The panel held by the Denver Art Museum touched upon Mexican Modernism with special guests Pablo Helguera, Damian Ortega and Alma Lopez. Every artist provided a brief back story of their life, introduced their style, showcased their art pieces and discussed important themes surrounding their work.
The first artist to speak in the panel was Pablo Helguera. He specializes in public art and his goal is to create modern pieces in order to introduce Mexican aesthetics into the world. He focuses on this theme for the sole purpose of exploring identity in Mexican culture. This curiosity is due to his inspiration from Frida Kahlo and her work, which largely focuses on identity through self portraiture. With this mindset, Helguera traveled throughout Mexico and explored identity through languages.
The second artist featured in the panel was Damian Ortega. Ortega is a mural painter, political cartoonist and painter. He become an artist because of his interest in murals and delved into the politics because his family works in a political theater. Ortega specializes in multidimensional art. His process involves taking ordinary objects and pulling it apart. In one of his pieces he painted a car and then drew the interior, so it sort of looked an x ray. He took this idea to another level by pulling apart an actual car and reconstructing it by hanging the parts together. This shows that in a system all pieces are connected together.
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| Our Lady by Alma Lopez |
The last artist in the panel was Alma Lopez. Lopez is a queer, chicana, feminist artists who specializes in digital art. When Lopez was thirteen she skipped school and went to a museum. At the museum, Lopez saw a Frida Kahlo painting and that was the first time she saw two Mexican women being intimate by holding hands and sitting close to each other. Since then Lopez has been inspired to create art that focuses on her identity. One of Lopez's most famous works is Our Lady, which showcases the Virgen de Guadalupe sporting a cloak of Coyolxauhqui and holding an assertive expression. This pieces is heavily inspired by Lopez's experience as a Chicana and her relationship with the Virgen of Guadalupe.
Hi Lizbeth! I enjoyed reading your post about the Denver Art Museum panel. It was so interesting to see the artworks of each artist. I am not too well-versed in art so it was super cool to see each of their style and be exposed to something that isn't just painting (though I love those too!). Damian Ortega's art was really amazing to see with the deconstruction of the beetle car.
ReplyDeleteHi Lizbeth, I was really intrigued by your post and the Denver Art Museum panel because it featured artists with artworks that explored different themes, such as identity. Pablo Helguera, Damian Ortega and Alma Lopez focused on themes ranging from politics, Mexican culture, and identity that all tell different stories about their life experiences. I enjoyed that all of the artists followed a different process where they were able to understand a little more about themselves and how they implemented personal aspects of their life into their artwork.
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