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IN THIS ISSUE
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NEWS IN BRIEF
Sylvia Curtis-Noircross and Gerald Pedros
Enduring Women/Veils of Secrecy
September 2, 2006 - October 7, 2006
Woodstock Art Gallery
447 Hunter Street
Woodstock, Ontario
Alberto Cerritos exhibits
in Madrid
Spain.
G. Scott MacLeod
“Stars to watch” Vancouver Sun
article
La Raza exhibits Pouch Cove work at the
Thielsen Gallery.
La Raza Group
East (Francis Caprani, Scott MacLeod and
Gerald Pedros) will be exhibiting their works
from their Pouch Cove residency at the
Jens Thielsen Gallery from April 1st
to 22nd, 2006.
La Raza Group website and newsletter launch
March 24th, 2006 at the McAuslan
Visitor Centre.
La Raza Group will be launching their
website and newsletter at the McAuslan
Visitor Centre in Montreal, Friday, March 24th, 2006, 5 - 9 p.m. They will
also take this opportunity to present
information on their upcoming projects in
Argentina and South Africa. On Saturday,
March 25th, Toronto filmmaker Tom Tobin will be presenting
his film "La Raza Group – Full
Circle" at 7:00pm at the McAuslan Visitor Centre.
La Raza Group will use funds received from
sales towards future travel projects.
La Raza Group goes to Buenos Aries,
Argentina October 3 - 8, 2006
The next mural project came through
invitation from a group of Argentine
painters that we met at the COMAV Conference
in Tlaxcala. We look forward to hearing more
about this project as it develops. Raza East
in Ontario is currently organizing a
reciprocal invitation to South Western,
Ontario.
La Raza Group initiates a mural project
with South African artist
At the conference in Tlaxcala, La Raza
Group met a Bantu artist Andrew Nhlangwini
from Port Elizabeth. After some discussion
they found more about Africa Post-Apartheid
and the work he is doing on ancestral South
African art, which is going towards his Phd.
After several discussions they decided to
initiate a project between South Africa and
Canada. Raza West member Richard Tetrault
has outlined the mural project as the
following:
LA RAZA - AFRICA
PROJECT
Murals Against Aids Now!
La Raza Group
is excited to
initiate an international project that will
bring attention to the ongoing crisis of
AIDS worldwide. Using mural painting as the
primary means to stimulate discourse and
awareness to the pandemic of AIDS, this
project will originate with a series of
collaborations between Africa and Canadian
artists. Following is an outline of the
primary points of this undertaking, along
with a projected schedule and contacts.
The initial phase of Murals Against Aids
Now! will take place in South
Africa, and will involve artists from that
country working with visiting artists from
La Raza Canada. Based on the belief that
AIDS awareness is a vital link in
confronting this pandemic, we propose a
multi-faceted project to communicate these
issues. Research, in the form of both
interviews and dialogue, will provide the
context for a series of murals that will not
only memorialize the path of AIDS in Africa,
but also will project messages of solidarity
and affirmation. Through popular awareness
of the issues, these murals will become
conduits for further discussions.
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Mexican Public Art, Leading by Example
By: Guillaume Corpart Muller
Brush in hand, hundreds of artists from around the
world gathered in Tlaxcala, Mexico, for a unique
display of public art.
It is no coincidence that COMAV’s Mural Symposium was held in
Tlaxcala. Located in the cradle of Mexican
civilization, artistic skill sets in this region can
be traced back generations and across families. The
strong arts culture seems to operate in a symbiotic
relationship with native traditions, helping
preserve the náhuatl tongue and the well
being (and support from) the community.
Tlaxcala City has one of Mexico’s nicest zócalos (central
plazas); setting the stage for hundreds of artists
to gather for COMAV’s (World Council of Fine Arts)
2005 Mural Symposium. Appropriately, inside the
Palacio de Gobierno (on the north side of the zócalo)
are more than 450 sq. meters of vivid murals
depicting Tlaxcala’s history (by
Desiderio Hernandez Xochitiotzin).
Muralists from as far as South Africa, Argentina, Peru,
Brazil, Japan and Canada, joined spirits to bring to
life Mexico’s largest display of public art. In
doing so, thousands of national and international
tourists came to the city to see the displays and,
more importantly, to meet the artists.
The traffic played a key role in bringing visibility to the
sponsors who helped make this event possible. Led
by Comex (Mexico’s leading paint manufacturer), not
only did the sponsors receive unique visibility
associated to the arts and culture, but were also
given some of the works to commemorate the event. COMAV’s Mural Symposium also gave artists the opportunity to
interact with one another and exchange ideas on
future collaboration. In fact, two concrete
projects emerged from the reunion – reviving
muralism events in Mar del Plata (Argentina) and in
Johannesburg (South Africa) during the course of
2006-07.
There is no doubt that fomenting cultural exchange through global
events will continue to drive the development of
modern public art.
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La Raza Returns to Mexico City 17
years later - August 6 - 8, 2005
In August of 2005, La Raza Group was in Mexico City
and Tlaxcala for a reunion and mural conference with
one of our original La Raza Group counterparts,
Alberto Cerritos.
La Raza Group was originally founded from our
experience in 1987 at La Sociedad Mexicana
de Artes Plasticas in Mexico City. What ensued
from this experience was a series of exchange
exhibitions and residencies between El Salvadorian
artist Alberto Ceritos and Mexican artist Roberto
Ferryra. In Mexico City, Alberto and Roberto exposed
us to murals by the Three Greats Siquieros, Orozco,
and Rivera. During our time there we produced
paintings and a mural for an exhibition at the
artist cooperative
La Sociedad
Mexicana de Artes Plasticas
(S.O.M.A.R.T.) These
exhibitions were attended by cultural attaches from Delegation de Quebec and The Canadian
Embassy.
This time around, La Raza Group was picked up by our
documentary photographer
and "man on the ground"
Guillaume Corpart-Muller.
Guillaume is an x-pat Canadian working for a
marketing company, Infoamericas and our most
recent member of La Raza Group. With his help and
driving experience, we managed to survive Mexico
City driving and head back to the sites where we
worked and exhibited in 1987! We managed to
return to San Angel to locate our old studio at (S.O.M.A.R.T.) We discovered that the
building had been taken over by the original owners
and is now being used to sell Mexican traditional
crafts, such as wooden crucifixes, ceremonial masks,
paper maché figurines known as Carmelas
(representing the Mexican fascination with death).
“Día de los Muertos” is a ceremony
that deals with the deaths of loved ones in a form
of jovial celebration. We northerners have a
different take on death and this day of
celebration, which is observed as “All Saints Day”
and November 2 as “All Souls Day.” “Día de Los
Muertos” is a mix of indigenous Aztec, Mayan and
Roman Catholic traditions and beliefs originating
in Mexico. “Day of the Dead” (November 2) in
accordance with the mythology, is a time for the
dead to cross the veil home from the otherworld,
visiting loved ones, eating favorite foods left by
the graveside and listening to music.
Once we
located our studio site our next destination was
Insurentes, to see the
Polyforum Siquieros.
The Siqueiros Museum has
one of the world’s largest painted murals called
The March of Humanity. It was produced between
1965 and 1971. This museum is called the
Siqueiros Cultural Polyforum and is a must-see
with its 12-sided 360-degree structure
of murals
on the exterior and the interior of the building.
His theme was to paint the progress of humanity from
the distant oppressive past to a future of freedom
and scientific progress.
La Raza exhibited there in 1991 with our
Totem de
Piedra exhibition.
Many of
the Mexican muralists held fast to their left-wing
politics and used their murals to illustrate the
demons of capitalism and values of socialism. This
frequently caused trouble with the government and
as result many served time for “the cause”.
Our next journey took us to
Frida
Kahlo’s house, the Casa Azul in Coyocan.
It was a memorable experience as I walked amongst
her paintings and personal effects in the ‘Blue
House’. This was the building featured in Julie Traynor’s film Frida. I was struck by the
incomplete painting of Stalin on Frida’s easel,
followed by her famous bed with a fixed mirror above
her so she could paint herself in bed on bad days (a result of complications she suffered in a bus
accident earlier on in her life.) Since
the film, the site has been worked on considerably
and is now a big tourist destination.
For 100 pesos an hour, a cab driver
brought us to the pyramids at Teotihucan on the
outskirts of Mexico City. Once at the site we bought
‘tourista’ sun hats and meandered through an
excellent museum with site artifacts and walked to
the impressive temple of the moon and sun pyramids.
The scale of the site requires a whole afternoon in
order to take in the Pyramids of the Moon and Sun
(the third largest pyramid in the world) and the
Calle de los Muertos (Street of the Dead). It was
originally 4km long and flanked by temples, palaces
and platforms. There are also a few murals in the
Palace of the Jaguars and the Palace of the
Quetzal-butterfly. The Temple of Quetzalcoátl has a
wonderful
selection of sculptures.
Gerald and I climbed the temple of the sun and met
many people from all over the world, a memorable
experience indeed. Here are some recommended sites.
http://archaeology.la.asu.edu/teo/
http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~dhixson/teo/teo.html
Upon our return from Tlaxcala, Gerald
and spent our last day in
Mexico City at the Palacio Nacional ("Presidential
Palace") to look at a series of large murals by
Diego Rivera. This series of murals was his
interpretation of Mexican history. The murals on the
staircase were done in 1935 and the multiple panels
in the four corridors are from 1943. Rivera was a committed
ideologue and socialist and his politic is present
in these works. He celebrates Mexico's pre-Columbian
past, the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, the Mexican
worker, among others. The work is a collision of signature
Mexican muralist colour and national socialism
poster art. A historically informative and narrative
body of work, it is a must see and completely free. Guides
are available in a variety of languages.
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La
Raza Group would like to present the Puentes Project to our readers. We look forward to working
with them in the future.
PUENTES: CLOSING THE GAP
Puentes: Closing the Gap is a non-profit
organization that seeks to provide street children
with the opportunity to have a childhood.
Building Puentes
This
program originally began in February, 2002, the
result of a collaboration between six volunteers who
worked in group homes for street children in Lima,
Peru. A small project housed underneath the
umbrella of the Saranac Lake Rotary Foundation,
Inc., we designed the program to financially assist
already existing rehabilitation programs for street
children. Puentes: Closing the Gap seeks to
fund projects that contribute to the well-being of
these children – be it through extracurricular
activities, birthday celebrations, or making the
homes a nicer place to live.
And Closing Gaps
Fundraising is done primarily through the sale of
Peruvian arts and crafts. In that aspect, the
program also serves as a cultural exchange:
Introducing people to Peru through the beauty of its
crafts while pointing to the ugliness of its
poverty, and using the former to improve the
latter.
Consistent with the dual function of this program is
its name. Written in two languages, “Puentes”, or
“Bridges”, illustrates its function as a type of
cultural exchange between the two countries, whereas
“Closing the Gap” reflects our intent to financially
assist Peru’s street children to escape the poverty
that overwhelms their country.
For
further information please contact:
puentesperu@gmail.com
You
may also contact a member of the Board of Directors
in your country:
Canada
Philippe Gouin
pgouin@bigfoot.com
Brigid Shea
brigidannshea@yahoo.com
England
Sarah Howard
sarahhoward10@hotmail.com
Robyn Stevenson
robyn_stevenson@hotmail.com
Peru
Rosari Arroyo Arnedo
rosario_arroyoa@hotmail.com
United States
Joseph
Donroe
joseph.donroe@tufts.edu
Alexandra Vinograd
alexandra.vinograd@stonybrook.edu
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Scott and Gerald, PolyForum Siqueiros |
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Scott and Gerald at the old SOMART Studio,
San Angel
Standing at Frida Kahlo's House |
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"The March of Humanity", PolyForum Siqueiros |
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Bella Artes, Mexico City |
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PolyForum Siqueiros, Mexico City |
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In front of Mexican "Dia de los Muertos" Figurines |
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Murals at Mayan ruins at Caxcala |
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Diploma ceremony, University Tlaxcala |
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Gerald in front of the Diego Rivera Mural,
Presidential Palace |
Scott and Gerald on the Pyramid of the Moon,
Teotihucan |
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Gerald working in Zocalo, Tlaxcala |
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 La
Raza Group is:
East: G. Scott MacLeod, D. Gerald Pedros, Francis
J. Caprani
West: Alberto Cerritos, Richard Tetrault
South: Guillaume Corpart-Muller
For more information on La Raza Group, go to
larazagroup.com
Newsletter design and editing by
CBCD |
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