A Fleet of Kites

Last year I was at the Museum of Popular Arts to see the entries for their annual kite contest.  When I saw that the kites for this year's competition were on display, I wanted to check them out.  The entries are hanging in the museum's courtyard.

This is the 18th year that the museum has sponsored this contest.  The kites are made by residents of Mexico, and must be constructed from natural materials.  No plastic or metal allowed.  The winner receives a prize of 20,000 pesos (around 1000 U.S. dollars).  I wonder if the kites are tested to see if they can actually fly.  

Here are a few of the entries...

This one has a marine life theme.  There is a tortoise and a porpoise, and I think the body of the kite is a manta ray.

The banner under this honeycomb kite says "Sweet beehive".

This kite is inspired by the traditional "María" dolls.

Now on the special exhibit at the Museum of Popular Arts...

The Tree of the City

You may remember that the previous week I had planned to visit special exhibits at three museums in downtown Mexico City.  As it turned out, I only visited the Museo Kaluz.  On Thursday I returned downtown to visit the other two museums.  I began at the Museum of Popular Arts, which is my favorite small museum in Mexico City.

After entering and paying my admission (a paltry 60 pesos... less than 3 U.S. dollars) I saw something new just beyond the courtyard that caught my attention.  It was an enormous Tree of Life.  

Trees of Life are clay sculptures that are the specialty of artisans in the town of Metepec, about 30 miles to the west of Mexico City.  This one was done in 2018 by an sculptor from Metepec by the name of Ernesto Soteno.  I did some research afterwards and found out that Soteno family has been creating Trees of Life for four generations, and they have become internationally famous for their work. 

This Tree of Life was entitled "History of the City", and it depicts people and events of Mexico City since its foundation under the Aztecs seven hundred years ago.

Near the base of the sculpture is Mexico's national emblem... the eagle and the serpent.  According to legend, the nomadic Aztecs had been told by their god to settle where they saw an eagle perched on a cactus.  When they came to the Valley of Mexico they saw the foretold sign and established their capital of Tenochtitlan, today's Mexico City.

  

To the side of the eagle is a scene depicting a human sacrifice.  An Aztec priest is cutting out the heart of the victim, and blood is spurting from his chest.

The Trees of Life originally depicted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but now portray a wide variety of themes.  When I first noticed the naked man and woman, I thought they were Adam and Eve.

But then I realized that these figures were taken from a mural by the famous painter José Clemente Orozco.  The figures are the Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés and his mistress, the native woman Malinche.  They represent the birth of the Mexican people... a mixture of Spanish and indigenous blood.

This figure is of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a 17th century nun who was a brilliant scholar and poet and is considered one of the most important female writers of the Spanish-speaking world.

 

Among the historical figures that I recognized were (from right to left)... 

Maximilian von Habsburg, the man who briefly ruled Mexico as emperor when the French invaded Mexico,

Benito Juárez, the President that fought against the French intervention,

Porfirio Díaz, the dictatorial President who ruled Mexico for forty years until he was deposed by the Mexican Revolution.

The famous muralist, Diego Rivera

In 1968 Mexico City was the first Latin American city to host the Summer Olympics.  At first I did not notice the bleeding dove to the right.  I assume it is a reference to the massacre of student protestors which took place shortly before the opening of the games.

Now to continue on in the museum...

Another Book

A few days ago I finished another book.  This one was "The Valley of Amazement" by Chinese-American writer Amy Tan.

Tan gained fame for her first novel, "The Joy Luck Club", which was published in 1989.  I enjoyed that book as well as the movie that was based on it.  Tan has written a number of novels since then, but "The Valley of Amazement" (her most recent, published in 2013) is only the second book that I have read by her.

The novel begins in Shanghai in the early 20th century.  The main character is Violet, the daughter of an American woman who owns a first-class courtesan house.  The courtesans who live there do not consider themselves to be common prostitutes. However, the establishment is basically a very expensive brothel with a very elaborate set of rules and traditions.  Through trickery Violet is kidnapped and sold to another courtesan house.

It is an interesting story that spans more than forty years.  However, it is definitely a book that in another era would have been proverbially "banned in Boston".  There is a lot of sex, and more detail than is necessary.  What is especially disturbing is that most of the courtesans are teenagers.  In Violet's case, an auction is held, and she is "deflowered" on her fifteenth birthday.

The author was inspired to write this book after seeing a photograph of Shanghai courtesans.  One of them was wearing attire identical to the what her grandmother was wearing in an old family photo.  It made the author wonder if perhaps there was a family secret that her grandmother had never revealed. Tan did laborious research on the courtesan houses, and it took her eight years to write this book.  The final product is a book that perhaps gives us more information than we really want.

    

Tilting Revisited

This morning I wrote about the Churches of Santa Veracruz and San Juan de Dios which are both settling unevenly into Mexico City's soft soil.

Today I was downtown again, and I took another photo of Santa Veracruz. This one gives you a better idea of how the entire church is tilted.  And yes, even the pavement in front of the church is sinking unevenly.

Pisa has its leaning tower, but Mexico City has numerous buildings which are leaning.

Two Tilting Churches

Due to Mexico City's spongy soil, many buildings in the Historic Center have settled unevenly.  That is the case with two colonial churches located across the street from the Alameda Park, the Church of Santa Veracruz and the Church of San Juan de Dios.  Both churches had been closed for repairs and restoration work.

Last week after visiting the Museo Kaluz, I walked down the street just a block to see how work was progressing on the two of them.

The Church of Santa Veracruz is still closed.  In these photos you cannot really appreciate the uneven angles at which the building is tilting.  After the earthquake of 2017 the bell towers were in danger of collapse and were shored up.  In 2020 there was a fire inside and the church has been closed ever since then while restoration work continues.

The parish dates back to 1568 and is one of the oldest in the city.  The current church dates from the 18th century.

Across a small plaza and facing Santa Veracruz is San Juan de Dios.  That church is open once again.

In this picture you can get a sense of the tilt of the bell tower.

The church was part of a complex that included a convent and hospital founded in 1602.  The original church was demolished and a new one dedicated in 1729.

The facade appears to have been cleaned and restored and is quite beautiful.

The interior of the church was sacked during the Mexican Revolution, so it is relatively simple.

I noticed that high on the wall, on either of the altar, there are intricately carved wooden balconies.

My guess, and it's only a guess, is that these balconies allowed the nuns of the convent to hear mass without being seen by the public below.

A Look at a City Neighborhood

 The third exhibit at the Museo Kaluz was not an art exhibit, but a look at a Mexico City neighborhood... "colonia" Guerrero, which is highlighted on this aerial map of the city

The museum itself is actually located on the southern edge of Colonia Guerrero, just across the street from the Alameda Park.  Although Guerrero is just steps away from some of the city's major tourist attractions, the neighborhood is a working class district with a fair share of poverty and crime.

The exhibit tells the story of Guerrero through artifacts and photographs.

Before the Spanish conquest it was known as Cuepopan and it was part of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.

This sculpture of an Aztec deity was discovered under the streets of Guerrero in 2019.

After the Spanish conquest, the area was on the fringes of colonial city, and it was one of the marginal neighborhoods reserved for the indigenous population.  The Franciscans established a church in the center of Cuepopan in 1524.  A later church, Santa María la Redonda, was built on its site and still stands a few blocks away from the museum.

This baptismal registry from the church dates from 1620.

Guillermo Kahlo, the father of Frida, was a photographer.  He opened a studio in Guerrero around 1920.

He took this photo of buildings under construction in Guerrero.

Much of the "colonia" however consisted of tenement buildings, some of which still exist today.

A Guerrero tenement with the new Latin American Tower in the background.

1957

The neighborhood was forever changed when the Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City's most famous boulevard, was extended northward.  It sliced diagonally through Guerrero.  Homes and businesses were demolished, and the "colonia" was split in two.  The project was completed in 1964.

A photo mural shows Reforma cutting through the neighborhood shortly after its completion.

The building in the bottom right corner is where the museum is today.

At that time it was a hotel... Hotel Cortés.

The tragic earthquake of 1985 was devastating to Guerrero.

In the background to the left, the Latin American Tower, which was specially engineered to withstand earthquakes, stands unscathed.

The inadequate response of the government to the disaster led to the residents forming brigades to clear away the rubble.

It was a day of interesting exhibits at the Museo Kaluz.

 

Art of the Refugees

Between 1939 and 1942 more than 25,000 refugees fleeing the fascist regime of Francisco Franco came to Mexico at the end of the Spanish Civil War.  The Museo Kaluz currently has a special exhibit of the artwork created by some of those refugees.

The pieces in the first section of the exhibit depict the exodus of the refugees across the border from Spain into France and the inhumane conditions in which they were forced to live in concentration camps in France.  I found this section especially interesting.  You may remember that I recently read a novel by Isabel Allende which dealt with refugees from the Civil War.  One of the characters ended up in a concentration camp after crossing the border.

Francisco Moreno Capdevila

"Exodus"

1960

An artist by the name of Francisco Marco Chilet did a series of drawings while interned in a French concentration camp in 1939.

"Apprehension"

"Prisoners and Guards"

"Five Companions in the Concentration Camp"

"Lamentations Around a Guitar"

The next section was of artwork done by refugees portraying their new homeland of Mexico.

José García Narezo

"Four Indigenous Women"

1985

Aurelio Arteta

"Prayer"

1940

Juan Eugenio Mingorance

"Indigenous Women"

1976

José Bardasano

"View of Popocatépetl"

1940

Gerardo Lizarraga Istúriz

"Janitzio, Michoacán"

1970

The final section reflects the nostalgia which the refugees felt for their homeland of Spain.

Arturo Souto

"Interior of a House in Galicia"

1964

Francisco Camps-Ribera

"Gypsies"

1939

José Bardasano

no title

date unknown

Gerardo Lizarraga Istúriz

"History of the Ball Game"

date unknown

There was still one more exhibit to see at the Museo Kaluz.