Oaxaca´s Art Scene
Take the mezcal trail through Oaxaca´s flourishing art world
A thriving community of artists has grown up in Oaxaca, Mexico around "Maestro" Francisco Toledo. Hopping from exhibition to exhibition is a Oaxacan weekend pasttime.
Every week on the bulletin board at Oaxaca’s Nuevo Mundo coffeehouse a new host of posters bloom, inviting the passerby to art openings, poetry readings, photo exhibits, book releases, and the occasional saxophone concert or short video montage. The fine print: chelas, mezcal, botanas. (Beers, mezcal, and tapas). Friday and Saturday nights the galleries and museums cram with artists, students, intellectuals, pseudo-intellectuals, ex-pats, and the sly and curious like myself. They stock their plates with fried bananas, bocadillas de papa (potato patties stuffed with cheese), and taquitos (fried tacos filled with chicken and topped with guacamole), sip dainty shots of mescal, down beers, and chat it up. When the beer runs out, everyone does their best to subtly pretend they’ve got somewhere to be and then moves along to the next opening, where the scene blooms again with the crowd developing ever more passionate artistic convictions after each shot of free mezcal. The whole evening culminates at El Central, a downtown bar with a large dance floor, red curtains, a green bar, giant mirrors, baroque paintings, and leather couches in the corners for those whose circuit through the art world has gotten the better of them.
Varied and innovative art--be it photography, video, painting, traditional weaving, or graphic design-- is one of Oaxaca´s defining characteristics. Its growth stems from the cult of Francisco (Maestro) Toledo, a Oaxacan native widely considered the best living artist in Latin America. Toledo has converted several of his incredible Oaxacan homes into museums and libraries; El Pochote Cineclub, the Instituto de Artes Graficas de Oaxaca, and the Centro Fotografico Alvarez Bravo were all born from his donations. He funds these institutions and they in turn offer a continual program of artistic creation and development. The talleres (workshops) offered in Oaxaca are as frequent and varied as the openings and their tipsy devotees. Often a taller will culminate in a small exposition, in which the enthusiastic can show off their work over Coronas.
The scene has its pretentious elements, but remains surprisingly open and inspired, be it by the paintings on hand or the discussion which surges from Oaxaca’s pure, dangerous mezcal. Adventurous Oaxaca-bound travelers should keep an eye out for posters with whimsical graphics, a date, and a time: before they know it they´ll find themselves swept from clacsophone concert to 1920’s nude photo exhibit to short story reading, only to find themselves dancing to Karma Chameleon on a packed dance floor at five a.m. Such are the thrills--strange, poetic, and random--of the Oaxacan art world.
