Art the Mexican Way: Artful Puerto Vallarta at Year's End 2014

 

I've visited Puerto Vallarta several times, following the route taken by so many North Americans escaping a long winter at home.

This little village on Banderas Bay was way off the map until it hit movie star status. It was The Night of the Iguana, with John Huston directing Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Ava Garden among its spicy cast that turned what was then a picture-perfect fishing village into a stellar spot. The cinematic luminaries, apparently charmed by this location, stayed on and Puerto Vallarta has never since been the same. 

The promenade along the surf's crest in downtown Pto. Vallarta is called the Malecon. It is stunning, not only in its lovely views of water, sand, and sunset, but also in the artful way it undulates and its pavement patterns flow. The fanciful and anthropomorphic sculptures that accompany the seaside path are triumphs to the originality and appeal of Mexican art. 

 

Incredible, larger than life-size public art works in bronze by sculptors like Sergio Bustamante, Alejandro Colunga, Guillermo Gomez, Jonas Gutierrez, and Oscar Zamarripa have become rightly famous worldwide and continue to delight the public as emblems of this town. You can touch, sit or climb on them, or just enjoy and marvel at their ingenious company. So much visual art lives here, as in much of Mexico.

Huichol yarn painting by José Benito Sanchez

Over the years I've travelled and lived for months at a time in various regions of Mexico - from the Mayan southeast coast inward to Aztec Mexico, from Oaxaca through central areas and up to San Miguel de Allende, and sampling towns along the Pacific coast - I've always been inspired by the street art gracing even the dustiest of villages. I've been especially enchanted by the works made in clay and the wealth of folk art in all media, including the mesmerizing yarn and bead paintings and sculpture of the Huichol peyote culture (examples at the Colectika gallery, among others). 

wall of contemporary nichos (from pininterest)

Art here is a feast for the eyes -- visible in weavings, beadwork, jewelry, pottery, masks, and sculpture. Even the "nichos" (small niches originally serving as personal shrines or altars) made originally as devotional offerings by persons seeking, or grateful for, divine intervention are now adapted to more humorous contexts that delight viewers and tend to make a point. I've purchased several such works based on Mexican sayings. One little nicho I have, for example, highlights a single ornate shoe in a highly decorated enameled niche that reads (loosely translated): when your shoes are too comfortable, you forget you have feet. Make of that what you will. 

My point is that everything is subject to artistic transformation, including old bottle caps made into mixed-media paintings and earrings. The spontaneous outpouring of a creatively expressive culture is visible in its art. The active exercise of this energy is what I love about regional art... and art in general.

The distinction between "high" and "low" art seems arbitrary in places that have always maintained such populist roots and modes of expressivity. Coming into an art gallery or museum, visiting an artist's studio or seeing art on the street: what registers as "art" is something that stops you and draws you in for more, something that changes the way you view the world, even for a moment, affecting your thoughts and feelings, making something in you come more alive. 

 Of course, Mexico has its historical high-end visual art stars like Frida Kahlo. Diego Rivera was among the emigré group of artists in Paris that included Picasso and Modigliani. There are contemporary stars as well. You can see wonderful art at all prices and in all places, including dedicated art galleries.

Understandably, with the growth of the tourist trade and global appreciation of local artistic wonders, Mexican art galleries have also proliferated. I've enjoyed viewing a tradition of fabulous art in some of Pto. Vallarta's art galleries. I mean "fabulous" literally, as a tradition known to Mexican art of mixing the real and surreal into a magical realism uniquely latino.

painting by Raymondo Andrade

Among the many figurative examples that come to mind I can select from contemporary artists like Raymondo Andrade (the more intellectual) and Miguel Carillo (the more personal) who paint timelessly surreal figurative works. Along with Israel Zzepeda, one of my favorite artists here, these masterful artists create imaginative worlds one is invited to enter: worlds that are surprising, lovely, strange yet familiar, with narratives that one need not pin down reductively but that open us to possibilities.   

painting by Miguel Carrillo

painting by Rogelio Manza

     

Then there are the deconstructed but technically refined mixed-media portrayals of the relative newcomer, Rogelio Manza,

painting by Israel Zzpeda

The figure still reigns in Mexico, as it has culturally since pre-Columbian civilizations walked this ground. It's remarkable how many very fine painters have been self-taught (rather than formal art school graduates). Perhaps that contributes to a greater freedom from current art trends in vogue and more reliance on what one personally needs and wants artistically to do, given  the context of what is meaningful to his or her life and history.

Even when taken to abstract extremes, the face and figure remain an expressive focus in contemporary Mexican art. This is seen in the modernist work of Vladimir Cora as well as the lively naive styles of Rogelio Diaz (very textured) or of  Romgo.

painting by Vladimir Cora

painting by Rogelio Diaz

painting by Romgo

Love of  drawing and  of line seem a welcome feature of Mexican art, from ancient times to the present. 

The delicate abstract lines in its famously beautiful pottery traditions and the realistic or whimsical figures depicted  in paintings attest to the fine linear sense in Mexican art. Among many  examples are works by Fernando Pereznieto (whom  I collected in the 1980s) and current works on view in Pto.Vallarta's art galleries. 

Even as global art traditions influence art, a local Mexican influence seems to suffuse many of the artworks here, adding to their interest. 

painting by Gabriela Epstein

A vibrant sense of color and composition is a heritage in abstract works here as well (see work by Gabriela Epstein at Galeria Contempo, for example). Although I cannot define a distinctly Mexican feel to the current abstract paintings on view, as can be done with earlier abstracts by famous Mexican painters like Rufino Tamayo (who incorporated figurative aspects) or Pedro Coronel who referenced pre-Columbian art), they are decorative and attractive. 

Personally, I think it is figurative art that reigns in Mexico, whether it is expressed in a surreal, magical, whimsical, modernist, contemporary grunge or semi-abstract mode.

The galleries, themselves, provide some very appealing venues for displaying art. In contrast to the minimalist, antiseptic environment of many contemporary galleries, some here have several rooms to wander through, with welcome interior courtyards and fountains, as well as informed and friendly staff. Among my favorites are Galeria Dante for its diverse set of painters and sculptors and its appealing setting (if sometimes crowded walls), and its well-informed, friendly staff. Galeria Corsica is another, newer favorite (two related entrances across one another), with a lovely 2-storey setting in which to view distinct groupings of artwork.

Over the past few years, art galleries here have taken a hit, as has occurred elsewhere in the world. The traditional Wednesday night "art walk" in Pto. Vallarta seems to have shrunk in size and festivity. It feels a bit sad to me to have this celebration of art in any way diminished. Why might this be?

The rich are richer, I'm told in global news.  But where are they spending their money? If it's for art, it seems just the very high-end that's getting steeper. Certainly, the auction sales at Christie's have blown through the roof, with paintings selling for hundreds of millions. Yet, it's the mid-range venues, where real "finds" in art are made, before provenance and branding dictate price.

At mid-level galleries, seeing emerging artists "make it big" has been an exciting possibility. Nowadays, I experience less artistic buzz across galleries than I used to. Less of the excitement that always accompanied a new art show, a newly discovered talent or vision. In the past I've always benefited from galleries introducing and promoting artists unknown to me. In contrast, now I see more of the same assorted names circulating across the different galleries. Given the notable, if not equally numerous, array of women artists among famous 20th century Mexican painters (e.g., Frida Kahlo, Remedios Varo, Leona Carrington, Leonora Fini), it's disappointing not to see more women among the headliner artists on view.

I continue to love what I love among the art I find. But I miss the greater freedom of range, the celebration of diverse talent, the surprises and inspiration that Mexican galleries, in particular, had seemed to offer,  If I'm right, I hope this is more of a momentary squeeze than an enduring socio-economic trend across the many fine art galleries in Pto. Vallarta.

I'm posting this on a sunny Christmas day in Puerto Vallarta, having just past the winter solstice the Mexican way. Happy holidays to all.