LESBIANS IN DF

While writing my guidebook, I had a tough time finding information for lesbians, so I was happy to discover the following English-language website while net-surfing:

http://machamexico.wordpress.com/

It has helpful information, interesting articles (the most recent about lesbian mothers in DF) and useful links. It looks good and is easy to use.

Another tip is the weekly magazine Tiempo Libre which has a GAY section that lists events for lesbians (like 'lesbian night' at otherwise male-only gay bars)

The recommendation in my book (www.eventoslesbicos.org on page 100) seems to have degenerated into a sex-for-sale website. It will be removed in the new edition.

ART IN DF--VIK MUNIZ

As you can tell, I've been hitting the museums this week. Here's another show I highly recommend:

The Antiguo Collegio de San Ildefonso (Justo Sierra 16 in the Centro Historico) always presents shows of high quality; it’s one of the city’s best museums. The current show offers photographs by a Brazilian artist, now living in New York, Vik Muniz (b. Sao Paolo, 1961). The work is presented in chronological order, allowing us to see clearly the artist’s development. Muniz often starts with borrowed images—journalistic photos from back issues of Life magazine, old master paintings, photos of movie stars—and then copies them, or re-creates them using a variety of unusual materials (dirt, chocolate, diamonds, plastic toys, etc.). The resulting images are then photographed, sometimes manipulated in the process. At first, I had that sinking feeling I sometimes get at contemporary art galleries that the artist had spent too much time in graduate school, resulting in objects that are far less interesting than the text which describes them: ‘art as idea’ rather than ‘art as art’. By the end of the show, however, I was won over by Muniz’ prodigious technique, which merits close inspection. The photos are the end product of the artist’s labor as painter, sculptor, etcher. This guy knows how to draw, although after the first series of photos, you won’t see signs of pen or pencil. His double ‘Mona Lisa’ (after Warhol) done in peanut butter and jelly, a gigantic ‘Raft of the Medusa’ (Gericault) in chocolate syrup,
Goya’s ‘Saturn Devouring his Child’ fashioned from discarded scrap metal, and a portrait of Bela Lugosi in caviar are some of his more audacious images (it sounds funnier than it looks). Others, made from sugar, dust, or miles of thread, are more subtle. The images become more alluring, even decorative, in his recent work; a series made from colorful pastic toys are pointilist masterpieces. The show closes September 14. You can visit the artist’s website at www.vikmuniz.net

While at the museum, one of the city’s great monuments of colonial architecure, be sure to see Diego Rivera’s 1922 mural ‘La Creación’. It’s to the left as you enter the museum—not well marked, so ask for help finding it.

ART IN DF--DANIEL LEZAMA

The paintings of Daniel Lezama (b. Mexico 1968), now on display at the Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico, are compelling on several levels. His rich palette of colors, the dramatic lighting effects, his facile, dancing brushwork, the secure sense of drawing and composition, all serve to seduce and delight the eye. This is an artist trained in classical technique, a real rarity these days. References to Goya, Caravaggio, and Reubens abound, but the effect is not one of slavish copying or historical homage, but of something fresh, as yet unseen.

His subject matter intrigues, disturbs, and at times revolts the viewer with its scenes of naked children, ritual sex acts and mindless violence, that press the limits of the lurid and the pornographic, but never pass them. Lezama is a storyteller, each canvas suggesting a complex history that speaks of Freudian analysis and pagan ritual, spiced with large doses of Mexican history, folklore and religion. The actors in his tales, fat, drunk, poor, bleeding, inhabit their roles with a calmness and inevitability that adds to their strangeness, like characters in a Flannery O’Connor story. There are suggestions of both dream and nightmare, but the reality of his painting denies either interpretation--these canvases stare straight at you, wide awake. The greatness of Lezama’s work is its artful balance of these potentially conflicting forces, the seeming rightness of everything that looks wrong.

The paintings of Daniel Lezama will be at the Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico (Pino Suarez #30 near El Salvador) until June 29. For more information about the artist, visit his website: www.daniellezama.net

MEXICANS GETTING FATTER

When was the last time you walked into your neighborhood tiendita and saw anything
that resembled real, nutritional food? Sad, but true--check it out:

Mexicans getting fatter

RECOMMENDED ART SHOW IN MEXICO CITY

MEXICO Y LA ESTAMPA MODERNA 1920-1950 at the Museo Nacional de Arte (Calle Tacuba near Eje Central) is a strong show of printmaking, primarily black-and-white woodcuts, linocuts, and lithographs. This art form has been particulary strong in Mexico since the 19th century when José Guadalupe Posada created his indelible images (e.g. the La Calaca Caterina, that skeleton with the big feathered hat you see all over). The big names here are Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and Leopoldo Méndez (left), but there are lots of surprises.
The show is up until June 8.
While you are at the museum, don't miss the landscapes of José María Velasco in the permanent collection upstairs.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE TLACOYOS GONE?

I just returned from three weeks in Spain and went right to the Centro for a fix. What happened? All the ambulantes (street vendors) have been removed from Eje Central, Lopez,
Independencia, Victoria, etc.--the place was disturbingly quiet. What really bothers me is
that it's now almost impossible to find a good quesadilla or tlacoyo on the street. Supposedly they been moved further out. If anybody out there finds a good puesto for
my favorite lunch-time snack, please email me at :
jimjohnstonart@gmail.com

DF NEWS--David Lida

If you're interested in the pulse of the big city, you've got to know this guy--

www.davidlida.com

SLOW FOOD

A new group has been formed here in DF, part of Slow Food International, to promote awareness of locally produced and artesanal food. For information, visit the website:
www.slowfoodcondesaroma.com

MUSEO DE LAS INTERVENCIONES

I've been seeing this billboard all over town lately and found it quite compelling (not the vodka part). You certainly won't see this one in the U.S. of A.
The MUSEO DE LAS INTERVENCIONES near Coyoacán tells the history of the numerous incursions by Spain, France and the U.S. into Mexico in the years 1825-1916. Americans will be surprised and maybe a bit ashamed. The museum is housed in a magnificent
colonial monastery. For more information and directions click below:

INTERVENCIONES

LEONORA CARRINGTON

Artist Leonora Carrington is a national living treasure. Although born in the UK in 1917, she has lived most of her live in Mexico, and currently in her 90's, still produces new paintings and sculptures in her studio in Colonia Roma.
GO SEE the current outdoor show of her work along REFORMA in Chapultepec Park (between the park entrance and the Museo de Antropología). The paintings are all reproductions, but they pale in comparison to her whimsical, surreal bronze sculptures that line the central camellon of Reforma. The show is on until the end of October--don't miss it!
Click here to learn more about this interesting artist.