women also will be on view. 

BL: What was your motivation and inspiration to make this installation?

SP: I was still living in the US and following the escalation of border-crossing deaths after NAFTA and also reading about the disappearances and murders of women in Juarez, which continues to this day. As an artist and activist as well as being bicultural, I began to consider the Rio Grande as an open wound and I wanted to bring awareness to the horrible acts of violence as well as to encourage a healing or limpia. 

In 1999, I contacted Marisela Ortiz, director of the Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa, the organization for the mothers of the missing girls. It wasn’t until I moved to San Miguel in 2003, and met Marisela and several of the mothers, that the project began to take shape. 


After returning from Ciudad Juarez in 2004, I sent an email to friends asking them to participate in a ritual of lighting a votive to bring light to the murdered girls and solidarity to the mothers. I asked people to photograph the ritual and email me the photograph to be used in the installation. The photographs are part of the installation.

My motivation for making this work was to be with the mothers, to give them a way to feel empowered and to bring awareness of their situation. I also wanted to support them by starting a fund for the mothers by selling the cast-wax figures.

BL: I also understand that for the premiere in Querétaro in 2006 you brought several mothers from Ciudad Juarez to participate in the performance ritual.

SP: When I was in Ciudad Juarez, I asked the mothers if they would be interested in participating in a limpia or shamanic cleansing. They were very enthusiastic. We used brooms in a rhythmic, tapping pattern as well as sweeping to draw the “bad” energy from deep within the earth. We also played Aztec wind whistles, bullroarers and spinners to move the energy upward. The performance was filmed and will be shown as part of the installation at Bellas Artes.

BL: You have now worked on this project for several years. How has it impacted your life?

SP: I have come to realize that this project for me has been, in a sense, planting a seed for a much greater worldwide problem of violence against women. I am currently working with curator Randy Rosenberg on an exhibition called Off the Beaten Path. The exhibition will address the issue of violence against women from the perspective of art as a vehicle for transformation and will feature Yoko Ono, Mona Hatoum, Marina Abromovic and the Icelandic Love Corporation. 

BL: Where can people get more information about the situation of the women in Juarez?

SP: On my website I have information on how you can learn more and also support the mothers and their families. The web addresses are www.susanplum.com  or www.mujeresdejuarez.com. 

Barbara Levine was formerly director of exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and deputy director of the Contemporary Jewish Museum. She is the author of Snapshot Chronicles: Inventing the American Photo Album and Around the World: The Grand Tour in Photo Albums. Princeton Architectural Press will release her new book, Encountering Frida Kahlo, in 2009.