Description: A collection of seven lithographs by José Clemente Orozco and paintings by Alejandro Romero, Marcos Raya, Salvador Vega, Roberto Valadez.

Curator: Juana Guzman

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Ruiz Gallery in Chicago.

Description: This exhibition consists of a rich variety of masks chosen from the holdings of Chicago Collectors.  The admittedly personal selection emphasizes form, craft and inventive use of materials rather than age and guaranteed authenticity.  It includes works of considerable age as well as those of contemporary carvers who continue the tradition of excellence in carving.

Curator: Robert W. Anderson, Professor of Art at Calumet College, Hammond, IN

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: The School of the Art Institute Gallery

*Exhibition catalogue published.

Description: This inaugural exhibition of the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in the Pilsen neighborhood featured religious art of Mexico from the 18th and 19th Centuries. The rich, traditional and artistic expressions of faith and beliefs of the Mexican People were presented in the culmination of work by many anonymous artists.

Curator: Antonio V. García

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

*Exhibition catalogue published by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Description: Diana M. Solis was born and raised in Chicago in the Pilsen neighborhood. Her studies include fine arts and photography at both the University of Illinois at Chicago and Columbia College. Community involvement has included teaching photography at Mujeres Latinas en Acción and Latino Youth Alternative High School, Recruitment Counselor for LULAC, and Supervisor at Casa Aztlan.

Curator: René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Description: A graphic art exhibit featuring works by Rene Castro, Enrique Chagoya, Domitila Dominguez, Juan Fuentes, Daniel Galvez, Sal Garcia, Francisco Letelier, Linda Lucero, Irene Perez, Antonio Ramirez and Herbert Siguenza.

Curator:NA

Organizing Institution: La Raza Graphics and Mission Gráfica, San Francisco

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Description: An exhibition of 68 contemporary works by Latina women artists from across the United States: Juana Alicia, Candida Alvarez, Santa C. Barraza, Barbara Carrasco, Yreina D. Cervantes, Martha Chavez, Dolores G. Cruz, Maritza Davila, Liliana Duran, Nereyda Garcia-Ferraz, Marina Gutierrez, Ester Hernandez, Beatriz Ledesma, Silvia A. Malagrino, Lillian Maldonado, Paula Pia Martinez, Rosalyn Mesquita, Mary A. Moncada, Gloria Rodriguez, Marta Sanchez, Bibiana Suarez and Mirtes de Magalhaes.

Curator: Juana Guzman

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

*Exhibition catalogue published by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum.

Description: An exhibition of 19 Portable Murals by 19 Mexican Muralists working in Chicago: Carlos “Moth” Barrera, Mario Castillo, Carlos Cortez, Aurelio Díaz Tekpankalli, Hector Duarte, José G. Guerrero, Juanita Jaramillo Lavadie, Jaime R. Longoria, Francisco Mendoza, Vicente Mendoza, Benny Ordoñez, Raymond M. Patlan, Dulce Pulido, Marcos Raya, Alejandro Romero, Roberto Valadez, Rey Vasquez, Salvador Vega and Roman Villareal.

Curator: René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

*Exhibition catalogue published by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Description: “For the most part my paintings are filled with characters, animals, and objects taken from our daily lives that at times come in touch with modern elements with which I have become familiar. I do not consider myself part of any art movement style. I would not be true to myself if I was to fit somewhere or to show-off for something which does not belong to me. In any case, it will be the audience who will decide a name for the type of work I do according to the memories my work brings them”.  Four Egg Tempera on Amate Paper Paintings, Eleven Oil on Canvas Paintings by local artist Filemon Santiago.

Curator:  Beverley Malen

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Description: This collection of works was a sampling of the rich and varied production of prints by many Mexican masters. The collection covered the time period from the late 1920’s to the 1980’s. The exhibition brought together the “essence” of Mexicans and their visions of Mexico.

Participating Artists: Emilio Amero, Raúl Anguiano, Alberto Beltrán, angel Brancho, Jean Charlot, Miguel Covarrubias, Francisco dosamantes, Jesus Escobedo, Sarah Jimenez, Leopoldo Méndez, Carlos Mérida, Adolfo Mexiac, José Chávez Morado, Pablo O’Higgins, José Clemente Orozco, Diego M. Rivera, J. David Alfaro Siquieros, Rulfino Tamayo, Mariana Yampolsky, and Alfredo Zalce.

Curator: René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

*Exhibition catalogue published by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Description: The Mexican Fine Art Center Museum’s first Day of the Dead Exhibition. At the time, Duarte was one of the newest and most interesting of Chicago’s Mexican painters. The observance and traditions of Day of the Dead are of great significance to Duarte and he has been a strong advocate and promoter of this holiday. This exhibition was dedicated to the preservation of this intriguing Mexican folk tradition. Paintings by: Hector Duarte. Installation by: Clay Morrison.

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Description: Contemporary Mexican Photography.

Participating Artists: Antonio Reynosa, Flor Garduño, Rafael Doniz, Mariana Yampolsky, and more.

Curator: René H. Arceo

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Description: This exhibition is the first exhibition to reveal to the American public the art and culture of the present-day Maya of Chiapas, Mexico. Included are 60 examples of Maya textile art from the mid-nineteenth century to 1987, and 30 contemporary photographs of the Maya people today.  Woven into Maya textiles – and Maya life – is their ancient vision of the universe, preserved for more than a thousand years.

Curator: Walter F. Morris, Jr.

Organizing Institution: InterCultura (Museum services)

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery

Participating Artists/Collectors: Textiles from the Collection of Sna Jolobil, The Weavers’ Society of Chiapas, Mexico.  Photographs by Jeffrey Jay Foxx.

*Exhibition catalogue published.

Description: Held to coincide with an International Weaving Conference in Chicago, this exhibit featured pieces from The Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum’s permanent collection and from Bill Goldman’s private collection.

Curator:   René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution:  Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Description: A showcase of Latino work from México and the United States.

Participating Artists: Jose Andreu, Henry Cisneros, Hector Duarte, Alejandro Galindo, Mirentxu Ganzarin, Nereyda García-Ferraz, Paula Pia Martinez, Rodolfo Molina, Jose Moreno, Dan Smajo-Ramirez, Marcos Raya, Arnoldo Roche Rabell, Alejandro Romero, Filemon Santiago, Paul Sierra, Bibiana Suarez, Luis Vargas, Roman Villarreal

Curator: Debora Donato and Antonio V. García

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery. 

Traveling exhibition venues:  Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City.  First traveling exhibit organized by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum.
                
*Exhibition catalogue published by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum.

Descriptions: This solo exhibit showcased the work if Philadelphia-based Mexican photographer Primitivo Rodriguez Osegueda. 

Curator: René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Description: 2nd Annual Day of the Dead Exhibition.

Participating Artists:  Henry Cisneros, Carlos Cortez, Maria Enriquez de Allen, Carmen Lomas Garza, Laura Gonzalez, Francisco G. Mendoza and Jose Clemente Orozco School, Jose Nerezo, Arsacio Vanegas Arroyo. Local and national artists complimented the altars with their works.

Curator: René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

Description: This exhibition incorporates over two hundred and fifty of Posada’s works. Posada drew, etched, and engraved images of people and national accounts he witnessed in his lifetime. Posada’s tireless spirit and hard work let him to produce over twenty thousand prints, which made him the most prolific printmaker of Mexico.

Curator:  René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery.

Traveling exhibition venues: Art Museum of Greater Lafayette, IN and Yale University Art Gallery, CT.

*Exhibition catalogue published by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum.

Description: Cortez has illustrated, through his linoleum and woodcut prints the struggle of Mexican and Native American people and workers in general in the United States. Being the oldest barrio artist, Carlos has served as a role model to several generations of Chicago Artists. He has been involved in the labor movement with the Industrial Workers of the World Organization and he has contributed with his graphics, poetry, and other writings to labor publications.

Curator: René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Description: Self-Help Graphics is a  Los Angeles graphic arts center and the exhibit included the work of the following 24 artists: Jose Antonio Aguirre, Alex Alferov, Michael Asmescua, Glenna Boltuch, Rudy Calderon, Barbara Carrasco, Yreina Cervantes, Sam Coronado, Alfredo de Batuc, Roberto Delgado, Alex Donis, Margaret Garcia, Ricardo Gonsalves, Dolores Guerrero-Cruz, Wayne Healey, Leo Limon, Ralph Maradiaga, Malaquías Montoya, Victor Ochoa, Jesus Perez, Liz Rodriguez, Arturo Urista, John Valadez, Patssi Valdez.

Curator:NA

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Description: The beauty of papier-mâché, like all forms of popular art, lies not only in the artistic imagination of the artists, but also in the manner in which it is produced. Using only shopping-bag paper and a water-flour glue, incredibly beautiful and fantastic images are produced. Cartoneria figures have been used traditionally in Mexico during holidays and celebrations. The two most important feast days that feature cartoneria figures are the Day of the Dead and the Lenten observances.  This exhibit of a little over 100 papier-mâché pieces brings together the most prominent papier-mâché artists of Mexico; the Linares family and Jose “Pepe” Hernández.

Curator: René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

Curator: René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Description: This exhibit included the work of 32 Pilsen youngsters who w ere recruited by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum to attend The School of the Art Institute’s summer program.

Curator: N/A

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery 

Description: 3rd Annual Day of the Dead Exhibition.

Participating Artists: Charlie Carrillo, José Guerrero, Ester Hernandez, Nicolás de Jesús, Lake View H.S. Advance Placement Art class under the direction of Esther Charbit, Carlomagno Pedro Martinez, and Roberto Valadez. Other Participating artists - Jesús Acuña, Josefina Aguilar, Jose Maro Alvarado, Emilio Basilio, Alfonso Castillo Orta, Carlos Cortez, Hector Duarte, Joan Hackett.

Curator: René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

Description: 4th Annual Day of the Dead Exhibition.

Participating Artists: Jesús Acuña, Leticia Arriaga, Arturo & José Barrera, Alfonso Castillo Orta, Mario E. Castillo, Carlos Cortes, Gerardo de la Barrera, José de Jesús Escalera, Nicólas de Jesús, Alvaro & Antonio de la Cruz, Hector Duarte, Luis Gonzalez, Juanita Jaramillo-Lavadie, Luis Jimenez, Leo Limon, Miguel & Ricardo Linares, Felipe Linares, Mario Lopez Torres, Cesar Augusto Martínez, Patricia Martinez, Oscar Moya, José Narezo, Alejandro Nava, Francisco R. Oñate, Miguel Angel Pardo O., Elisario Pedro, Carlomagno P. Martínez, Filemon Santiago, Oscar Soteno, Rogelio Tijerino, Roman Villarreal, Mariana Yampolski, Marcos Raya

Curator: René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

Prints from the Permanent Collection

Description: Including Mexico’s President Salinas de Gortari’s donation

Participating Artists: José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Emmanuel C. Montoya, Alfredo Zalce, Francisco Toledo, Manuel Felguerez, Rafael Coronel, Jose Luis Cuevas, Carmen Parra, Federico Cantú, Jean Charlot

Curator: Organized by the Permanent Collection Dept.

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

Archives Casasola: Photographs from the Mexican Revolution

Description: Photographs of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) by Agustin Casasola and Hugo Brehme.

Curator: René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

“Wish List”

Description: Prints for the Permanent Collection.

Participating Artists: Alfaro Siqueiros, J. David Anguiano, Raul Belkin, Arnold Castañeda, Alfredo Carrington, Leonora Chavez Morado, José Charlot, Jean Colunga, Alejandro Costa, Olga Cuevas, José Luis Dosamantes, Francisco Gerzo, Gunther Mendoza, Ariel O’Higgins, Pablo Rivera, Diego M. Toledo, Francisco Xavier Maximino

Curator: Permanent Collection Dept. and René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing Gallery

Mexico: La Visión del Cosmos  - Three thousand Years of Creativity

Description: 158 Mesoamerican artifacts were on display (for the first time) within the Mexican community. The ancient Mexican pieces are from the collection of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Many local artists were also commissioned to paint murals depicting life in ancient Mexico. Artists include: Mario Castillo, Sal Vega, Marcos Raya and Francisco Mendoza. This landmark exhibition was the museum’s response to the 500-year anniversary of the encounter of two worlds.

Curator: Donald McVicker, Ph.D. and Laurene Lambertino

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery and West Wing

*Exhibition catalogue published by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum.

Latino Youth: Living With HIV/Aids in the Family

Description: Stories and drawings by Chicago Latino children living with HIV/AIDS

Curator: N/A

Organizing Institution: This exhibit is the result of a project initiated by the Pilsen-Little Village Community Mental Health Center and the Illinois Prevention Resource Center in collaboration with Hispanic AIDS Network.

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

*Exhibition catalogue published.

Four Decades After the Muralists

Description: This exhibition showcased the vein of alternative artwork that reacted against the official government sponsored public arts. The artwork displayed in this exhibition developed parallel to the Mexican Mural Renaissance of the 1930’s and 1940’s. However, it did not find any support in Mexican museums – all government run. The lack of exposure and exhibition opportunities for this movement provoked a group of artists called La Ruptura (The Rupture) to eventually demand attention and support.

Participating Artists: Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Gilberto Aceves Navarro, Laura Anderson, Javier Arécalo, Feliciano Béjar, Antonio Castellanos, Miguel Castro Leñero, José Chávez Morado, Arnaldo Coen, Olga Costa, Aarón Cruz, José Luis Cuevas, Xavier Esqueda, Gunther Gerzso, Serio Hernández, Joy Laville, Guillermo Meza, Gustavo Montoya, Rodolfo Morales, Luis Nishizawa, Roberto Parodi, Vicente Rojo, Raymundo Sesma, Francisco Toledo, Cordelia Urueta, Roger Von Gunten

Curator: Antonio Espinoza  

Organizing Institution: Kimberly Gallery, Washington D.C.

Traveling exhibition venues: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery, Kimberly Gallery, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.

*Exhibition catalogue published.

Carmen Lomas Garza: Pedacito de mi corazón

Description: Born in Kingsville, Texas, Lomas Garza’s personal experiences provide a backdrop for her poetic recollections of family events, communal gatherings and cultural practices within her Mexican-American heritage. Guided by memory her monitos, or little people paintings, blend fact and fiction with a unique personal aesthetic to enlighten, instruct and awaken values and emotions common to people of all cultures.

Curator: N/A

Organizing Institution: Laguna Gloria Art Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing and Courtyard Gallery

Traveling exhibition venues: El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, Texas; Texas A & I University, Kingsville, Texas; Lubbock Fine Arts Center, Lubbock, Texas; Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, Chicago, Illinois; Laband Art Gallery, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California; The Oakland Museum, Oakland, California

*Exhibition catalogue published

The Art of the Other Mexico: Sources and Meanings

Description: This exhibition was organized by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum and included the works of twenty contemporary Mexican artists from across the U.S. Over seventy new and recent works of art focusing on the themes of family, land and afterlife.

Participating Artists: Celia Alvarez Múñoz, Judy Baca, Santa Contreras Barraza, Carlos A. Cortez, Nicolás de Jesús, Margaret García, Rupert García, Adán Hernández, Ester Hernández, Luis Jiménez Jr., Carmen Lomas Garza, Frank López Motnyk, César Augusto Martínez, Marcos Raya, Patricia Rodríguez, Peter Rodríguez, Rubén Trejo, John Valadez, Patssi Váldez and David Zamora Casas.

¡Muertos de Gusto!  Days of the Dead, Memory and Ritual

Description: 7th Annual Day of the Dead Exhibition.

Participating Artists: Mary J. Andrade, María Enriquez de Allen, Josefina Aguilar, Gerardo Bonilla, María Bustamante, Enrique Chagoya, The Castillo Family, Othon Castillo Luna, Santa Contreras Barraza, Carlos A. Cortez, Guillermo Delgado, Héctor Duarte, Ricardo Duffy, Joan Hackett, Nicolás de Jesús, Luis Jiménez Jr., Miguel, Paula, and Ricardo Linares, Abelardo López, Mario López Torrez, Mario Martín del Campo, Alfredo Martínez, Daniel Martínez, Leovigildo Martínez, Rita Marquez, Adolfo Mexiac, Gabriel Macotela, Leopoldo Morales Praxedis, Rodolfo Morales, Francisco R. Oñate, Marcos Raya, Arturo Rivera, Alejandro Romero, Patricia Salas, Virgilio Santaella, Cecilio Sánchez, Oscar Soteno, Francisco Toledo, Patssi Valdez, Salvador Vega

Curator: René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery.

Traveling exhibition venues: Heard Museum, Phoenix, Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, Mexican Museum, San Francisco and Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota.

 “A Window to Our Neighborhood”

Description: An exhibition of works by students who participated in the Architectural Art
Class sponsored jointly with the Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio.

Curator: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Education Dept.

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum /Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

El Quinto Sol: Tenochtitlan Tlatelolco Recent Findings

Description: This exhibition showcased approximately ninety Aztec artifacts from the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and her sister-city Tlatelolco. The artifacts that comprise this exhibit included ceremonial, burial and domestic items, and musical instruments from the temples of these ancient cities.

Curator: Eduardo Matos Moctezuma

Organizing Institution: Museo del Templo Mayor in Mexico City

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

Tenochtitlan visto por los niños de Kanoon

Description: Gerald Delgado Kannon Magnet School has sought to intensify the recognition and appreciation of culture as the most important factor of human development. The fundamental philosophy behind this young adult course was to recognize the importance of all cultures that existed in the American continent before the arrival of the Europeans.

Curator: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Education Dept. and Kannon Magnet School, Chicago Public School.

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing

three institutions from each of these cities.

Participating Artists: Salvador Vega, Leopoldo Praxedis, Jose Guerrero, Oscar Romero, Hector Duarte, Celia Rodriguez, Dolores Guerrero-Cruz, Rodolfo S. Castillo, Nicolas de Jesus, Magdalena Audifred, Miguel Angel Reyes.

Curator: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Permanent Collection Dept.

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing

Los Mineros Mexicanos

Description: This photography exhibition by Milton Rogovin, exposed the conditions in which the miners worked and how they and their families lived in the regions of Pachuca, Guanajuato and Zacatecas.

Curator: N/A

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

*Exhibition catalogue published.

Celebrate Pilsen:
Photographs by the children of Orozco Elementary School

Description: An exhibition of photographs by children from the local elementary school, Jose Clemente Orozco, depicting their neighborhood.

Curator:

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum /Orozco Elementary School

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

*Exhibition catalogue published.

Day of the Dead 1994: Calaveras Pa’ Todos

Description: 8th Annual Day of the Dead Exhibition.

Participating Artists: José Aguilar, Josefina Aguilar, Carmen Alarcón, Alvaro de la Cruz, Linares Family, Miguel Linares, Ricardo Linares, Miguel López Lemus, Jeff Maldonado, Rita Márquez, Francisco X. Mora, Rodolfo Morales, Joel Rendón, Richard Ríos, Heriberto Rodríguez, Patricia Rodríguez, Arturo A. Sandoval, Ismael Vargas, Ignacio Vera Ponce, Juan Alcázar, Justina Fuentes, Ariel Mendoza, Ricardo Aguía, Tony Galigo, Lourdes Guerrero, Saucedo Elementary School, Patssi Valdez, María and Roman Villareal

Curator: René H. Arceo Frutos

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

The Amate Tradition: Innovation & Dissent in Mexican Art

Description: This landmark exhibition showcased sixty contemporary amate (tree bark paper) paintings created by Nahua artists from the Alto Balsas region in the state of Guerrero. These elaborate and imaginative amate paintings reflect the innovation and genius of the Nahuas, one of Mexico’s fifty-six indigenous groups, and demonstrated how this art form was utilized by the community as a form of political protest.

Curator: Jonathan D. Amith

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

*Exhibition catalogue published by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum.

¡Canto, Baile y Mas!

Description: This celebration of song, dance and visual arts highlights the Museum’s four educational summer arts programs: A journey through the arts and songs of Mexico, Gallery 18, Gallery 37, and the Harrison Park Senior Citizens’ Folkloric Dance Classes. This exhibition included a display of photographs that documented the summer programs and selected art pieces produced by students, as well as a special performance honoring Mexico’s Independence, presented by The Children’s Choir and the Citizens’ Folkloric Dance Class

Curator: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Education Dept.

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Dia de Los Muertos: the Day of the Dead

Description: 9th Annual Day of the Dead Exhibition.

Participating Artists: Josefina Aguilar, Lawrence Colación, Xavier Cortes Cázares, Cresencio Flores Rojas, Adrian Gomez, Deborah Huacuja, Silvia Ledezma, Haydee Lopez, Raul Lopez Reyes, Jose Mata, Emmanuel Montoya, Felipe Morales, Alavaro Nieto, Salvador Pizarro, Jorge Rosano, Patricia Ruiz Bayon, Dana Salvo, Francisco Santiago, Maximino Santiago, Octaviano Santiago, Yolanda Santiago, Oscar Vicente, Horacio Gavito, Alejandro García Nelo, Boris Spider and Eduardo Garza, Patricia Rodríguez, Maria Hinojosa and German Perez, St. Joseph Seminarians, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz School, Our Lady of Tepeyac Parish, Maria Brito, Magdalena Reyes de Abarea and Joaquin Holla, Friends of Cesar Chavez, Rafael Cintron Ortiz Latino Cultural Center at UIC.

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

Nuestra Cultura Indígena de los Altos de Chiapas

Description: Thisphotography exhibition portrayed the life of five indigenous women from Sna Jtz’ibajom, a collaborative group of Mayan actors and writers.

Curator: Carlota Duarte

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Traveling exhibition venues: This exhibition was organized into a traveling exhibition by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum and traveled to several U.S. sites.

Description: The painting exhibition Myth & Magic was a compelling perspective of a rich heritage in the oral tradition and visual arts of the artists of Oaxaca. All of the artists included in this exhibition had indigenous roots and the majority grew up in rural villages where storytelling, both entertaining and educational, was an important part of every child’s upbringing.

Curator: Mary Jane Gagnier de Mendoza and Linda Craighead

Organizing Institution: Palo Alto Cultural Center, Division of Arts and Culture, City of Palo Alto, California.

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

*Exhibition catalogue published.

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

María Izquierdo 1902-1955

Description: Though not well known during her lifetime, Izquierdo had a great impact on Mexican art, especially on contemporary Mexican women artists. This exhibition was the first international retrospective of this artist, and it effectively served to reintroduce the artistic accomplishments of Maria Izquierdo to the U.S. The display was comprised of over seventy works from public and private collections in Mexico City, Monterrey and Cuernavaca.

Curator: Luis Martín Lozano

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

Traveling exhibition venues: Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City. (Traveling exhibition organized by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum)

*Exhibition catalogue published by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum.

Lazos y Nexus: The Legacy of María Izquierdo

Description: This unique exhibition united women from México and from Mexican ancestry living in the United States to explore the artistic heritage of one of the most important Mexican artists of the 20th century: María Izquierdo. Including: Cecilia Alvarez, Valerie Aranda, Cristina Cárdenas, Elena Climent, Dulce María Nuñez and Sylvia Ordoñez.

Curator: Tere Romo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing

Día de Los Muertos: Where Past & Present Meet 

Description: 10th annual Day of the Dead exhibition

Participating Artists: Calvin Barajas, Margarita Carrillo, Elizandro Carrington, Maya Christina Gonzalez, Gerardo de la Barrera, Einar de la Torre, Jamex de la Torre, Sergio Dorantes, Sabrina Elias Felipe, Esperanza Gama, Luis Guillermo Guerra, Elisa Jimenez, Luis Jimenez, Jr., Miriam Ladron de Guevara, Abelardo Lopez, Carlomagno Martinez, María Luisa de Villa, Delilah Montoya, Eduardo Oropeza, José Dolores Prado, Heriberto Rodriguez, Cecilio Sánchez, Filemon Santiago, Maruch Sántiz Gómez, Ricardo Santos Hernández, Georgina Valverda, Guillermina Aguilar Alcantara y Sylvia García Aguilar, Clemencia Calderón, Pilar Fosado Vazquez e Irene Ortega Castañeda, Jeff Abbey Maldonado, Jorge Rosano, María Evangelina Soliz

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

Entre el Cielo y La Tierra

Description: Assemblages exhibition of assemblages and mixed media by Miriam de Guevara.  This exhibit wasin conjunction with the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum’s Sor Juana Festival.

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Multiple Exposures

Description: Photography exhibition with works by Rita Márquez, Dawn Martínez, Amor Montes de Oca, Diana Solis, Claudia Zuna. This exhibit wasin conjunction with the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum’s Sor Juana Festival.

Curator: Tere Romo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing Gallery

Ventanas de Colores

Description: This exhibition documented the type of works produced by students in the three Museum sponsored projects: Gallery 18 mosaics, Gallery 37 multi-media works and the Museum Summer class paintings, inspired by the Maria Izquierdo 1902-1955 Exhibition.

Curator: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Education Dept.

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Making History: The Art of Collecting

Description: This exhibition showcased contemporary paintings that the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum wished to add to its growing Permanent Collection. One of the goals of the Museum’s Permanent Collection is to have the nation’s premier repository of Mexican artists from Mexico and the U.S. With this exhibition, the Museum’s aim was to raise sufficient funds from our supporters to purchase and preserve these exceptional pieces created by the following group of acclaimed artists: Cristina Cardenas, Mario E. Castillo, Alejandro Colunga, César Augusto Martínez, Marcos Raya, Patssi Valdez

Curator:  Organized by Rebecca D. Meyers, Cesáreo Moreno and René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Fanning the Flame:  The Art of Carlos Cortez
from The Museum’s Permanent Collection 

Description: This was the first major retrospective exhibition of one of our community’s greatest artists, activists and poets. The work on display was drawn primarily from the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum’s permanent collection, and featured paintings, prints and drawings that reflected almost fifty years of Carlos Cortez’ artistic achievement. Themes found in this work include his long- standing commitment to workers in the U.S., promotion of human right struggles and the illustration of Mexican cultural traditions.

Curator: Tere Romo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery
  
*Exhibition catalogue published by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Pilsen / Little Village: Our Home, Our Struggle

Description: This exhibition presented the history of the Museum’s neighborhood community. Home to immigrant working-class Chicagoans for decades, the neighborhood was once predominantly Czech and Polish and is now one of the country’s largest Mexican neighborhoods. The exhibit included murals by local artists Mario Castillo and Alejandro  Romero, Marcos Raya, Jeff Maldonado and Hector Duarte.

Curator:  N/A

Organizing Institution: The Chicago Historical Society (as part of the Neighborhoods: Keepers of Culture project).

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing Gallery

Día de Muertos: A Living Tradition

Description: 11th Annual Day of the Dead Exhibition.

Participating Artists: José Antonio Aguirre, Mary J. Andrade, Raúl Anguiano, Terese Bravo, José Chavez Morado, Rafael Flores Correa, MiChico Furukawa, Francisco Goitia, Gronk, Rosa M. Huerta Williamson, Aurora López Díaz, Oscar Lozoya, Arturo Mendoza Cortez, Felipe Morales, Modesto Orta, Teresa Osorio, Ramón Ramírez, Benito Rivera, Roberto Ruiz, Sylvia Saldaña Sánchez, Teofila Serrín Barriga, F. John Sierra, Pedro Soterró, Boris Spider, Gabriel Torres Calderón, Patssi Valdez, Angélica Vásquez Cruz, Rodolfo Villena.  Abelino Bautista, Jose Clemente Orozco Academy, Guillermo Delgado, Familia Dimas, Galia Eibenschutz, Emilia Galaviz de González, Ralfka González, Mr. Imagination, Francisco Morales.

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

Surcando la Cultura: Four Families and Their Arte Popular Traditions

Description: Featuring the Aguilar families from Oaxaca (ceramic figures and scenes), the Juan Orta Family from Michoacan (mask carving), the Alfonso Castillo family from Puebla (arboles de la vida), and the Linares families from Mexico City (cartoneria).

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

Ojitos Tapatios

Description: Glass and mixed-media sculptures by Jamex and Einar de la Torre, from Tijuana-San Diego.

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing

Toltec Tula: Imagen Y Mito

Description: A print portfolio by Alfredo Zalce from the Mexican Fine Art Center Museum’s permanent collection.  Originally commissioned by the Mexican government in 1964, printed in 1996 by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum (100 Edition). 

Curator: Rebecca D. Meyers and René H. Arceo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing Gallery

Encanto
 
Description: Contemporary still-lifes by Maria Tomasula.  This exhibition was in conjunction with the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum’s Sor Juan Festival.

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

An Intuition of a Reality Focused Toward the Future –
Where We Are Now And Where We Are Going

Description: Paintings, drawings and sculptures by self-taught, Chicago artist, Ignacio Montano.

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

¡Provecho! A Taste of the Permanent Collection

Description: A selection of prints, drawings and photographs about food production, kitchen and market scenes, agricultural issues, myth, family gatherings and holidays as well as specific foodstuffs from Mexico.

Participating Artists:  Alberto Beltrán, Jean Charlot, Carlos Alfredo Cortéz, Nicolás de Jesús, Shirley Fisher, Arturo García Bustos, Ester Hernández, Inocencio Jiménez Chino, Carmen Lomas Garza, Leopoldo Méndez, Carlos Mérida, Adolfo Mexiac, Pablo O’Higgins, Rubén D. Ortíz-Torres, José Guadalupe Posada, Francisco Rodríguez Oñate, Milton Rogovin, Alejandro Romero, Abraham Mauricio Salazar, Maruch Sántiz Gómez, Patssi Valdez, Alfredo Zalce.

Curator: Rebecca D. Meyers

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing Gallery

Imágenes del espíritu: Photographs by Graciela Iturbide

Description: Comprised of a range of her images showing religious and cultural traditions of her native Mexico, the exhibition included 104 gelatin silver prints.

De Cuentos y Reencuentros

Description: Exhibition of artwork by students of the museum’s Tlahui/Cape partnership and the summer art class of 1998.  Includes retablos and paintingsby students of Jose Clemente Orozco and Telpochcalli Schools, and paintings by summer students inpired by the Arte Contemporaneo Jaliscience exhibition from Museo de las Artes in Guadalajara.

Curator: Dolores Mercado

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Courtyard Gallery

Day of the Dead: Al Paso del Tiempo

Description: Thirteenth annual exhibition

Curator: René H. Arceo

Participating Artists: Susana Aguilar, Alex Alferov, José Alpuche, Michael Amezcua, Per Anderson, Charles Barth, Carmen Bordes, Tomas Bringas, Cristina Cárdenas, Mario E. Castillo, Ricardo Duffy, Gonzálo Espinosa, Julian García Aguilar, Sergio Gómez, Carlos González Castro, Andy Ledesma, Sotelo Lemus, Enrique López Pedro, Daniel Marquez, Julio Martínez Armando & Ana María Martínez, Lucía Maya, Leopoldo Méndez, Pablo Morales, Saulo Moreno José Natividad, Marcela Ortíz, José Ramírez, Heriberto Rodriguez, María Tomasula, Patssi Valdez. Ofrendas: Cecilia Concepción Alvarez, Elizandro Carrington, Ricardo S. Hernández, Francisco G. Mendoza, Ma. Teresa Romero & José Valdez, Patricia Ruiz Bayón, Humberto Trejo González, Yollocalli Youth  Museum. 

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

Working Glass Heroes – Imágenes de la Cultura Popular

Description: Luis Jiménez, Jr.’s touring retrospective exhibition.  The exhibition covers thirty years of his work, from 1967 to 1997. This collection of working drawings, watercolors, prints and sculpture not only illustrates the range of Luis Jiménez’s skills, but provides a glimpse into his creative process as well. His potent blend of the traditional and the contemporary embodies a new American art that blurs the line between high art and popular culture, America and Mexico, history and mythology.

Curator: Benito Huerta

Organizing Institution: ExhibitsUSA

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery.

Traveling exhibition venues: Dallas Musuem of Art, Dallas, Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Palm Springs Desert Musuem, Palm Springs, Blaffer Gallery, University of Houstin, Texas.

*Exhibition catalogue published.

2000 Myths

Description: Jeff Abbey Maldonado explores what it means to be half Native-American (Alabama-Coushatta) and half Mexican, living in Chicago.  These recent paintings and prints deal with cross cultural identities, traditions and illusions, and illustrate his journey down many roads of urban metaphors and creation myths, seductive media images and ancient ceremonial masks.

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing

The Magic of Remedios Varo

Description: This retrospective of seventy of her finest paintings and drawings include many of her richly detailed narratives which embody this artist’s quest for self-knowledge, spiritual awareness and her place within the universe.

Curator: Luis-Martín Lozano

Organizing Institution: National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery.Also traveled to the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City.
 
*Exhibition catalogue published. 

Americanos: Latino Life in the United States

Description: Celebrate the extraordinary diversity of Latino cultures in the United States. Taken by 30 photojournalists, over 100 photographs create a bold and artistic portrait of a people who share much in common and yet are as varied as America itself.    This exhibition is being shown in Chicago through a unique partnership between The Field Museum and the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum. Each museum features a different part of the exhibition, and both museums are working closely together to present educational programs that reflect the abundant cultural contributions of Chicago’s Latino communities.

Curator: Michel du Cille, Eric Easter, Jose Galvez, Mark Hinojosa, Liliana Nieto del Rio and Edward James Olmos

Organizing Institution: This exhibition was a project of Olmos Productions and was organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives.

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing and traveled throughout the USA from 199-2004

*Exhibition catalogue published.

Día de Muertos 2000: Puerta a la Eternidad

Description: This year’s exhibition is dedicated to María Enriquez de Allen, Raúl Esparza Arellano, y José Jaime Esparza.

Participating Artists: Ricardo Fernández, Luis Garzón Chapa, Alberto Gironella, Emiliano Gironella, George O. Jackson Jr., Dinorah Lejarazu, David Linares, Mario López Torres, César Martínez, Filogenio Martínez Chávez, Hermenegildo Martínez, Carmen Parra, Magdalena Pedro, Benito Rivera Soteno, Peter Rodríguez, Angel Santos Juárez, Alfonso Soteno Fernández, George Yepes. Ofrendas: Pilar Acevedo, Chaz Bojórquez, Juan Compean, Ricardo Compean, Mario Castillo y Pedro Morales, Esparza Family, Luisa Gutiérrez Soliz, Raúl López Reyes, Manuel Pérez School.

Curator: Oscar Sanchez and Alejandro Garcia Nelo

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Original Main Gallery

Mujeres de cuatro siglos

Description: Paintings by Esperanza Gama that honor seven important Latina women, each of whom profoundly influenced the artistic, cultural, and historic milieu of her time.  Whether in health or sickness, wealth or poverty, each possessed remarkable sensitivity, exceptional strength, and a passion for life.  This series of paintings on canvas and traditional bark paper, honors their memories, and acknowledges their greatness.

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Courtyard Gallery

Multiplicity: Prints from the Permanent Collection

Description: This exhibition explored the process of making prints and included prints by Alfredo Arreguin, Carlos Cortéz, Gunther Gerzso, Nicolás de Jesus, César Martínez, Carmen Lomas Garza, José Guadalupe Posada Aguilar, Adolfo Mexiac, Carmen Bordes, Rubén Ortíz –Torres, John Valadez, Alejandro Colunga, Jose Fors, Leopoldo Méndez, Armando Drechsler, Pedro Rios Martínez, Yreina Cervantez, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Michael de Hernandez, Sarah Jiménez Vernis

Curator: Marilyn Cortés-Lovato

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing
124. April 28, 2001 to the present.    Mexicanidad: Our Past Is Present

Description: This Landmark exhibition is the first permanent display of its magnitude to showcase the development of the Mexican culture as it unfolded over three thousand years ago in Ancient America and up to the present. The Museum’s permanent collection pieces in Mexicanidad are continually rotated in and out of the exhibition. This permanent exhibition inaugurated the Museum expansion in the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum’s Velasquez Gallery.

Participating Artists: Josefina Aguilar, Ignacio Aguirre, David A. Siquieros, Lourdes Almeida, Agustin Aurelio Arredondo, Teodora Blanco, Barbara Carrasco, Agustin Casasola, Mario Castillo, Alfonso Castillo family, José C. Orozco, Alejandro Colunga, Carlos Cortez, Miguel Covarrubias, Baltasar de Echave y Roja, Nicolas de Jesus, Santos Motoapohua de la Torre, Ricardo Duffy, Alonzo Encinas, Rupert Garcia, Alejandro Garcia Nelo, Flor Garduño, Gorky Gonzalez, Jesus Helguera, Ester Hernandez, Pepe Hernandez, Rafael Hernandez Laguna, Juan Horta, Graciela Iturbide, George O. Jackson, Luis Jimenez, Frida Kahlo, Pedro Linares, Miguel Linares, Carmen Lomas Garza, Yolanda Lopez, Zenon Martinez, Cesar Martinez, Lucia Maya, Leopoldo Mendez, Arnulfo Mendoza, Adolfo Mexiac, Emanuel Montoya, Oscar Moya, Robert Natkin, Daniel Nierman, Dulce Maria Nuñez, Isidro Ocampo, Juan O’Gorman, Luis Olay, Gabriel Olay Olay, Ruben Ortiz-Torres, Marcos Raya, Doña Rosa Real de Nieto, Diego Rivera, Fray Nicholas Rodriguez Juarez, Michael Roman, Maria Teresa Romero, Alejandro Romero, Betsabee Romero, Abraham Mauricio Salazar, Rufino Tamayo, Humberto Trejo, John Valadez, Patssi Valdez, Richard Valdez, Salvador Vega, Jose Maria Velasco, Mariana Yampolsky, Alfredo Zalce.

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Arturo and Shirley Velasquez / Arthur R. and Joanne Velasquez and Family Wing

Leopoldo Méndez: Hacedor de imagines de un pueblo
 A Journey Through the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Print Collection

Description: 110 drawings and prints from the Museum’s permanent collection illustrate the visions by one of the Post- Revolutionary Mexican artists, Leopoldo Méndez (1902-1969). Considered by art historians to be one of the most instrumental public art leaders and an influencial founding member of the T.G.P. (Popular Graphic Art Workshop).  This exhibition inaugurated the museum’s new main gallery.

Curator: Ana Elena Mallet

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery

Curator: N/A

Organizing Institution: San Antonio Museum of Art in conjunction with Throckmorton Fine Arts, Inc.

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Torres Gallery

*Exhibition catalogue published.

El favor de los Santos:
The Retablo Collection of New Mexico State University

Description: During 19th Century Mexico, an artistic tradition of home worship that flourished was the retablo and ex-voto – devotional religious paintings on tin. This exhibition examines the popularization of the retablo and ex-voto tradition in its artistic, social, political and religious contexts.

Curator: Charles Lovell and Elizabeth Zarur
Organizing Institution: University Art Gallery at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery

*Exhibition catalogue published.

XV Annual Día de Muertos Exhibition

Participating artists: José Antonio Aguilar, Jesús Álvarez, Mary J. Andrade, Damaso Ayala, Castillo Family, J. Córtes, Alejandro Cruz, Nicólas De Jesus, Héctor Duarte, Francisco Flores, Lalo García, David Hipólito Flores, David Linares, Carlomagno Martínez, Uriel Parker, Ismael Rodríguez, Roberto Ruiz, Oscar Soteno.  Ofrenda: Centro Cultural de la Huasteca Hidalguense de IHEBN-SEP, Miguel Cortez, Kathleen Culbert-Aguilar, Gobierno del Estado de Yucatán, Little Village Academy School, Patricia Peña & Georgina Baltazar, Prieto Family, Raul D. Cerna & the 12th District CPD, Reyes Family, Jorge Rosano, Aarón Velasco Pacheco.

Curator: Raquel Aguiñaga-Martinez

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery

Mexican Chicago: Photographic Footprints

Description: Twenty-six black and white digital panels tell the stories of Mexican Chicago through a montage of old photographs and documents.  The display is based on the (2001) publication, “Images of America, Mexican Chicago,” by Rita Arias Jirasek and Carlos Tortolero.  It utilizes many of the photographs and documents collected throughout the Mexican Community in the Chicago metropolitan area.  The main themes are: the Road to Chicago, Community Life, Spiritual Life, Work, Political Activism, Social Activism, and Arts & Culture. A second set of digital panels was created to travel to community-based institutions and organizations across the state of Illinois.

Curator: Rita Arias Jirasek and Linda Xochitl Tortolero

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing.

Traveling exhibition venues: Blue Island Public Library, IL, Elgin Public Musuem, IL, The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Washington D.C., West Chicago City Museum, Children’s Memorial Hospital, Chicago, Waukegan Public Library, IL, Aurora Public Art Commission, IL, Humboldt Park Library, Chicago. (Travel organized by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum)

*Exhibition catalogue published by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum.

Grandes Maestros del Arte Popular Mexicano
   
Description: This exhibition offers a comprehensive view of a people’s art and culture immersed in age-old traditions.  The 500 objects on display convey the stories of eternal México, and of its innovative artisans capable of linking the traditional with the contemporary.

Curator: Cándida Fernández de Calderón

Organizing Institution: Fomento Cultural Banamex

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery, Torres Gallery and Courtyard Gallery. 

Traveling exhibition venues: Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Casa de Ámerica, Madrid, Museo Isaac Fernández de Arte Hispanoamericano, Buenos Aires, Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, Chicago, Bibliotheque Fornay, Paris, Castillo Real, Varsovia, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, New York, Museo de Arte Decorativo Popular Ucranio, Kiev, Museo Etnográfico Dahlem, Berlin, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, Arte Americas Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, Phoenix Art Museum, Pheonix, La maison del’artisanat et des métiers, Marsella, Barra de Abogados, Beirut.

*Exhibition catalogue published.

Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco: Public Lives,
Private Work

Description: 36 works of art from the Collection of Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City.  Recognized as the “voice of the period,” Dr. Alvaro Carrillo Gil amassed a collection works by some of the most influential artists of his generation.  As the best known Mexican art collector in the late 1930’s, Dr. Carrillo Gil embodied the instinct, courage, and passion characteristic of visionary art lovers.  Today, the museum that carries his name houses his impressive collection that comprises the great masters of Mexican art.

Curator: Armando Saenz

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery

Día de los Muertos: A Feast Day for the Souls

Description: 16th Annual Día de los muertos exhibition.

Paricipating Artists:  Lourdes Almeida, Alberto Bosquez, Alfonso Castillo, Mariano Chavez, Javier Chavira, Carlos Córtez, Roberto Ferreyra, Aniano Flores, Ramon Fosado & Maria Paula García Fosado, Demetrio García Aguilar, Alejandro García Nelo, Sergio Gomez, Felipe Gutierrez, Juan J. Hernández, Miguel Linares, Ricardo Linares, Raul Lopez Reyes, Mario Lopez Torres, Arnulfo Mendoza, Jaime Mendoza, Rodolfo Morales, Martin Moreno, Carlomagno Pedro Martinez, Magdalena Pedro Martinez, Luis Guillermo Olay & Maria Antonia Olay, Andrew Ortiz, Robert Palacios, Jose Guadalupe Posada, Artemio Rodriguez, Juan J. Soteno, Oscar Soteno, Arturo Sosa, Teodoro Torres Orea, Luis de la Torre, Paul Teruel, Ismael Vargas, Kathy Vargas, WRTE Radio Arte, Mariana Yampolsky.

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery

Sharing the Treasure:
Recent Acquisitions from the Permanent Collection

Description: Recent acquisitions from the permanent collection.  Artists include: Antonio López Sáenz, Ignacio Montano, Antonio Reyes, Alejandro Romero, Glugio “Gronk” Nicandro, Maria Tomasula, Luis Jiménez, Carlos Almaraz, Marcos Raya, Cristina Cárdenas, Frank Romero, Carmen Lomas Garza, Roberto Juárez, Arnaldo Coen, Maria Esther B., Juan Orta, Jean Charlot, Stephen Deutch, Francisco Zuñiga.

Curator: Rebecca D. Meyers and Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Torres Gallery

Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and 20th Century Mexican Art:
The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection

Description: The most renowned private collection of the 20th Century Mexican art.  Jacques Gelman (1909-1986) amassed his fortune by producing and distributing the films of the legendary Mexican comic actor, Mario Moreno “Cantinflas”.  His enormous success in the film industry enabled the Gelmans to pursue their passion of collecting fine works of art by some of the leading artists of their time.

Participating Artists: Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Emilio Baz Viaud, Lola Alvarez Bravo, Leonora Carrington, Elena Climent, Miguel Covarrubias, Gabriel Figueroa, Gunther Gerzso, María Izquierdo, Agustín Lazo, Carlos Mérida, José Clemente Orozco, Carlos Orozco Romero, Jesús Reyes Ferreira, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Juan Soriano, Rufino Tamayo, Francisco Toledo, Angel Zárraga, Nahum Zenil

Curator: Robert Littman

Organizing Institution: Vergel Foundation

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery and Torres Gallery

Traveling exhibition venues: Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; El Museo del Barrio, New York City, NY; and Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA.

*Exhibition catalogue published by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

El Ojo Fino

Description: This exhibition celebrated the works of nine distinguished Mexican women photographers.  Their personal lives and professional experiences were uniquely connected over the span of three generations and an entire century.  These photographers are strong individuals who show great respect for their subjects, representing socially, politically, and culturally diverse populations of Mexico.  The Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum launched the national tour of this exhibition.

Participating Artists: Lola Álvarez Bravo, Kati Horna, Mariana Yampolsky, Graciela Iturbide, Flor Garduño, Yolanda Andrade, Alicia Ahumada, Ángeles Torrejón, Maya Goded

Curator: Connie Todd, curator of the Wittliff Gallery of Southwestern and Mexican Photography at Texas State University in San Marcos.

Organizing Institution: Wittliff Gallery and toured by ExhibitsUSA

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Torres Gallery. 

Traveling exhibition venues: California State University – Dominguez Hills, the Sheldon Fine Arts Center, St. Louis, El Museo Latino, Omaha, Bell County Museum, Texas, Sidney Mishkin Gallery, New York, Salt Lake City Public Library, Flint Institute of Arts in Pennsylvania and the William D. Cannon Art Gallery, California.

*Exhibition catalogue published.

Día de los Muertos: Reflections of the Soul

Description: 17th Annual Día de los muertos exhibition.

Participating Artists:  Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Connie Arismendi, Antonia Felipe Candelario, Ricardo Carbajal, Carlos Cons, Carlos Córtez, Jesus Eduardo Rocha, Enrique Ferreol, Mary Teresa Giancoli,  José Gamaliel Gonzalez, Ramiro González Mercado, Judithe Hernández, Sergio Hernández, Betty LaDuke, Rodrigo Lara Zendejas, Miguel Linares, Paula Linares, Raul Lopez Reyes, Apolonia Marcelo Martínez, Antonio Martínez, Carlomagno Martínez, Gustavo Medina Jaramillo, Ariel Mendoza, Esperanza Felipe Mulato, Gabriel Navar, Jorge Obregón, Ireneo Pozar Quiroz, Daniel Ramos, Oscar Armando Rodríguez, Reyes Rodríguez, Filimón Santiago, Oscar Soteno Elías, George Yepes, Rafael Almaguer, Wenceslao Martínez, José Luis Mendez & Angelica Escarcega, Rosa Zamora, Farragut Career Academy, Fundación Cultural Alfredo Zalce, Universidad Autónoma de México & ESECH. 

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery

La vida del tejído indígena

Description: Exhibition of newly acquired indigenous textiles from Mexico donated to the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum by Marjorie L. Jackson.  This rich and colorful array of huipiles, sashes and utilitarian objects will weave a story that has unfolded over a thousand years.

Curator: Nancy Villafranca

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Torres Gallery

Risking the Abstract:
Mexican Modernism and the Art of Gunther Gerzso

Description: The first major exhibition in the 30 years of the art of Mexico’s premiere
abstract painter, Gunther Gerzso (1915-2000).  It features over one hundred
of the best examples of the artist’s paintings and works-on-paper drawn from
both private and institutional collections across Europe, Mexico, and the U.S.

Curator: Diana C. du Pont, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Organizing Institution: Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery and Torres Gallery. 

Traveling exhibition venues: Santa Barbara Museum of Art and Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City.

*Exhibition catalogue published.

Our Journeys/Our Stories: Portraits of Latino Achievement

Description: 25 commissioned photographs by Luis Mallo, Héctor Méndez-Caratini, Celia Alvarez Muñoz,  comprised this anthology that celebrated the stories of inspirational individuals from all walks of life, and reveal the depth and breadth of Latino achievement in the U.S.A. This display was developed by the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives and organized for travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

Curator: Nicólas Kanellos, University of Houston

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing

*Exhibition catalogue published.

Marcos Raya: Fetishing the Imaginary                                 

Description: Marcos Raya’s obsession in documenting the people, the lifestyle and the hardships he has encountered, often alter his depictions of reality into dreamlike visions or nightmares. Raya’s work continues today with his obsession to document those individuals and lifestyles he encounters in Chicago. His paintings, collages and installations are often bridges that bring together and juxtapose completely opposite worlds in a surrealist manner. The good life and the bad life, sexuality and death, technology and the subconscious, all these “apparitions” and so many more are disconnected yet related in the artist’s work. His concepts, like his found objects, become hybrids - recycled, transformed and then reassembled into a dreamlike collage. Each character and concept is built upon an experience from the past.  [Main Gallery]

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery and Torres Gallery

Castillo: EGG-SIS-TEN-TIAL-ISM

Description: Currently a faculty member of the Art and Design Department at Columbia College, Castillo is revisiting much of his earlier works as a renewed source of inspiration and a chance to reinvent his current body of work– he calls this his Recapitulation Series.  This theory, expressed in his manifesto, is based in part on the current Information Age world in which we live – a world where (because of digital technology) all past and present information we have acquired, tangibly exists in the NOW.  In this way, many of the old themes, images and styles with which Castillo experimented throughout his forty year artistic career, can now be re-examined and recreated in new ways. The works created for this exhibition are based on Conceptual, Minimal, and Abstract Art movements, combined with the artist’s own preoccupation with conception, birth, life, death and the afterlife. [Torres Gallery]

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Torres Gallery

Alejandro Romero: Historias

Description: Romero’s work continued to develop and portray the changing face of this city. His paintings, posters and murals pay homage to the everyday heroes and myths that continue to immigrate to and transform Chicago. “The epic journeys and myths, from the ancient past up to the present, reveal concepts that provoke the best human ideas and allow us to transform this world” (Alejandro Romero). In this way, the universal human condition is something that can be expressed simply by investigating and celebrating that which is local. He finds inspiration in every neighborhood and personal story that makes Chicago for him, the perfect symbol of humankind. [Main Gallery]

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery and Torres Gallery

Premeditated:
Meditations on Capital Punishment by Malaquias Montoya

Description: Recently created silkscreen images and paintings dealing with the death penalty and penal institutions in the United States, were displayed along with related research and statistics.  In these powerful and often disturbing works, Montoya (a leading figure in the West Coast political Chicano graphic arts movement and one of the founders of the “social serigraphy” movement of the 1960s) illuminates the inhumanity of state-sponsored premeditated murder.

Curator: Malaquías Montoya

Organizing Institution: Snite Museum of Art, University of Notredame

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum West Wing.

Traveling exhibition venues: Snite Museum of Art, National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Annual Conference, Washington, D.C., Dougherty Arts Center, Texas, Track 16 Gallery, California, Nelson Gallery, Univeristy of California, Asian Resource Gallery, California.

Treasures of Ancient Veracruz: Magia de la risa y el juego
 
Description: This exhibition features sixty archeological artifacts from the region of Mexico identified as the “cradle of Mesoamerican civilization” – Veracruz.  All of the ancient figures on display wear smiles or demonstrate the fundamental human need to play and have fun- including 4-ton, three-thousand year old Colossal Olmec Head Num. 9.

Curator: Dr. Ruben B. Morante Lopez, Director, Museo de Antropología de Xalapa

Organizing Institution: Museo de Antropología de Xalapa, Universidad Veracruzana

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum half of the Main Gallery and  Museo Metropolitano de Monterrey, Mexico.

First Voices from the Vaults: Recent Acquisitions

Description: This exhibition featured 62 works demonstrating the breadth of the Mexican Fine Art Center Museum’s permanent collection. Artists included: Carlos Cortéz, Francisco Mendoza, Miguel Quintanar R., Mario Calvano, Fanny Rabel, Einar and Jamexde la Torre, Juan Soriano, Angel Rodríguez-Diaz, Jean Charlot, Alejandro Romero, Philip Stein, Juan Soteno, Manuel Felguérez, Xavier Viramontes, Mario Bucovich, Gunther Gerzso, Angelina Beloff, Agustin Portillo, José Luis Cuevas, Daniel Ramirez, Diego Rivera, Andrea Arroyo, Ruben Trejo, Teodora Blanco, Orlando Orta, Leonardo Nierman, Alejandro García Nelo, Antonio Gomez R.

Curator: Rebecca D. Meyers

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Torres Gallery

Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge

Description: Chicano Visions is a celebration of Chicano art and life.  By presenting the works of a range of the country’s celebrated Chicano and Chicana artists, the exhibit serves to advance and support the cause of establishing Chicano art as a recognized “school” of art, while helping inspire a new generation of artists and art enthusiasts in our communities, in our schools and in our families. Most of the works in this exhibition come from the collection of Cheech Marin

Participating Artists: Carlos Almaraz, Charles “Chaz” Bojórquez, David Botello, Melesio Casas, Gaspar Enríquez, Diane Gamboa, Margaret García, Rupert García, Carmen Lomas Garza, Glugio “Gronk” Nicandro, Raul Guerrero, Wayne Alaniz Healy, Adan Hernández, Ester Hernández, Leo Limón, Gilbert “Magu” Lujan, César Martínez, Frank Romero, Alex Rubio, Marta Sánchez, Eloy Torrez, Jesse Treviño, John Valadez, Patssi Valdez, Vincent Valdez, George Yepes

Curator: René Yáñez

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery and Torres Gallery.

Traveling exhibition venues: San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas, Smithsonian Institution, Wshington, D.C., National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico, El Paso Museum of Art, Texas, Indiana State Museum, Indianapolis, Museum of Contemporary Art- La Jolla, California, Museum of Contemporary Art- San Diego, California, Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, Minnesota, O’Kane Gallery, Houston, Texas, Saint Louis Science Center, Saint Louis Missouri, de Young Museum, San Francisco, California, Museum of Fine Art Fort Lauderdale.

Organizing Institution: Evergreen Exhibitions

*Exhibition catalogue published.

Common Goals, Common Struggles, Common Ground

Description: This interactive  exhibition presents a balanced account of historical issues that are common to both the Mexican and African American communities in Chicago.

Curator: Kraft Gallery committee: Jorge Valdivia, Juan Francisco Orozco, Silvia Rivera, Oscar Sánchez, and Gabriel Villa.

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Kraft Gallery

Día de los muertos: Rooted in Tradition

Description: 20th Annual Día de los muertos exhibition

Participating Artists: Carmen Arias family, José E. Chapa family & Radio Arte, Family & Friends of Officer Eric Solorio, Zarco Guerrero, Delilah Montoya, Museo de Artes e Industrias Populares de Patzcuaro, Polvo, Talcott Fine Arts and Museum Academy, UNAM/ ESECH/ Escuela Nacional de Artes Plasticas, Roberto Valadez, Jesus Barraza, Miguel Angel Cano Mésquita, Castillo Orta family, Tony de Carlo, Nicolas de Jesús, Luis de la Torre, Tony Dominguez, Armando Gómez de Alba, Ricardo González, Angel Hernández Bucio, Victor Herrera, José Hugo Sánchez, Luis Jiménez Jr., Pedro Linares family, Ricardo Linares, Jeff Abbey Maldonado, Elsa Muñoz, Gabriel Navar, Eduardo Oropeza, Salvador Pizarro, Deborah M. Rael-Buckley, Antonio Ramirez, Israel Reza, Nino Rodríguez, Alejandro Romero, Juan Soriano, Consuelo J. Underwood, Jerry Vigil, Xavier Viramontes.

Curator: Cesáreo Moreno and Raquel Aguiñaga-Martinez

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Main Gallery

En Tus Manos

Description: A unique display of silkscreen monoprints by local artists who explore the present reality of Latinos and AIDS.  All prints were created thorugh a collaboration with Self-Help Graphics in Los Angeles, CA.

Curator: Kraft Gallery committee: Jorge Valdivia, Juan Francisco Orozco, Silvia Rivera, Oscar Sánchez, and Gabriel Villa.

Organizing Institution: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Displayed at: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Kraft Gallery