August 29, 2008, Cati Demme, an artistic force in San Miguel, By Beverly Russell, Sin compromiso, By Edward Swift, Portrait of the painter as a film star, By Christine Foster, Boullosa and Quintana in Querétaro, By Margaret Failoni, A sense of visual music, Gallery-studio El Relicario opens

Cati Demme, an artistic force in San Miguel
By Beverly Russell August 29, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Cati (Catherine) Demme, the owner/director of the Generator Gallery in Fábrica la Aurora, has the casual, self-assured manner of someone who has traveled the world and experienced many cultures.

Her last name is French Alsatian, but she was born in Philadelphia. At age five, her family moved to Mexico City and for the next five years she absorbed the Mexican culture and language.

Both her parents were artistic, her mother a painter and father a musician, and Demme always knew she wanted to be an artist—not just on a single track of creativity, however, but involved in many art forms. She first studied dance, then went on to studio arts where she felt she had more options for expression. While creating her own art works, she became certified to teach studio arts through the Massachusetts College of Art and later obtained her master’s degree in studio art education through New York University in Manhattan and Venice, Italy. Her mentors in Italy included Dr. Philip Rylands, director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection Museum, with whom she studied the history of renaissance art, and Giovanni Soccol, painter and set designer for the Fenicia Theater. In Manhattan, she interned with environmental artist Alan Sonfist. While teaching at the college level, she began designing theatrical sets and costumes. Her love of theater was engendered by her parents, especially her mother who designed sumptuous costumes. To date, she has directed, produced and designed more than 30 productions, including Antigone, All My Sons, Camelot, Arsenic and Old Lace, Fourth of July and The Musicians of Brementown.

Her own artworks, which she calls “Pop Rococo,” reflect this interest in theater. They are assemblages in boxes, resembling small-scale theatrical sets. Her current series incorporates “pop” imagery with mundane found objects and materials and has found its way into private collections in New England, Las Vegas and San Miguel.

Yet with all of these accomplishments, you will find her most often sitting quietly at her laptop computer at the entrance to the Generator Gallery, observing people who walk through the doors and always ready to talk about her stable of top-ranking artists. Last month she showed works by Margarette Dawit and Jose Ignacio Maldonado, following an exhibition of works by Wabi Sabi collective (artists Shirli Mercantel and Gregory Ellis), Mary Jane Miller and Kelley Vandiver. These artists were invited to give presentations and demonstrations of their techniques at early morning “Art Thursdays,” which drew a fascinated audience to learn more behind-the-scenes studio secrets. This month, the gallery will be devoted to the work of one of San Miguel’s most distinguished artists, David Leonardo, creator of murals at Instituto Allende and in the Sala Quetzal at the Biblioteca Pública. “Cati is a first-rate gallery owner,” he said, “and she is creating a cultural center with the Generator Gallery in San Miguel. Her sense of museumography is outstanding. My show in February was the most beautifully hung show I have ever had.” Marcantel of Wabi-Sabi Collective agrees; she was thrilled the way their show last year was exhibited. “When I walked in I was just so moved,” she said, to the point that they made a DVD of the show.

Demme’s discerning eye ensures that only the best of the best is shown on her gallery walls. “I do turn people away,” she admitted, “but I feel it is my responsibility to maintain the highest level of artistic excellence.” Mary Jane Miller, celebrated for her icons in tempera in the Byzantine tradition, praised Demme’s sense of discrimination. “She interviews artists carefully and then she invites them to work with her to get together work for an exhibition.”

Demme’s two different gallery spaces, the grand one 61 feet long and 23 feet wide, and the smaller adjacent one (also home to the original generator in the Aurora factory) allow her to show both large- and small-scale art works. Lavinia Ruiz, who frames many of the works in the Generator Gallery exhibitions, speaks of the incredible energy that goes into mounting 14 shows a year.

“I am always amazed by the way Cati pulls it all off and never seems stressed out,” she said.

Demme’s sense of destiny is not just directed toward her own ends, however. “San Miguel has a potential to become a top art venue for collectors,” she affirmed.

Beverly Russell is the author of several books on design and the arts. She has written articles for numerous publications including The New York Times.

Sin compromiso
By Edward Swift

Art Exhibition
Sin Compromiso
James Harvey and Edward Swift
Galería de Casa Diezmo
Instituto Estatal de Cultura de Guanajuato
Sistema Municipal de Arte y Cultura de Celaya
Benito Juárez 204, Celaya

About six months ago I was sitting in my gallery talking to artists Hope Swann and Kelley Vandiver when professor José Llaca, coordinator of Exposiciones y Museografía de la Sistema Municipal de Arte y Cultura de Celaya, appeared before us unannounced. We didn’t have the slightest idea who he was at the time. After looking at our work he asked us to exhibit in Celaya. Swann immediately committed us to the month of August. In the meantime she returned to the US and in July I received a letter from her saying she would not be returning and could not to do the exhibition in Celaya. Next, Kelley Vandiver decided to pull out of the exhibition—he was having a “nervous breakdown.” (Well, aren’t we all?) Since I had not heard from the professor, I was hoping he had forgotten all about us when, lo and behold, one day in July he appeared again unannounced in my gallery and said, “I hope you remember you’re supposed to have an exhibition in Celaya.”

“I remember,” I said. “I was hoping you had forgotten.”

I explained the situation. “I am sorry,” I said, “but I cannot possibly fill the gallery all by myself.” Then by a stroke of good fortune James Harvey walked through the door and I immediately committed him. Fortunately, Llaca liked Harvey’s work, particulaly the nude soccer players from the French team. Then he asked me what we would call the show. We needed a title; I could think of nothing.

A day later I was merely glancing through a Mexican hardcore porn magazine when my eye fell quite by accident on the Personals. The writers sought: “Estoy buscando un novio para sexo bueno, sin compromiso.” “Estoy buscando novia para casar…sin compromiso.” All the writers were searching for sex, sex and more sex sin compromiso. Immediately, I emailed Llaca and said, “How about calling the show, “Sin compromiso”? He liked the title; I liked it; and, more importantly, Llaca approved it.

Here is my explanation: The work of Harvey, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, and my work could not be more different and yet, oddly enough, we are being shown in the same gallery, without explanation, without apology—without compromise. Moreover, his soccer players are strong men in dominant poses, nude, masculine, intent upon winning the game—again without compromise. (I am encouraging him to paint the Mexican soccer team next—sin compromiso and, of course, sin ropa. Wouldn’t that be nice?)

So here we are with an exhibition in the Galería de la Casa de Diezmo in Celaya, which will be hanging until September 7. This arts institution, the Sistema Municipal de Arte y Cultura de Celaya, is nothing to be sneezed at. It is housed in two colonia buildings in centro. One building, the Casa de la Cultura, used to be a convent and the other, the Casa de Diezmo, was once a school. In both buildings, classes are given in dancing, painting, sculpture and music, and there are many galleries for exhibitions. Currently the sculpture of Rodrigo Lara from Querétaro is also being shown along with 100 years of graphic art from the maestros de la Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas, Academia de San Carlos.

More impressive to me, an official van was sent to San Miguel to pick up our art. In 24 hours or less the work was hanging and ready for viewing. Invitations were printed; the media were notified; and James and I didn’t have to do a thing except show up for the opening. And, by the way, the institution only takes a 15-percent commission. Unheard of, certainly in the US where galleries tell the artist: “We would like to invite you to participate in the publicity of your show.” That little phrase means, “Write a check, buddy!”

Hemos vistos majores dias

Question: When has a US gallery asked me to have an exhibition in which I had to do nothing except hand over the art? The answer: “Never.” A few days ago a friend living in California asked me, “When are you going to get tired of Mexico and come back to the US?” Again, I answered, “Never!” Mexico is my adopted country. The state of Guanajuato welcomes talented artists from all over Mexico and the world. I am able to live here and created my art, sin compromiso.

To visit the gallery from San Miguel, take the Salida a Celaya which leads into calle Independencia. At Cinco de Mayo turn left. Three blocks later turn right onto Benito Juárez and go to 204.

“Oh, look, he could be TJ!” I exclaimed. It was April and I was walking with my daughter in the Jardín. We had just been talking about the one remaining uncast part in the film we were shooting in San Miguel—the important role of her boyfriend. And there he was, an attractive young man, a stranger in town, painting at an easel.

Our gut feeling was that he was the one, so I went up and introduced myself as the producer of Love is… (a romantic comedy coming soon to DVD at a store near you!).

Alastair Dacey looks like a leading man, but he’s actually a classically trained painter, and unfortunately, he was only in town for a few more days. But after many margaritas, we finally convinced him to put his current commissions in Boston on hold and return to San Miguel where, happily for us, he has now just wrapped his first feature film appearance. He was perfect and it was obviously meant to be. Now he has stayed on to paint. I asked him, “Why here?”

Alastair Dacey: I had expected San Miguel to be flooded with artists and was even a little nervous—would anything be left to paint? Any fresh subject matter? Was I going be setting up in a long line of easels and artists in straw hats flanking the Jardín? So when I first arrived I proceeded with caution and began to scout out scenes to paint. What a pleasant surprise to find I was the only easel and straw hat in sight! Four paintings started—and a head popping with ideas—I was in the Jardín one evening, enjoying a beer, when I noticed a troop of mariachi lingering in the shadows of the nearby portales. They were leaning and sitting on doorsills, smoking, chatting on their cell phones, their instruments lying idle against one leg. They looked glamorous, their outfits reflecting the streetlights, but also somehow sad.

In watching them I realized I had never seen paintings that explored that dichotomy. The more I thought about it the more convinced I became—perhaps 10 portraits, half life-size, to capture that a
ura, that dignity, that tension—as if they knew they were gradually facing the loss of their tradition. And that expresses a universal idea: doesn’t each culture have an equivalent? I was satisfied I found something fresh.

Christine Foster: So between your fascination with mariachi and the possibility of film stardom, you were lured back. And, since we finished filming, you have been doing some local portrait work. You did a study of Gwen, in charcoal, which exactly captures her.

AD: I’m definitely a figurative painter. Although I have done landscapes and still lifes, I keep coming back to the human form and face.

CF: Why?

AD: Well, it’s what I find so captivating about the mariachi. Could you find that kind of dichotomy with a pear? It’s about potential. The human face will always evoke a unique response because the audience is also human.

CF: But you’re working on another series of paintings with a uniquely Mexican theme?

AD: I met a charro, Juan Antonio Perez Solis, whose father, by the way, originally started the volunteer fire department in San Miguel, and he was willing to work with me on creating a showpiece. I donated the first three of the small oil studies I did of him on horseback to the silent auction at the recent SPA fundraiser. Now I’m completing the larger painting and hope to have it shown at a local gallery with some of my other recent work.

CF: We’ve been discussing your interest in San Miguel, but how about we wax poetic for a minute?

AD: Oh, goody.

CF: You must be sick of people saying, “Why paint a realistic, naturalistic, recognizable portrait…when you could just take a photograph?” Has photography become the portrait painter’s nemesis?

AD: Yes, but I don’t think it’s because the two are actually at odds. It’s a question of intent. The two media offer separate but equal takes on truth. We have plenty of photos of ourselves that still manage to miss who we are. A photo is a snapshot, a split second in time. That’s why we end up with so many photos which look nothing like us. There are so many variables that effect how we appear: the lighting, the pose. The painter has complete control of the composition. He makes his image from pigment and oil (a very physical act) and works on it over a long period of time. The difference in the result is the difference in the way it is achieved. The photographer looks for an instant in time and captures that. Portrait painters take multiple instants and try to mesh them into one so, in the end, your portrait should look more like you than any photograph.

CF: Now for the most important question. Do you think you want to do any more acting?

AD: Can you ask me that after the film comes out?

Dacey majored in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design before studying for four years at the Ingbretson Studio of Design and at the Charles Cecil Studio in Florence, Italy. He won first place in 2003 for Excellence in Painting in Stowe, Vermont, and received the 2006 Stobart Grant. Though based in New England, he teaches and paints where his interest takes him. He can be contacted at nadacey@gmail.com and more of his work can be seen at alastairdacey.blogspot.com.

Art Exhibition
Marisa Boullosa and Georgina Quintana
Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro
Calle Guerreo Norte 27, Centro
Querétaro
Tue–Sun, 10am–7pm, closed Mondays

A trip to Querétaro is a must to see the works of two outstanding artists: San Miguel’s own Marisa Boullosa and Georgina Quintana from Mexico City.

Boullosa’s work occupies two large spaces in the museum’s second floor in which she exhibits a stunning group of aquatint etchings.

The imagery is of torn ID photos of poor Mexicans who have tried to cross the border into the US, ripped newspaper articles concerning illegal immigration and news photos of border guards manhandling illegal immigrants. Print after print tells the story of poor workers and their families, with police reports, Mexican flags and on and on it goes, to portray a touching, soul-filled testimony of this very human condition.

In the center of the larger room is an installation: a large square-shaped mound of earth and rocks, underneath which we see a discarded child’s shoe, a soiled doll, a ripped T-shirt, a baseball cap—all fragments left behind in passing a scorched land.

I left the exhibit with a lump in my throat, but with admiration for the unsurpassed printing technique.

Georgina Quintana’s work is a poetic interpretation and illustration of all God’s living creatures, from an amoeba to the largest mammal. The exhibit room is lined from head to foot, including the ceiling, with translucent synthetic paper onto which the artist, using deft brush strokes in black and white wash, has painted these magnificent creatures which seem to float in the air.

Quintana has made many trips to India and her work always presents a Zen-like interpretation of nature.

The exhibit will be up through the middle of September and is definitely not to be missed. Works by both artists also can be seen here in the Espacio Carral gallery at Fábrica la Aurora.

Margaret Failoni is an independent curator and art historian who has lived in San Miguel for 13 years. She curates exhibitions of contemporary art for museums, public spaces and some galleries in Mexico after a full-time career in Rome, Italy.

A sense of visual music

Art Opening
Steven & Noah Mendelson
Sat, Aug 30, 6–9pm
Galería Intrínseca
Reloj 54B

Galería Intrínseca is a new gallery featuring the work of Steven and Noah Mendelson, father and son, who live here year-round. Currently on display in this attractive space are more than 40 paintings, many of which have not been shown previously in San Miguel.

Their work is contemporary, expressing a complex realization of design, space, color and light.

You will see intuitive oil paintings done with a palette knife, as well as expressionistic acrylics on paper. The work is charged with a sense of visual music. Feel the rhythms of shape, tones of color, notes of life and octaves of everything. Or perhaps their painting is science itself—weighing and balancing, recording and experimenting.

Fresh art worth a look…intrinsic, perhaps?

The gallery is located on calle Reloj, just past Insurgentes. Normal hours are daily except Tuesday, 11am–6pm (phone 154-4212).

The artists also may be contacted through their websites: www.smendelsongallery.com and www.leafgallery.com.

Gallery-studio El Relicario, owned by Alejandro López, a young artist from San Miguel, opened on Friday, August 15, at Calzada de la Aurora 23.

Noteworthy attendees provided capsule reviews of López’s work.

Journalist Adolfo Rubio said, “This young artist is very promising and he is a banner for Guanajuato.”

Renowned Mexican artist Tina Villanueva said, “Your work reminds me of the Spanish dancer Amalia Anaya, who lived and suffered with a brave passion, her artistic vocation. You have already found your style and color; keep on working so that you can get success.”

Boris, organizer of the Contemporary Art Show, noted López’s management of color, of movement and the Mexican influences blended with cubism, modernism and tradition. “His work is singular and with a marked style and tendency not usual among young Mexican painters.”

Bullfighter Manolo Becerra defined López as “a great artist; his work and the theatrical form of presenting it touched me and made me remember one of the poems of my next book: ‘the heart hanging by a thread and the life in a candle, it cries burning tears, the candle.’”

Psychologist Claudio Meyer said, “His youth imbues his work with passion, fire, blood and nationalist causes. He manages cubism with religious formalities, but not from the institutional point of view, but as a way of expressing love and sorrow as the top reagents of life.”

Sabine Lucif, a student of French literature visiting our city from New York, said that when she observed López’s work, she found in La Macarena the “impossibility of understanding that human figure as a woman or as a man, since its essence is completely androgynous, just as is La Gioconda. I think this local artist has talent and a future with his interesting and mystical expression.”

His teacher, José Luis Arias, noted that the relevant point in López’s work is that it has taken a religious language to an aesthetic level, characteristic of sanmiguelenses.