Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca

El Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca (IAGO) es un museo-biblioteca, creado por el pintor Francisco Toledo, a través de la Asociación Civil "José F. Gómez". Es una hermosa casa del siglo XVIII situada frente al convento de Santo Domingo y a un costado de la Plazuela del Carmen, sobre la calle de Macedonio Alcalá. La casa fue donada al Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA) por la familia Toledo, con el propósito de crear un espacio idóneo para difundir el arte y exhibir la colección gráfica que el Maestro Francisco Toledo comenzaba a formar.  El proyecto se hizo en conjunto entre el INBA, la Asociación Civil José F. Gómez - presidida por el Mtro. Toledo y el Gobierno del Estado de Oaxaca.

El Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca (IAGO) se inauguró en noviembre de 1988. Los principales temas que abarca la Biblioteca del IAGO son pintura, gráfica, dibujo, arquitectura, escultura, arqueología, diseño, bibliofilia, textiles, cerámica, arte popular, fotografía, cinematografía y literatura. Comprende los espacios geográficos e históricos más importantes y mantiene un desarrollo orientado al arte contemporáneo.

The Institute of Graphic Arts of Oaxaca (IAGO) is a museum, library, created by the painter Francisco Toledo, through the "José F. Gómez" Civil Association. It is a beautiful eighteenth century house opposite the convent of Santo Domingo and next to the Plaza del Carmen, on Macedonio Alcala Street.  The house was donated to the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA) by the Toledo family, in order to create an ideal space to promote art and display the graphics collection the Maestro Francisco Toledo started to form.  The project was made jointly by the INBA, Civil Association José F. Gomez - chaired by Maestro. Toledo and the Government of the State of Oaxaca.

The Institute of Graphic Arts of Oaxaca (IAGO) opened in November 1988.  The main topics that the Library of the IAGO includes are painting, graph, drawing, architecture, sculpture, archaeology, design, bibliophily, textiles, ceramics, folk art, photo, cinematography and literature.  It includes the most important geographical and historical areas and maintains a contemporary art-oriented development.

La colección sobre Arte Mexicano es una de las más grandes, ordenada cronológicamente, desde el arte rupestre, arte prehispánico, colonial, moderno y contemporáneo; es importante su colección de cerca de treinta facsímiles de códices, que continúa acrecentándose. Cubre un amplio espectro de países, artistas, técnicas, estilos y movimientos artísticos. Los materiales que maneja son libros, catálogos, revistas, folletos y películas, en español principalmente, pero también en inglés, francés, alemán e italiano. Los fondos bibliográficos se adquieren con recursos otorgados por Francisco Toledo, gran número de amigos, lectores, galerías, museos e instituciones aportan donativos de publicaciones.  La Biblioteca sostiene, también, convenios de canje con otras bibliotecas e instituciones del país y del extranjero.

The collection of Mexican art is one of the largest, ordered chronologically, from the rock art, pre-Hispanic, colonial, modern and contemporary art. It has an important collection of about thirty facsimiles of codices that continues to grow.  It covers a wide range of countries, artists, techniques, styles and artistic movements. The materials that they maintain are books, catalogs, magazines, brochures and films, mainly Spanish but also in English, French, German and Italian.  The collections are acquired with funds granted by Francisco Toledo, a large number of friends, readership, galleries, museums and institutions provide donations of publications. The Library also maintains exchange agreements with other libraries and institutions of the country and abroad.

SERVICIOS:

- El IAGO, contiene una Biblioteca especializada en arte, con más de doce mil volúmenes que abarcan temas de pintura, escultura, arquitectura, bibliofilia, poesía, narrativa, ensayo, literatura infantil y juvenil, diseño industrial y gráfico, arqueología, fotografía, cinematografía, textiles, cerámica, arte popular.

- La Biblioteca , que se actualiza constantemente, alberga obras sobre música, danza y teatro, y cuenta con veinticinco suscripciones a revistas especializadas en arte y literatura. La Biblioteca tiene tres salas de lectura, y ofrece los servicios de préstamo interno y a domicilio, estantería abierta, consulta, banco de datos, hemeroteca, fotocopias y cineclub.

- El público puede seleccionar y tomar los materiales por ellos mismos y en caso de requerirlo, recibe atención individualizada de los bibliotecarios, quienes propician la comunicación personal para establecer un perfil de intereses de cada lector y estar en condiciones de satisfacer sus necesidades de información, recreación o simple curiosidad; de tal modo que la atención se da desde una orientación sobre las colecciones y los servicios de la Biblioteca y los museos, hasta la ayuda por temas de interés, la elaboración de bibliografías y la documentación, pasando por la referencia a las otras bibliotecas de la ciudad.

SERVICES:

- The IAGO contains a library specializing in art, with more than twelve thousand volumes covering topics of painting, sculpture, architecture, bibliophile, poetry, fiction, essays, children's literature, industrial and graphic design, archeology, photography, filmmaking, textiles, ceramics, folk art.

- The Library, which is constantly updated, houses works of music, dance and theater, and has twenty-five subscriptions to journals in art and literature. The library has three reading rooms, and offers home loans, open shelving, consulting, database, newspaper, copy and a film club.

- The public can select and take the materials themselves and in case of need, receive individual attention from librarians who foster personal communication to establish a profile of interests of each reader and be able to satisfy their information needs, recreation or simple curiosity, so that attention is given from an orientation to the collections and services of the library and museums, to aid topics of interest, development of bibliographies and documentation, through reference to other libraries in the city.

Francisco Toledo

Francisco Toledo at an inauguration for his ceramic tiles at Tienda Q

Many consider Francisco Toledo the greatest living artist of Mexico. He has come to be synonymous with Mexico's soul or at least the soul of his beloved state, Oaxaca.  Through him the heritage of his people has been refined and through him has poured into an astonishing array of work. To feel Mexico, immerse yourself in the work of Toledo. 

One of his designs on a kite at the paper factory in San Agustín Etla

Francisco Toledo was born to Zapotec parents in Juchitan, Oaxaca on July 17, 1940. He comes from the same state and indigenous background as Rufino Tamayo, another great painter from Oaxaca.  Both Toledo and Tamayo carry a unique energy in their work identified with the mystical beauty of Oaxaca. Both men borrowed from European and American movements and techniques, but remain firmly independent in their vision shunning the artistic dictates influencing Mexico following the revolution.

In 1950 Toledo began his career in the printing studio of Arturo Garcia Bustos and then went on to study at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Oaxaca. He went to Mexico City in 1957 where he studied graphic arts under Guillermo Silva Santamaria.  In 1959 Toledo exhibited his work for the first time at the Antonio Souza Gallery.  By the time he was 20, he had taken residence in Europe remaining for five years settling in Paris. By the time he returned to Mexico in 1965, he was already a recognized artist celebrated for his development of the mythic and his sacred sense of life. He integrated himself into the artistic community of Oaxaca, mastering an incredible array of media including lithography, engraving, sculpture, ceramics and painting. He designed tapestries with the weavers of Teotitlan de Valle executing his designs.

A mobile figure laser cut from x-ray film

His reputation spread quickly in the 1970’s. A lot of what we think of as representative of Toledo - cats, dogs, bats, insects  - came out of this period. During this period, he also started to experiment with semi-erotic male figures, often with faces that were like sketches in geometric form similar to ancient masks.  By 1980 his work was so significant that the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City had a retrospective of his painting.

The world was seduced by the power of his creations bordering on the fantastic fused with the real that resides in nature, and takes on the fantastic when inspired art raises it to the highest degree.  Toledo is a visual poet who looks at the world and notices strange analogies. His art suggests shapes within shapes, and actions have actions within actions. Though Oaxaca is always present beneath the surfaces of his images, he is able to take his surroundings and imbue it with the universal. Through his work we feel unconsciously his own heritage, yet he touches that connecting cord in all of us, that root from which we all sprang.

Toledo designed paper jewelry in San Agustín Etla

His work shows an innate, natural feeling for diverse material through which he expresses complex ideas. His graphic imagination shapes visual thoughts, more than simply being a storyteller.  Since the 1990s he has included more geometric forms in his art.  His fascination with the myths of his people and the nature that appears in their stories shows in the images transformed by his magical imagination into an art in which man is inclusive in the universe.

CASA, San Agustín Etla

In the cargo system characteristic of indigenous pueblo leadership, members of the pueblo have obligations to fulfill for the good of the community. Toledo has given back to the community by being a catalyst and a guardian of the arts. He created the Instituto de Artes Graficas de Oaxaca (IAGO) which has a collection of more than 12,000 volumes dealing with painting, graphics, drawing, sculpture, archeology, design, library science, popular art, textile, ceramics, photography, film, literature, and Mexican art, and a collection of over 6,000 works by Mexican and foreign artists. The IAGO also hosts exhibitions and conferences.  He was also involved in the founding of the Museum de Arte Contemporaneo de Oaxaca (MACO), and the Patronato Pro-Defense y Conservacion del Patrimonio Cultural de Oaxaca which sponsors the Jorge Luis Borges library for the blind, the Alvarez Bravo Center for photography, and the Eduardo Mata music library. In 2006 the Centro de Artes de San Agustín (CASA) in San Agustín Etla opened by his initiative.  At CASA one can study photography, digital graphics, textile design, preservation of heritage, art conservation, and man’s interaction with his environment.  

In Oaxaca it is common to see Toledo on the street especially near the IAGO.  He also is present at some art openings, a frequent occurrence in Oaxaca.  His art is distinctive, easily recognizable, with a certain element that carries over from one media to another as well as from one period to the next.  More of my photos are available on my picasa web album.  For more of his painting I suggest you search the internet under his name for images.

Centro Fotográfico Manuel Álvarez Bravo

El Centro Fotográfico Manuel Álvarez Bravo (CFMAB) was formed as a nonprofit association in September 1996 by Francisco Toledo. Located in a colonial era home, it has rooms for temporary exhibitions devoted to photography, and a library specializing in history, theory, technique and dissemination of photography.  There is also an associated Music Library with recordings of various music genres (classical, jazz, blues, ethnic, etc.).

Workshops, book presentations and portfolios, screenings and guided tours are offered by the Photographic Center as part of commitment to promoting photographic work. It has a black and white professional laboratory, used in workshop sessions and can be used by previously accredited photographers.

The photographic collection Joseph F. Gómez was established in 1989 with collections of Joseph F. Gomez, Ignacio Zanabria and Manuel Alvarez Bravo acquired by Francisco Toledo.

Please check out my picasa web album for more pictures.  The center has a blog at http://www.cfmab.blogspot.mx/

San Agustín Etla

San Agustín Etla is a town located in a picturesque canyon in the foothills of the Sierra de San Felipe seventeen miles north of the city of Oaxaca. The town hosts a lively Day of the Dead celebration each November 1. It is the home of El Centro de las Artes San Agustín Etla, also known as CASA. Founded by Francisco Toledo, CASA is committed to education, artistic creation and experimentation, and as a public space. CASA is a former spinning and weaving factory founded in 1883 by José Zorrilla Trápaga for manufacturing raw cotton yarns, blankets, and denim fabrics. It was located here due to the abundant water from the San Felipe. Power came from a small hydroelectric plant. After being abandoned in the eighties, Francisco Toledo purchased this property in 2000 in order to create the first eco-arts center in Latin America. Architect Claudina Morales Lopez designed the space and it was funded through the National Center for the Arts (CENART), the State Government, and private foundations including the Harp Helú Foundation and Friends of the IAGO. CASA opened its doors on March 21, 2006. Today CASA is comprised of a set of spaces providing for artistic initiation and creation. It has spaces equipped for the production of digital graphics, traditional graphic and dyeing workshops and textile design, photographic developing and organic printing. CASA offers the public a library of over three thousand volumes. Under the assumption that the interaction with people from different lands stimulates creativity, promotes tolerance and strengthens a community, CASA invites artists to perform residencies giving priority to projects of ecological and community care.

This post focuses on the architecture of CASA and the paper making workshop as well as some past exhibitions of art paper. In the future I will try to cover other exhibitions, including one of Jorge Wilmot. San Agustín Etla also has a fine hike from town up the valley along the aqueduct for about 3 miles ending at a small abandoned hydroelectric plant and the start of the aqueduct. First let’s make some paper. The small workshop makes art papers from natural fibers indigenous to Oaxaca. On the table you can see several different cottons in the tall jars, hemp and sisal in front, and in the short jars mica in back, flower stamens in the middle and probably another dried flower in front.

The fibers are cooked in a mash with bicarbonate of soda for a few hours or up to a week depending on the durability of the fiber. Cotton is the quickest. To make a sheet of paper you dip a screen into the soup of fiber, drain it a bit then press it out between synthetic sheets of felt.

Various textures can be added using reed mats or even fingerprints.

They make various items: paper jewelry, sketch books, and kites printed with designs by Toledo.

For more photos please visit my online web album. For information on Casa link to their website http://casanagustin.org.mx/.

Galeria Arte de Oaxaca

The historic center of Oaxaca is one of the most beautiful in Mexico and is a renowned tourist destination. Still beauty and historical value preserved only for tourism would be of little value if there were no one to transform the tradition and beauty in a living cultural awareness. One such place is the Galeria Arte de Oaxaca. Galeria Arte de Oaxaca was founded in 1987 with the help of famous Ocotlan artist Rodolfo Morales to promote young Oaxacan artists. Prominent among the artists of Oaxaca are Rufino Tamayo, Rodolfo Morales, Francisco Toledo, Filemon Santiago, Eddie Martinez, Cecilio Sanchez, Abelardo Lopez, Fernando Olivera, Rolando Rojas, Enrique Flores, and Amador Montes. For more than twenty years, Galeria Arte de Oaxaca has brought to light different expressions of the art of Oaxaca. Currently the Galeria Arte de Oaxaca is housed in an eighteenth century building. In 1996 the artist, Rodolfo Morales, purchased the house as the first property of the cultural foundation that bears his name specifically to house the Galeria Arte de Oaxaca. Cultural Foundation Rodolfo Morales AC, is an institution dedicated to the rescue of architectural and cultural heritage of the central valleys of Oaxaca, the restoration of historical monuments, the promotion of popular art, music and performing arts and the promotion of education of children and youth in the Ocotlán district of Oaxaca, and the preservation of local traditions.

Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991) was Zapotecan born in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. He moved to México City to attend the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plasticas "San Carlos." Tamayo worked as a draftsman at the Museo Nacional de Arqueologia where he was exposed to the cultural wealth of pre-Colombian México. While his contemporaries were advocating art with a political message, Tamayo's work focused on plastic forms integrated with a masterful use of colors and textures. Tamayo devoted himself to creating an identity in his work, expressing what he believed was the traditional Mexico.

Rodolfo Morales (1925-2001) was a Mexican surrealist painter, who incorporated elements of magic realism into his work and is known for his brightly colored surrealistic dream-like canvases and collages often featuring Mexican women in village settings. He was notable for his restoration of historic buildings in Ocotlán. Morales shared mainly through his dedication to the study, preservation and enhancement of the traditional heritage of the region of Oaxaca.

Francisco Toledo, born in 1947, has the same attitude, the same spirit, the same concern to establish a continuum between past and present. He has also founded institutions for the recovery of cultural heritage. Considered one of the best living artists in Mexico, Toledo is a master printmaker, draftsman, painter, sculptor and ceramist. His art reflects a deep appreciation for the aesthetics of nature, particularly animals that are not conventionally associated with beauty (bats, iguanas, frogs, insects). The view of Toledo says the world of humans and animals are one with nature. His art is cut heavily with expressionism, tinged with black humor.

For more photos click here.

       

Jardin Etnobotánico

Oaxaca is not only the Mexican state with the most ethnic groups and where the most indigenous languages are spoken; it is also the state where there are the most species of plants and animals. Many of these plants have provided aesthetic and intellectual stimulation to the people of Oaxaca for over twelve thousand years, and served as food, fuel, fiber, medicines, flavorings and colorings. The Jardin Etnobotanico celebrates the state of Oaxaca’s exceptional botanical diversity. Blessed with a geologic complexity that includes deserts and cloud forests, beaches and temperate woodlands, Oaxaca is one of the richest ecosystems in the world, boasting, for example, more species of cycads, and agaves and varieties of chili peppers and maize than anywhere else on earth.

The Garden is part of the Santo Domingo Cultural Center, which occupies the former convent built in the 16^th and 17^th century by the Dominican friars. The site of the Garden was part of the old convent garden. This space served as a military garrison from the mid-nineteenth century until 1994. In colonial times it had uses related to convent life, as seen in the remains restored the interior of the Garden: Irrigation and drainage canals, ponds, lime kilns, laundry facilities, a kiln and a paved road for the wagons that supplied food and fuel. Making used of the convent’s 16th century courtyard, the artist Francesco Toledo, fellow painter Luis Zarate and ethno biologist Alexandro de Avila, sought to build not just a decorative garden but one that would tell the story of the relationship between the people and the plants of Oaxaca. Emphasis has been placed on indigenous plants, both past and present, for medical, household, food and religious purposes.

Started in 1998 the Jardin Etnobotánico has been planted in plant varieties originating from different climatic regions of the state of Oaxaca. It covers almost 6 acres with over 7,000 collected specimens of 965 different species (11% of the flora of the state). The garden is organized in different climatic zones, most importantly into wet and dry zones. You may visit via guided tours in Spanish or English. English language tours are at 11 AM on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, last for two hours, and provide an excellent overview of both the flora of Oaxaca and its traditional uses. The cost of 100 pesos will be the best spent in you visit to Oaxaca.

The following provides a short list of some of the main features of the garden.

• A sculpture, created by Toledo out of a massive piece of Montezuma cypress clad in mica greets visitors at the courtyard’s entry. Red-dyed water drips over the cypress block, representing the importance of the cochineal.

• Francisco Toledo and Luis Zárate, artists from Oaxaca, helped in the design of the garden. The "Court of Huaje" and source "La Sangre de Mitla" are the work of Maestro Toledo. The source "Cuanana Mirror" and the sculptures that change the level and direction of water along the canals are the work of Zárate. The Garden also has wood and stone works of artists Jorge Dubon, Jose Villalobos and Jorge Yazpik.

• Newer archaeological remains, those found in the courtyard – irrigation canals, pools, the lime kilns where mortar was prepared during the construction of Santo Domingo, laundry basins used by the novices, a pottery kiln – contribute to the garden’s cultural importance and understanding of the everyday life of Dominicans in the seventeenth century.

• A garden of cycads, plants that evolved over 230 million years ago during the Jurassic age of dinosaurs, was donated by Conzatti Casiano. Oaxaca has more than 20 species of cycads, most of them endemic.

• A section of the garden is devoted to species found at Guilá Naquitz, a small cave located near Mitla in the Valley of Oaxaca. It was known to have been occupied by hunters and gatherers between 8000 and 6500 BC. Archaeologists found the remains of plants used for thousands of years, including acorn, pinyon, cactus fruits, and evidence of cultivated bottle gourds and squash and beans, and the oldest remains of corn reported to date - at 10,000 years old, these are the earliest remains of agriculture known so far in the Americas.

• The garden has a library open to the public specializing in natural sciences and environmental conservation ethno biology, open from 9:00 to 19:00 hours Monday to Friday and from 9:00 to 13:00 on Saturdays.

• Perhaps the plant that attracts the most attention of visitors to the garden is a large barrel cactus weighing over 5 tons and several centuries old.

• The garden has the largest rainwater collection system in the State of Oaxaca, with a capacity of 1,300,000 liters. Rainwater stored in the tank feeds the irrigation system, canals and ornamental ponds, and the cultural center.

To view more pictures visit Jardin Etnobotánico.

The Garden in figures:

• Total area of the Garden: 2.32 hectares

• Area planted to date: 2.10 hectares

• Total material collected to date: 7.330

• Total species: 915 representing 474 genera and 140 botanical families

• Total will plant species: about 1.300

• Over 100 Communities have provided plants, stone and earth to the Garden

Contact information:

Ethnobotanical Garden of Oaxaca

Reforma s / n corner Constitution, AP 367. Centro, Oaxaca, Oax.

Oaxaca de Juárez

Oaxaca Mexico 68000

Telephone Number: (951) 516 53 25 516 79 15 & 51 6 90 17

Web Site: http://www.jardinoaxaca.org

Institution Email Address: jetnobot@prodigy.net.mx