Sculpture Exhibit
Sebastian en San Miguel
Fri, Apr 17, 6pm
Bellas Artes
Hernández Macías 75

Symbols in sculpture come to San Miguel Compiled by Atención staff Mexican sculptor Enrique Carbajal is best known as Sebastian—a man of monumental vision and sculptures. Not only an artist, he is also a man of science. His sculpture is visibly concerned with geometric forms, and he does not submit his geometries to logical symbols, but rather to poetic symbols.

The sculpture of Sebastian—defined by the plurality of objects in space—forces us to imagine a combination of proximities and distances, of comings and goings. Sebastian’s medium is steel, aluminum and cardboard— the industrial product bathed in colors closer to Bennetton than to Huejotzingo.

One of Mexico’s most prominent sculptors, Sebastian has placed some 150 monumental pieces in cities around the world, ranging from Buenos Aires and Osaka to New York City and Mexico City.

Sebastian started to create sculptures in the sixties in a way unique to the traditional Mexican and Latin American sculpture. His constructive vocation, nourished by the principles of the kinetic art (works with movement or illusion of movement), was first expressed in the creation of transformable or unfolded sculptures such as the flexible cube named Leonardo 4. 

His works encompass small and medium formats as well as monumental urban sculpture. His best-known creation, Cabeza de Caballo (Horse Head) or El Caballito de Sebastian (Sebastian’s Little Horse), is located in downtown Mexico City. Other sculptures are found in the states of Nuevo León, Tabasco, Morelos, Guerrero, Chiapas and Michoacán. In the US, Sebastian’s geometric figures rise in strategic locations in the cities of Albuquerque, Denver, Englewood and New York. In Europe, he has pieces in Bern and Iceland. In the Orient, Sebastian’s sculpture is very popular, especially in the Japanese cities of Hakone, Nagoya and Osaka. 

A member of the World Arts Forum Council, Sebastian also serves on the advisory council of the Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (National Council for the Culture and the Arts). He traveled to Egypt for the First International Symposium of Scupltors in Aswan, presenting the piece, Hours, and a multimedia spectacle called El vuelo del Tsuru (The Tsuru’s Flight). Sebastian founded the Festival del Centro Histórico (Historical Center Festival) in Mexico City.

This exhibition in the institution’s corridors shows Sebastian’s small- and medium-format pieces, which range from 70 cm and 1.20 meters to the tallest at 2 meters. 





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Señor Batik
By Lou Christine

Roberto Molina Every day, Monday through Friday during daytime hours, Roberto Molina patiently sits, waiting for who might sashay into his cluttered Batik studio at Loreto 24A.

 He hasn’t much choice but to wait. Señor Molina is sentenced to a wheelchair existence, yet that hasn’t prevented Molina from remaining as one of San Miguel’s foremost Batik artists.

Born 67 years ago in San Miguel, Molina learned to draw and paint under the guidance of local painter David Paz, at the age of 14. He spent four additional years at Centro Cultural Ignacio Ramirez. While there he befriended some entrepreneurial Americans who introduced him to Batik, the centuries-old Indonesian process that uses images drawn on fabric with hot wax and then dyed to create patterns and illustrations.

The Americans dealt in Batik-type clothing. They enlisted the talented young artist, Molina, taught him the basics, stayed with him a bit, then departed Mexico and left young Roberto in charge. In no time the resourceful young man enlisted, on his own, 10 helpers who assisted him in creating a Batik clothing inventory to be marketed north of the border. That sweet arrangement suddenly ceased when his sponsors informed Molina they were terminating the Batik operation in Mexico. The silver lining was that Molina inherited the equipment and tools and could continue the process on his own. 

Thus began Molina’s career. He improved techniques and honed his craft. Trial and error mixing dyes enabled him to become a master when it comes to establishing color. He spent 22 years as an affable Batik-producing professor at Instituto Allende. He owned and operated a number of studios along Zacateros. His colorful and artistic creations have been featured in galleries and private collections worldwide.

“Unique” might be one of the most misused words in English, yet Molina’s creations are just that, ones of a kind. A Batik maker employs a number of steps to complete the process. One normally uses a cotton fabric. Patterns and images are drawn. Strategically, hot wax is either poured or brushed onto certain parts of the fabric during what’s called “a resist-dye process,” that shields those waxed spots, making them impervious to the dye’s color once immersed. According to Molina, he uses basic colors: red, blue and yellow, along with black, to create the shades and hues he desires. At will, he can create any other color of the rainbow he desires. 

The process sounds intricate and complicated to a layman and soon has a sod like me glassy eyed. There’s room for messy disaster. Further along, the half-baked piece of art meets the ironing board and iron, often with a layer of newspaper atop, to melt away the wax, and then that blank space can be colored in or manipulated by the Batik maker.

Molina’s finished pieces are especially striking. Many of his masterpieces highlight San Miguel’s colorful cityscape. Molina vividly captures San Miguel’s ancestral charm. Cathedrals and haciendas are depicted in a certain splendor that unassumingly radiates from the decorated cloth. Molina creates colorful Aztec and pre-Columbian images that lend themselves to the Batik process as if they were meant for each other, despite their roots oceans apart. Telltale markings are Batik birthmarks showing where the hardened wax cracked during the process as the dyes seeped through to the cloth. These by-product markings enhance the artwork in the eyes of aficionados.

A Batik artist has a number of responsibilities and must master the multiple-step process. Speaking with Molina, who’s bilingual, one senses his devotion to his art and the love for his city and culture.

This talented man took a fall a number of years ago. Afterward he was plagued with chronic back pain. He visited a slew of doctors here in the Bajío. No one could solve or relieve the pain. Finally his brother, who resided in Mexico City, talked him into seeking treatment there. Specialists said that Molina suffered from a pinched nerve and simple surgery would do the trick, yet he was warned that intense therapy would be required to fully recover. An additional problem surfaced; Molina could not sleep in the noisy capital. He could only count on an hour or two each night. Shortly after the operation, Molina said he thought he was going to lose his mind if he couldn’t get more sleep, so he abandoned the therapy sessions and returned to San Miguel “to never walk again!” The pain was finally gone, as was Molina’s ability to use his legs. One might ask, was it lack of therapy or a botched procedure? Regardless, one can’t sense a trace of bitterness when Molina tells his story. 

Neither has his handicap dampened a strong and persistent spirit. His enthusiasm might still match that of the eager 14-year-old or of the sharing teacher eager to teach. Molina produces Batik at home in the evenings and weekends but mostly, all week long, he holds quiet court at his Loreto studio. Visiting Molina while eyeballing his sumptuous art is worth a leisurely morning or afternoon.

His prices are a bargain, considering the uniqueness of his work. Meeting and chatting with artisans like Roberto Molina is one of those jewels that make our town worth living in. Examples of his work also can be seen at www.geocities.com/roberto_molina_batik. _________________________________________________



La Plástica de San Miguel
San Miguel artists
Until May 16
Sala de Arte Mexicano
Bellas Artes
Hernández Macías 75

Last days of outstanding exhibit
By Margaret Failoni (excerpt from catalogue)

La plástica de San Miguel originates with the aim of recognizing the importance of the work of different creators who have contributed with their talent and knowledge to the artistic enrichment of this country and especially San Miguel. The proposal is to establish an annual program of four to five visual artists, carefully selected for their labor and impact on local artistic life. 

We believe it is of great importance to leave, through this mechanism, a historical testimony of the artists who form part of the Bellas Artes as well as the city’s cultural heritage. In this first exhibition we present the work of Marisa Boullosa, Ignacio Maldonado, Mari Jose Marín and Ana Thiel.

Ernesto de la Peña Folch
Director 



Cotidianamente by Marisa Boullosa

Marisa Boullosa Violence is the leitmotif found throughout Marisa Boullosa’s work. We know violence can take many forms, perhaps the most insidious being emotional violence.

For this exhibition, the artist has created work dealing with denial, induced self-loathing and heartbreak stemming from failed marriages, and the emotional degradation from daily harassment in a “macho” world. A series of portraits made from linoleum cuts and printed onto colorful cotton fabric portrays the sad faces of tired and suffering women. The lines on the faces and downward turn of the mouths depict despair. The mask-like faces are attached to brooms, used as symbols of a women’s place in a macho world. Beautifully executed prints and faces printed onto pillows to bury your face and cry accompany this work. 

The next group of Boullosa’s work has as its main subject the very symbol of love: the heart, but in this case, a broken heart—very apropos indeed. 

The artist presents us with a group of tied-up terra cotta hearts, lying inert and sad in small individual boxes. Hanging nearby are five mantra-like scrolls, Remendando el Corazón, 2007, with different collaged and stitched photo transfers of pulsing hearts, all neatly sewn together. These “mended” hearts tell us that all is not lost; a broken heart can be mended. The work is powerful and quite stunning. From difficult periods in her own life and, in some cases, that of many women in Mexico, Boullosa has culled inspiration to create intelligent and thought-provoking works of art.

Se hace tarde, by José Ignacio Maldonado

José Ignacio Maldonado To follow this artist’s trajectory is truly interesting. A master, he can draw and paint brilliantly in the figurative mode and his work continues to undergo stylistic changes.

In recent years, with a few returns to the very figurative, Maldonado inserts more and more abstraction into his work. 

In this new body of work specifically created for the exhibition, Maldonado uses an overall abstract vision of a vaguely recognizable landscape. He is not interested in illustrating or faithfully depicting a tree or a flower. The artist wants to achieve the overall magical impact he feels when first confronting the subject he is about to paint. It’s more of what he feels than what he sees. He will not, however, give all to the viewer. Instead, he obliges the viewer to meet him halfway, to participate. A very large canvas seen in his studio, Barranca Florida, 2008/9, shows us a landscape in brilliant shades of pink. Nothing is definitive, yet we know it’s a landscape—a brilliant, solar, over-the-top extravaganza of color in large, quick brush strokes. Cañada de Cuervos and Milpa, Camino a Xotè are smaller and painted towards dusk, but not less exciting. A group of small thumbnail studies, also oils on canvas, accompany the exhibition.



Bosque iluminado by Mari José Marín

Mari José Marin Only since the twentieth century has landscape art stepped out from its benevolent and illustrative format to become, at times, disquieting metaphors for emotional content. Such is the case with the art of Mari José Marin.

It is no mystery that the changes in her early work—less illustrative and slightly more mysterious—coincided with dramatic changes in the artist’s life including severe health problems and a divorce. 

By deftly using pigment in rich combinations and brilliant sculptural surfaces, she gave the canvases a richness and depth which had been lacking in previous works. Forests of lance-like trees seem to sway in indigo and silver moonlight. A natural progression from these paintings was to bring the trees off the picture plane to create sculptures in silver and gold leaf in the same lance shapes, to enchant the viewer and invite the touch.

Marin is now moving from the forest and the trees to the wonderful world below, that of the underbrush. The imagery is minimalist and with an aura of mystery. There are beds of fallen leaves, compost and earth. Looking closely we see life moving below the surfaces, nurturing the forest and also nurturing the artist.

Presencia Menhir by Ana Thiel

Ana Thiel Creating art with glass is one of the most difficult and mysterious challenges and Ana Thiel is most definitely up to the task.  The magic that Thiel achieves in this work is her ability to create modern, very original sculpture by using mundane materials and objects wed to glass.

The synthesis in her work is most fascinating. The fact that Thiel was originally trained as an industrial designer may have been a major influence in her choice of materials. She finds beauty in metal washers, steel bands, mesh and wires and readily inserts them into her work, along with the rubble we find in our everyday lives.

Continuing to weave her magic, Thiel has created some outstanding work for this exhibition. The first work we see entering the gallery is a yet un-named installation of menhir-like blocks placed in a circular formation, created by the natural action of molten glass as it carves into refractory bricks. In the second space a giant necklace created by molten glass wraps around a cylinder to create segments with inclusions of metal washers, mesh and imprints of leaves and twigs. Thiel’s approach is to interpret nature and technology, and the trick is to find the right balance, which she achieves brilliantly in this work.