Day of the Dead Party
Art, Altars, Music by Hopalong (and others)
Sat, Oct 31, 6–9pm
Fábrica la Aurora

Celebrating life and death at the Aurora
Text by Edward Swift, Photos by Rolando García López 

At this year’s Day of the Dead party at Fábrica la Aurora, three special altars represent the combined efforts of many Aurora artists. In the main entrance you find an altar to the Mexican actor, Tin Tan, also known as Germán Genaro Cipriano Valdéz Castillo. He was born in Cuidad Juárez in 1915 and died in 1973.

Tin Tan often appeared in pachuco dress (Mexican/American youths of the thirties and forties) and used pachuco slang in many of his movies. It is said he kissed more actresses than any other actor of his day. Like Cantinflas, María Felix and Dolores del Río, he is a Mexican icon worthy of a special altar.

Mario Benedetti, the Uruguayan journalist, novelist and poet has a special altar located in Section C. Although not well known to the English-speaking world, Benedetti, who died May 17, 2009, was considered one of Latin America’s most important 20th century writers.

Near the café and Juan Ezcurdia’s gallery, the third special altar honors the great printmaker, José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913). His best known work are his calaveras, which often assume various costumes like the Calavera de la Catrina, the skeleton of the female dandy.

Now celebrated as one of Mexico’s great graphic artists, it is hard to imagine that by the end of his life Posada was largely forgotten and poverty stricken. Each year, the Posada Award is given to a Mexican artist of any graphic style. San Miguel resident Marisa Boullosa, represented by the Florencia Riestra Gallery, has won this award twice.

In addition to the three large altars in the public spaces, many more altars and special exhibitions are displayed in the various galleries. The Florencia Riestra Gallery mounts an exhibition of the work of Phil Kelly, a Dublin born artist who lives in Mexico City. The paintings of Joao Rodríguez and Mónica Pesquera also are exhibited, along with the nocturnal monotypes of José Clemente Gae Orozco, the grandson of José Clemente Orozco. These monotypes are dark poetic elegies that make an elegant contrast to the more traditional Day of the Dead imagery.

James Harvey honors Andy Warhol with an altar of soup cans and photos, as well as a lock of Andy’s hair. I didn’t ask him how he obtained it. Edina Sagert is creating an altar of her new ceramic vases. Each has a lid that resembles the head of a Guanajuato mummy. Although the heads may not look like a single member of your family or even your dearest departed pet, she insists that they are perfect funeral urns and can be placed outdoors. On a more cheerful note, Maureen Morris shows decorative ceramics along with Sagert’s urns. Donna Mattson of Buenas Noches has an altar to honor Yves Saint Laurent, who died in 2008. I am showing new Guardian sculptures, one of which is seven feet tall. I also am exhibiting Leah Feldon’s photos of San Miguel’s colorful walls and the new feathered masks of Adrian Ross.

Melanie Harris of the galería/atelier honors her artist, Ed Osman, who died last month. Osman was a local painter with an international following. He was also a walking history book. His father was a Turkish immigrant and his mother was born in the Otto-Hungarian Empire; therefore, his altar will be full of Turkish delights and history books. Surrounding his altar is an exhibition entitled “Intimate Moments,” featuring the artist Ezshwan Winding. This exhibition also celebrates the fifth anniversary of the galería/atelier.

Mary Rapp’s gallery is transformed into a Day of the Dead installation featuring her new recycled Styrofoam sculpture. She has rescued packing material destined for the trash bin and transformed it into translucent sculpture. She also exhibits her latest expressionist paintings. Her altar honors the Beat writers. She was close friends with Lucian Carr and William S. Burroughs, and once spent a memorable Sunday strolling the streets of New York with Jack Kerouac.

Edgardo Kerlegand honors his mentor, Marion Laudy, the Dutch journalist and author of The World Is My Fatherland, a book that breaks down the boundaries of racism and prejudice. Laudy, who died in August 2009, was Kerlegand’s neighbor when he was a boy in Mexico City. She taught him to speak English and encouraged him to read Marx, Kant and Heidegger, and to listen to the music of Bach. He remembers her with great admiration: “I remember her saying how important it is to be a Latin American and that she would give anything to be one of us.”

Mario Oliva of the Alebrije Gallery in Section C hosts a group show in which several artists display paintings and sculpture in honor of this special day. In effect, his entire gallery is an altar celebrating life and death and life thereafter. What could be more appropriate?



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Art Opening
Collective Exhibition
“Space Between Worlds”
Sun, Nov 1, 5–8pm
Galería Independencia
Ave. Independencia 66

Space between worlds, towards the light
By Bonnie Griffith

The exhibition on November 1 at Galería Independencia will focus on the crossover, the space, the veil that we lift at this time of year, to experience two worlds, this one and the one beyond this life. This is a time of transformation, a communion with the energy that binds us all.

At this time of year, when the portal is open, the Day of the Dead and other similar rituals in cultures all over the world commemorate the time after the harvest and before the winter hibernation as the time when communication between the two worlds easily takes place. In Mexico we celebrate the Day of the Dead, erect our altars to our beloved departed taking time to eat, drink, laugh and cry with our friends and family.

In northern Europe, the harvest festival “Samain” marks the end of a cycle and a new beginning. It is curious to see that a season when light slowly diminishes marks the beginning of the new year cycle. The festivities started on the eleventh full moon of the year, 40 days after the autumn equinox. The kingdom of the shadows lifted its veil. The spirit of the ancestors came back to influence the living.

Death is a passage. It is not an end in itself. It opens the way to the kingdom of the spiritual world. Is life, after all, an eternal beginning or an eternal end? From the birth of humanity to our present time, we still haven't found the answers.

This group show includes artists of diverse media. Agnes Olive, well known in San Miguel for her focus on the spirit world, exhibits several pieces about the journey between life and death. Mary Quagliata’s work focuses on the human form in a vibrant, expressionistic way. Joanelena Goldberg is a ceramic sculptor whose work is expressive and contemporary. She has created a new piece for this show. Shannon Reece uses black-and-white photographs as a starting point for an artistic journey into writing and painting. Raphael Monzies is creating a sculpture for this show, building a bridge between East and West. Ananda Simonin is an artist from France who works with the tarot as a healing tool. Tomás Burkey, a Chilean-American artist, has grown with the influence and memory of both extremes of the Americas integrating the ancestral and cultural roots. Michael Latriano is showing small mixed media paintings that speak to transcendence. And I will show new, or reworked, paintings from the series “White Flowers Disapp
earing Into White Space” and “Figuras Femininas.”

The opening of Space Between Worlds is on Sunday, and the show will be open from 11am–5pm Friday and Saturday throughout November. Everyone is invited!

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Instituto Allende’s pays homage to co-founder
By Jaime Fernández

Renaissance man, Stirling Dickinson, was the trail blazing American mostly responsible for making San Miguel an expat haven. The artist, writer, philanthropist, opera aficionado, baseball-playing educator and expert botanist, made tremendous impact on San Miguel 

Each year, during Día de los Muertos, Instituto Allende pays tribute to a deceased sanmiguelense by creating an altar in the small chapel nestled in the far right corner of the building. Dickinson died here in a freak car accident on October 27, 1998, just a few days ahead of that year’s Day of the Dead. An altar honoring another soul was already erected. There wasn’t enough time for an add-on. This year, 2009, Instituto wishes to finally place proper focus on Stirling Dickinson, the man, who also was one of Instituto Allende’s co-founders.

Dickinson first arrived in San Miguel before daybreak on February 7, 1937. At the Jardín, Dickinson peered at the Parroquia poking through the mist. “My God, what a sight!” he said to himself. “I’m going to stay here.” After five years in San Miguel, Dickinson was named a Favored Adopted Son, the only American to be so honored by the city. Also recognized by the State’s governor he became renowned for creating, playing and managing championship baseball teams that brought glory to Guanajuato. The baseball field he helped build and finance, that’s still is in operation today is named Campo Stirling Dickinson.

In 1938, Peruvian artist Felipe Cossio del Pomar established San Miguel’s first art school, the Escuela Universitaria de Bellas Artes, located in the former convent that houses the present Bellas Artes. Del Pomar offered Dickinson the position of Art Director. The Princeton grad taught Spanish, botany and landscape painting, as well as leading culturally deprived students on eye-opening field trips as part of his "Aspects of Mexico" course.

Not satisfied with the Bellas Artes’s curriculum, Dickinson, with Nell and Enrique Fernandez, along with Cossio de Pomar, pooled resources and refurbished the then in ruins, old De la Canal’s residence, out on Ancha de San Antonio and parlayed the site into Instituto Allende. The arts and language school went on to become a bellwether learning center, drawing in students from around the world, mostly due to the efforts put out by Dickinson.

Dickinson, too, traveled the world. Bringing back cuttings, Dickinson cultivated what was probably the largest private orchid collection in Mexico, a lifelong interest that was highlighted by the discovery of encyclia dickinsoniana and having a second named after him in recognition of his work, cypripedium dickinsonianum.

Shortly after Dickinson first arrived in San Miguel he purchased an old tannery on calle Santo Domingo for the equivalent of 90 U.S. dollars. It was his home until his death. In typical selfless Dickinson fashion, he willed his property to his long-time domestic help.

Despite his abundant gifts to charity, his tomb is simple and unadorned. He is buried in the American section of the city graveyard of Sra. de Guadalupe.

Dickinson was instrumental at enabling WWII vets to take advantage of the G.I Bill while attending Instituto Allende. He, too, was a vet and served in Naval Intelligence during the war. It was the very first time student-vets could collect benefits while attending a foreign school. He recruited noted Mexican artists such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Rufino Tamayo to lecture, teach, and sometime become artists in residence. Movie stars, politicians and other giants in their fields visited San Miguel and Instituto Allende after being invited by Dickinson. His casual affiliation with Rivera and Siqueiros, known as overt Communists, had Time Magazine label Dickinson a communist. Dickinson sued the publishers of Time and won, having Time retract the accusation. To this day Dickinson is credited as being the only person to successfully sue Time Inc.

Due to a misunderstanding Dickinson and some of his faculty were deported from Mexico and they holed themselves up in a hotel across the border from Nuevo Laredo. When the President of Mexico heard of the deportation, he became furious and sent a military escort to the border to accompany Dickinson and his cadre back to San Miguel.

Dickinson was a tireless advocate for the poor and downtrodden. He enlisted visiting doctors and local volunteers to accompany him on weekly jaunts out to the campo to treat and feed the impoverished. He constantly and persistently banged the tourist-luring drum while advocating the merits and beauty of San Miguel.

The Day of the Dead altar, inside Instituto’s chapel, will feature many keepsakes and other reminders attached to a man who not only was huge in stature (6’ 6”) but gigantic in his contribution to our town and Instituto Allende. 

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Day of the Dead in the street
Calle Correo street party (until Nov 2)

5pm, Fri, Oct 30

Workshops, alfenique (sugar figures), flores de papel (paper flowers), papel picado (cut paper decorations), 20 pesos per workshop*

Sat, Oct 31

10am-12noon & 5-7pm constructing altars & decorating Calle Correo

10am & 11 am, conferences: The Indigenous Influence in Contemporary SMA *

7 & 8 pm, conferences: Day of the Dead in SMA*


Sun, Nov 1 & Mon, Nov 2

6pm, open collective altar with Xuchiles and parade of mohigangas de la muerte catrinas from Jardín to Salida de Querétaro

6pm, Dia de los Muertos en San Miguel, audiovisual video* 

7pm: reading of Calaveras poems with selection of winning poem.

After dark, screening of the classic film, Macario in the street @ Galeria Arias, Correo 73

* @ Centro Bilingue, Correo 46





Death brings life to the street
By Suzanne Ludekens

More than 15 business owners on Calle Correo have united to offer the largest street party for the Day of the Dead festivities.  Bringing together all expressions of the arts, this celebration encompasses lectures on history and traditions, films, art, gastronomia and altar-making.

The public is invited to participate in workshops on creating decorative items for the altars as well as join in the fun of helping decorate the street.

Arturo Morales of the Centro Bilingue and expert on local traditions gives a lecture on the Indigenous influence in contemporary San Miguel and presents the Day of the Dead in SMA. Gallery owner José Luis Arias brings the Mexican classic film Macario out of the theater and into the street by screening the film on his gallery wall. Just turn up after dark to see the film.

In the evening of both November 1 and 2 the larger than life figures the Mohigangas will lead a parade of Catrinas and costumed figures to visit the altars lining the street. Calaveras (irreverent poems on death) will be read, while atoles, tamales and samples of gastronomia de muertos (foods of this celebration, pan de muertos chilacoyotes, fiambre and more) will be given to visitors.

And to add to the celebrations all stores will offer discounts and promotions.

Macario

The 1960 Mexican classic tells the tale of the poor, hungry peasant Macario who longs for just one good meal on the Day of the Dead. After his wife cooks a turkey for him, he meets three apparitions, the Devil, God, and Death. Each asks him to share his turkey, but he refuses all except Death. In return, Death gives him a bottle of water which will heal any illness. Soon, Macario is more wealthy than the village doctor, which draws the attention of the feared Inquisition.